Cosa Nostra News

" Found religion? Maybe. But it doesn't erase the past, if he did. " --Canadian Mafia expert James Dubro on Pat Musitano's alleged religious transformation The boss of a Calabrian crime family in Hamilton, a Canadian port city about 41 miles west of Niagara Falls, was shot multiple times on Thursday morning and remains in critical condition. Peel Regional police on Thursday investigate the Musitano shooting. Pasquale (Pat) Musitano is still clinging to life at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto where he was brought Thursday morning. He was reportedly shot at least four times, including once in the head, at around 7 a.m. Thursday. A witness described the shooting as "very unsettling and terrifying. And quite brazen in broad daylight." The Hamilton Spectator broke the identity of the victim; law enforcement remains tight-lipped about the incident, neither naming or confirming the name of the victim Mafia vi olence in Hamilton and su...

UPDATED In the aftermath of former Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto's January 2004 arrest ( following the flipping of Bonanno boss Joseph Massino, who revealed Vito's role in a 1981 triple homicide in New York City), more than 40 people were murdered, abducted, or vanished under mysterious circumstances in and around Montreal. Tony Magi outside a Montreal court in 2010. Many of the cases were tied to the Mafia, many specifically over unpaid debts, though sometimes other inferences could be drawn. On January 19, 2004, for instance, Carmelo Tommasino called home to tell his wife that he would be unable to pick up their young daughter at school that day. "Why? What's happened" his wife asked. Without providing anything by way of an explanation, he hung up the phone and was never seen or heard from again. Since then, the Journal de Montreal has reported  (in French) that Tommasino was killed accidentally during the murder of Paolo Gervasi, who was...

Court room proceedings in Hamilton, Ontario, involve wiretap recordings that make some startling revelations, including that the Mafia Commission is calling the shots again ... Vincent Fish Cafaro watches as Fat Tony holds court.  Domenico Violi, 52, was caught in an investigation that went high and deep and featured a wire-wearing turncoat getting inducted into a New York Mafia family. As Adrian Humphreys reports for The National Post, "(t)he wiretaps, although untested in court, suggest a re-evaluation of some of what is publicly known about the current state of legendary Mafia families in the U.S., often referred to as La Cosa Nostra. "Violi, for instance, allegedly claimed on wiretap recordings that he had been made the Underboss of the Buffalo Mafia, the second-highest position in American Mafia families. If the claim is true, he would be the only person in Canada to ever be named to one of the top leadership positions in any U.S.-based Mafia clan. ...

While the man gunned down in Hamilton wasn't a mob boss (his job description was  entrepreneur ), sources tell organized crime investigators that the shooting was "Mafia retaliation" for the unsolved 2017 murder of gangland boss Angelo Musitano. Albert Iavarone  Albert Iavarone was a Hamilton entrepreneur and real estate agent, and someone hid in his bushes last night and shot him dead as he walked toward his Ancaster home. Iavarone had links to associates in organized crime. "The killer hid in bushes and lay in wait for Albert Iavarone to return home Thursday night," Det. Sgt. Peter Thom told The Hamilton Spectator today . The 50-year-old was shot around 10 p.m. as he walked from his car, which was parked outside 32 Sunflower Cres. in Ancaster's quiet Scenic Woods neighbourhood. Surveillance footage revealed that a male suspect arrived in a silver vehicle, parked and hid in bushes for an “extended period of time” until Iavarone returned home. ...

A “well-known Mafia boss” who lived in Hamilton was shot dead last night, according to Hamilton’s Homicide Unit, which is investigating. Hamilton Police investigating a homicide on Sunflower Crescent in Ancaster early Friday morning. The shooting happened around 10 p.m. Thursday on Sunflower Crescent, near Highway 403 and Mohawk Road. A source with the Hamilton police department told CityNews that “the victim appears to be a well-known mafia boss who lives in the neighbourhood.” The neighbourhood of Scenic Woods is an affluent area with many large, single family homes. Two cars remained in the driveway behind the police tape at the scene around 8 a.m. this morning. This is the fifth homicide in Hamilton this year. Police said the victim, a 50-year-old man, was pronounced dead at the scene. Montreal Cosa Nostra boss Vito Rizzuto who died in December 2013. Neighbors reported hearing several gunshots and then saw a vehicle speeding away from the scene. Polic...

REVISED, EXPANDED Around a dozen unsolved incidents of violence have occurred so far this year in Southern Ontario, a volley of gunfire, restaurant bombings, and outright murder. It's presumed by law enforcement in Canada that this is an ongoing mob war to fill a leadership vacuum created by the death of  "the Canadian John Gotti," as Gang Land News dubbed him. Vito Rizzuto was waging a war of annihilation against foes internal and external  once he returned home after serving a stint in an American prison for participating in a notorious triple homicide of Bonanno capos in 1981. Vito Rizzuto died allegedly of natural causes in December 2013. His death from cancer is the only thing that stopped him from killing more mobsters who either were against him or had shown disloyalty to him. Rizzuto's father and eldest son were slain by Ndrangheta members while he was in prison after Joseph Massino, the Bonanno crime family boss, flipped and gave testimony abou...

Ken Murdock once played a pivotal role in mob politics in Hamilton, a tough town on Ontario's Great Lakes waterfront. Mob hit man Ken Murdock, who was paroled two years ago. He was sentenced to "life" for killing mob boss Johnny "Pops" Papalia and was a suspect in the killings of two close Papalia associates on the orders of his longtime employers, the Musitano crime family , one of three key crime families in the Hamilton region. The other two were the Luppinos and Papalias .

"Chit" wants out of prison -- he's certain that no assassins are going to kill him. The parole board decided to agree with him. One of the last surviving members of an exclusive group of Rizzuto loyalists -- that very same group that someone seems to be systematically killing , apparently thinks he has nothing to fear but fear itself -- and wants out of prison posthaste. Francesco "Chit" Del Balso, 46, wrote to the Parole Board of Canada last week, informing them that "he feels his life is not in danger even though his close friend, and fellow leader in the Rizzuto organization, Lorenzo "Skunk" Giordano, 52, was fatally shot in Laval on March 1," the National Post reported . ( It was recently revealed that Giordano's wife was sitting in the car next to him when he was shot to death .) Giordano and Del Balso both recently reached their statutory release dates following their Project Colisée prison time. (Project Colisée, a...

Raynald Desjardins in no hurry. Raynald Desjardins appears to have nothing left to lose, to paraphrase the Montreal Gazette. The 62-year-old former trusted lieutenant of the Rizzuto organization last week told a Quebec Superior Court judge that he is willing to wait for a period that could ultimately last longer than a year for his sentencing hearing. This follows Desjardins guilty plea to conspiracy for the November 2011 murder of former New York-based acting Bonanno crime family boss Salvatore Montagna . Desjardins, an influential organized crime figure who used to be a right-hand man to Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto , pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge on July 6, 2015..

Lorenzo Giordano was gunned down this past Tuesday. A member of the Montreal Mafia formerly headed by deceased mob boss Vito Rizzuto was murdered this week -- indicating the Rizzuto clan may be on the defensive following the loss of its historic boss and more recently, a takedown that targeted the group's new hierarchy. Lorenzo Giordano, 52, was gunned down in a Laval parking lot Tuesday morning and died in the hospital from his injuries, a Montreal Gazette source confirmed . The Sûreté du Québec, which wouldn't confirm the victim's name, said he'd been shot "at least once" in Carrefour Multisports's parking lot early Tuesday morning. Due to the alleged ties to organized crime, the Sûreté du Québec took over the case from the Laval police department, the Gazette reported.

Vito Rizzuto went down fighting. In the end cancer "allegedly" killed him. The 2013 death of Montreal Cosa Nostra boss Vito Rizzuto  at age 67 (supposedly of natural causes) didn't mark an abrupt end to the mob war between the Sicilian Mafia and a united group of factions consisting of former Rizzut o loyalists and Calabrian Ndranghe ta members based in Southern Ontario. (Unlike in the U.S., Canada has two homegrown Mafias : the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian Ndrangheta, based in Southern Italy.) However as of January 2016, things seem to have quieted down, for the moment anyway, and we now have a grasp of how the leadership void created following Rizzuto's sudden death from cancer was filled. We also know a great deal more about the dynamics behind the Montreal mob war owing to published reports and the book Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War .  (Though I am troubled by the number of factual errors I am encountering in the book....

Vinny Asaro was among the top characters of interest in 2014.... His Tommy D rant makes us really want to hear the tapes.... I deleted a bunch of horseshit with which I initially started this post. Based on a quick Google Analytics filter, we found five days when there was a clear spike in our daily traffic. piked progressively, save for the last two samples, which were nearly equal. 

Grainy frame from police video of Nicolo Rizzuto stuffing cash into his socks. The Quebec corruption probe called the Charbonneau Commission, created in late 2011 by then-premier Jean Charest amid widespread public pressure, which worked to illuminate Mafia ties to the province’s construction industry, ends today, Friday, Nov. 14. The Commission led to "startling testimony from bureaucrats, engineering executives and construction bosses about widespread collusion aimed at hiking the price of contracts," according to The Globe and Mail , which noted that the first witness to "drop a bombshell" was an ex-construction boss now facing charges of corruption. Lino Zambito testified for days about his links to a "bid-rigging cartel, a Mafia tax on projects and corrupt city officials who accepted kickbacks."

Rizzuto was strong enough to be a peacemaker; his successor has savvy shoes to fill. Montreal Mob boss Vito Rizzuto's death 'will trigger a lot of upheaval' - The Globe and Mail : Canada's most powerful Mafia boss, Vito Rizzuto, has died in a hospital, raising the spectre of further turf violence for control of the Montreal underworld. Mr. Rizzuto died at Sacré-Cœur Hospital at 4 a.m. Monday, one of his former lawyers, Jean Salois, confirmed in an interview. Mr. Salois said the 67-year-old Mr. Rizzuto died of natural causes. Radio-Canada, which first reported the death, said Mr. Rizzuto died of lung problems." A spokeswoman for Quebec's coroner said her office had examined Mr. Rizzuto's death. "It is a death by natural causes, beyond any doubts. Therefore there will be no coroner’s investigation,” Geneviève Guilbault said. “It’s news no one was expecting,” said former RCMP organized-crime analyst Pierre De Champlain. He noted that M...

With a fresh mob hit raising law enforcement's collective eyebrows in Montreal, and probably the U.S., it is apparent that Vito Rizzuto is preparing for battle. Vito Rizzuto in the good ol' days.  An armoured vehicle costing more than $100,000 and a "well-guarded downtown apartment" are among his recent acquisitions since returning home to Montreal, where just this week a well-connected, powerful Mafioso who may or may not have been in Rizzuto's camp was shot to death, according to the report. Rizzuto has been away, having served eight years in a U.S. prison on charges related to a triple-murder in 1981. While a guest of the U.S. government, Rizzuto's father, Nick Rizzuto Sr., and son Nick Jr. were murdered; his brother-in-law was kidnapped two years ago and is presumed dead. In addition, also killed were several other of his associates. Rizzuto, having lost his father and his son, is not currently in a frame of mind to do much talking, I have heard...