Cosa Nostra News

By Andrew Machin “ The Crimine belongs to nobody... it belongs to everyone. The Crimine must be composed of everyone [who belongs] to the Locale, all the men! " --Domenico Oppedisano, cl. 1930, the last known Capo Crimine, Sept. 2009. Whenever police investigators are faced with a suspected case of Mafia murder or attempted murder but also of arson, home invasion, and shootings in general, usually the probe starts and develops along two directions: 1) To identify the perpetrators (for example, by analyzing video surveillance from the crime scene and surrounding areas and looking for witnesses) 2) To identify the involved criminal group(s)/organization(s) and the motivation for the conflict (for example, by probing underworld sources) As to this last point, to direct the investigations, it may be useful to propose a categorization of the wars /struggles / clashes between criminal groups and organizations. A categorization which, considering our topics of interest, will focus on the...

Giuseppe (Joe) Violi, right, Domenico (Dom) Violi, sons of Paolo Violi. Early last Thursday morning, following coordinated raids in New York City and within and beyond the GTA, 13 alleged members of organized crime were arrested as part of "a sweeping investigation into the fentanyl trade," the RCMP said. Four mobsters tied to the Gambino and Bonanno families were arrested. Seventeen (identified below) were named in the indictment altogether; five escaped the predawn raids in Canada and are lamming it in the Great White North. They face Canada-wide warrants and one of the five "in the wind" is a descendant of a notorious Ndrangheta family based in Hamilton . His father and grandfather were both bosses. The arrested in Canada include members of the Todaro crime family, established by the now-deceased Joseph (Lead Pipe Joe) Todaro, Sr., who took over after the death of Stefano (The Undertaker) Magaddino. It would seem probable that the probe...

Historic boss of Ndrangheta and a Ndrine in Siderno, Antonio Macrì. That the Ndrangheta's Siderno Group, composed of clans based in Calabria, Italy, is present in Canada is an established fact. In 1971, while arresting Francesco Caccamo for possessing a loaded .25-caliber handgun and six phony $10 bills, police searched his home in Toronto and found tucked away in a kitchen cabinet a 27-page document written in an archaic Italian script that was titled Come Formare una Societa , or How to Form a Society. It was a guide on the formation of a Ndrangheta cell; it also included some of the group's rules and ceremonies. Caccamo and wife Rosa were arrested. The court ruled that the documents, henceforth given the nickname The Caccamo Papers, were genuine. Also they were similar to only three others ever found in the entire world.

Verduci alerted Italy to the Ndrangheta's presence in Canada. According to Adrian Humphrey's  National Post  story, Carmine Verduci, 56, the hit man shot several times outside Regina Sports Café near Toronto, has the distinction of being the man who "accidentally alerted" Italian police to the existence of a “Canadian cell” of the Ndrangheta. An investigation showed he was the ’Ndrangheta’s transatlantic messenger: He “had the task of travelling between Italy and Canada, acting as a carrier of news between the Italian group and the Canadians,” prosecutors said.  Following him, wiretapping his cellphone and tracing emails, authorities linked at least 40 people who were either Canadian citizens or current or former residents of Canada.