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Dec 31,2006 - Jan7,2006 |
The Drug Connection
Part 8 - How mobsters are poisoning the Canadian economy
Originally Published: 2001-06-24
Toronto — Canada always imitated the United States. Canadian Mafia bosses themselves found reference in the representatives of the U.S. "families". When Vic Cotroni, representative of the New York City-based Bonanno family, ruled in Quebec, many bosses of the Sicilian Mafia left Canada for South America, especially Venezuela and Brazil. Others chose more exotic places like Saint Martin or Aruba. None dared discuss La Cosa Nostra power balance, at the time seemingly untouchable.
The Gambinos, Bonannos, Genoveses, Colombos, Luccheses, Magaddinos, Brunos and Trafficantes were extremely powerful Mafia families. And their prestige extended to Canada, subsidiary of their business.
The Rizzutos and the Cuntrera-Caruanas, connected with the Sicilian Mafia, which was different from the Sicilian-American one, had moved to Venezuela waiting for better times. Tommaso Buscetta himself, a famous Mafia turncoat had little luck in Canada.
During his stay in Canada, in Toronto and Montreal, he had established many connections with local drug dealers, and many claim that the strongest link to the so-called "Pizza Connection" — one of the world’s largest international drug operatives — was Canada. Somebody still remembers Buscetta sitting at a table at the "Gatto Nero", the well-known bar at College and Grace streets in Toronto’s Little Italy.
Since he began to collaborate with police forces from half the countries in the world, Buscetta talked little about his Canadian experience. He was a lone Windsor dealer who was caught up in the net of justice. None were touched in Toronto or Montreal. Investigators believe that those connections prove Buscetta’s involvement in the world of drug dealing, something he stubbornly denies.
Things started to change in the late Seventies, when Paul Violi replaced Cotroni. The return of the Cuntrera-Caruanas and Rizzutos did not happen casually, and the subsequent elimination of the Calabrian boss and his brothers removed the last obstacles from the ascent of the Sicilians, who had cut all connections with their U.S. cousins because they didn’t want to be treated like subordinates anymore.
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