Fugitive mobster had family ties to shooting
COUSIN WAS SLAIN IN 2015 AT WOODBRIDGE CAFÉ
An accused Mafia fugitive who was hiding in Canada for seven years before his deportation to Italy was the cousin of one of two victims of a shocking double murder inside an Ontario café, the National Post has learned.
Tito Figliomeni, 48, was also involved in a mob dispute over illicit gambling in Toronto-area bars and cafés before his arrest March 10, authorities say, raising questions of whether a Mafia feud played any role in the fatal 2015 shootings.
On June 24, 2015, a man wearing a mask and gloves drove a stolen car to the Moka café on Islington Avenue in Woodbridge, Ont., just north of Toronto. He walked inside and started shooting, police said.
Four people were shot, two of them fatally. The dead were identified as Maria Voci, 47, who worked at the café, and a customer, Christopher Desimone, 24, both residents of Vaughan, Ont., which encompasses Woodbridge.
What was not known at the time was that Voci is also known by the maiden name Maria Frascà. She is named as a cousin of Figliomeni by Italian authorities.
When Figliomeni arrived in Canada in 2010 — before he went underground to avoid deportation back to Italy — he listed on his customs forms the address of where he was staying as the home of an older male relative of Voci, according to Canadian immigration records.
There is no allegation or suggestion she was anything other than an innocent victim in the shooting, but her family ties to a fugitive allegedly jostling with other mobsters in a territorial dispute over gambling in cafés and bars is of interest to authorities.
The Moka café was home to an illegal gambling operation at the time of the shootings. Police found card tables and electronic gaming machines at the café.
After t he brazen morning shooting at Moka, York Regional Police released surveillance video of the suspect. Police then issued a Canada- wide warrant for Jason Hay, 27. The manhunt ended in August 2015 with a high- risk arrest on Highway 400 when an SUV was stopped by force.
Hay was charged with two counts of first- degree murder. He has not yet faced trial and has a court date scheduled Monday for pre-trial motions. His trial is set to begin next month.
Italian authorities tracked a power struggle in Ontario over gambling between factions of the ’ Ndrangheta, the Mafia of the southern Italian region of Calabria, through wiretaps on mobsters’ phones while they were making transatlantic calls.
The phone calls suggest Figliomeni came to Canada in 2008 to help his mob clan push its claim to gambling territory in Toronto and the York region, according to wiretap transcripts obtained by the Post.
He returned to Italy, but visited Toronto in 2009 and again in 2010.
Figliomeni was born in the pretty Calabrian seaside town of Melito di Porto Salvo, the southernmost tip of the Italian mainland. He has five brothers in Italy and an uncle and several cousins in Canada, including Cosimo and Angelo Figliomeni.
But after his arrival in 2010, a large anti-Mafia operation in Italy named him among a long list of wanted mobsters. Italy issued an arrest warrant for him and he slipped from view in Canada.
“It was quite a challenge for us to locate him,” said RCMP Supt. Chris Leather, who is in charge of serious organized crime and the combined forces special enforcement unit for the Toronto area.
“By all appearances, he kept a very low-profile, discreet presence in the area. He was not living in plain sight.”
Police were able to trace him to 1248 Café on St. Clair Avenue West in Toronto, a premise that had been raided by police in 2016 in an illegal video- gaming machine investigation.
Toronto police entered the café on March 10 for a Liquor License Act inspection and arrested Figliomeni on an immigration warrant.
He was polite and compliant, but unco- operative when asked how he stayed hidden for so long.
When interviewed by Canada Border Services Agency officers, he said he was purposely trying to avoid facing his Mafia association charge in Italy. He refused to reveal where he had been staying, saying it would cause a “big problem” if he did, according to CBSA arrest notes.
He said he had not been working in Canada, did not have a bank account here and had $200 in his wallet.
Figliomeni did not fight to remain in Canada. He was placed on an Air Canada flight to Rome. When it arrived Thursday morning, Italian officers were waiting for him. He was arrested to face trial on the 2010 charges.
York police said they were not involved in the arrest or removal of Figliomeni and declined to comment on its implication for the Moka café shooting as the case is before the courts.
Toronto police confirmed its involvement in the liquor inspection, but referred further questions to CBSA. After two days of inquiries, CBSA was still not able to comment on the case.
IT WAS QUITE A CHALLENGE FOR US TO LOCATE HIM.