Son of slain Hamilton mobster gives up
The Hamilton son of a murdered mob boss turned himself in to police on his 47th birthday on Friday to face multiple charges in a massive international police investigation into organized crime, including fentanyl trafficking.
Giuseppe (Joe) Violi was the subject of a Canadawide warrant for a day after his brother Domenico Violi, 51, was arrested in a pre-dawn raid in Hamilton on Thursday. At a news conference announcing the charges, RCMP Supt. Chris Leather called the brothers “well-established” in organized crime, with a reach into Italy and other parts of Europe.
The brothers are the sons of Paolo Violi and grandsons of Giacomo Luppino, both once considered major leaders of the ’Ndrangheta, or Calabrian Mafia, in Canada.
Paolo Violi was murdered in 1978 in Montreal in the midst of an underworld war with the Rizzuto crime family. Luppino died of natural causes in Hamilton in March 1988 at the age of 88.
Back in the late 1960s, the RCMP hid recording devices among Luppino’s tomato plants in the backyard of his cosy, detached brick home on Ot- tawa Street South in east Hamilton.
Those recordings captured Luppino talking about a variety of things — ranging from the freewheeling playing style of colourful Maple Leafs’ forward Eddie Shack to what Luppino considered the abundance of crime opportunities in his new homeland.
The RCMP also overheard Luppino talk with his wife Domenica about work stress and his feelings of contempt for a man who didn’t respect the traditional family unit.
Luppino was secretly recorded talking dismissively of a man who he considered a coward.
“I told him what kind of a half a man is he?” Luppino says. “If I have to do something in fear, I’ll go and drown myself in the lake. I told him that if a man is weak and has to do things because of fear and these things are wrong, then it’s better for him to kill himself.
“I told him if they want, kill me. Because I say so. And if they should kill me, I’ll always spit in their faces and tell them they are the dishonerate (the dishonoured).”
Summaries of the conversations were filed as exhibits in a trial in Hamilton in August 1982.
Giuseppe and Domenico were eight and 11 respectively when their father was murdered in 1978 in the Montreal ice cream shop which had been his headquarters. Two uncles of Giuseppe and Domenico Violi were also slain in a protracted war with the Rizzuto crime family.
Also turning himself in to authorities on Friday was Masimigliano Carfagna of Burlington.
Both Violis and Carfagna are charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance; possession for the purpose of trafficking a controlled substance; trafficking a controlled substance; trafficking contraband tobacco; trafficking firearms, and criminal organization offences, including instructing and participating in a criminal organization.