Man gets 10 years in Mob drug case

Burlington trafficker agreed to import up to 300 kg of cocaine from New York crime family

ABurlington man was sentenced to10 1⁄ 2 years in prison for drug trafficking and weapons offences after he was duped by a member of a New York City crime family who turned police agent.

Massimigliano Carfagna was sentenced in Milton court on Thursday after pleading guilty to trafficking in cocaine and the opioid fentanyl, a weapons charge and a drug importation conspiracy charge.

His conviction came after a “made member” of the Bonanno La Cosa Nostra family of New York City agreed to turn police agent and work undercover in southwestern Ontario.

The Bonanno crime family is considered the oldest of the New York City Mafia families, with roots in the 19th century. A “made member” is someone with high status in the group, who has undergone a ritualistic initiation ceremony.

Carfagna’s sentence gave him credit for 17 months of pretrial custody.

Several others have yet to go to trial in the bust, which came from a threeyear RCMP led project called Project Otremens. Several undercover officers assisted the made member of the Bonanno crime family who agreed to co-operate with authorities.

His guilty plea included an apology for the harm caused by illegal drugs, including fentanyl.

Carfagna has an American criminal record that dates back to 1987 and includes convictions in Niagara Falls, N.Y., for criminal impersonation and criminally negligent homicide.

In an agreed statement of facts, Carfagna agreed with the prosecution that, between March 1 and October 28, 2016, he and Giuseppe “Joey” Violi, 47, of Hamilton, agreed to import 200 to 300 kilograms of cocaine into Canada. They sought to use the police agent from the Bonanno crime family and his connections to provide transportation for the cocaine.

Violi and his brother Domenico Paolo Violi, 51, have yet to be tried in the case.

Carfagna said that he and Violi believed they would make $10,000 per kilogram smuggled into Canada through British Columbia by ship, according to the agreed statement of fact. They had hoped to ship as much as 300 kilograms into the country from Colombia, but first agreed on a 200 kilogram shipment, court heard.

“As part of their plan to organize the cocaine shipment, Carfagna and Violi advised the agent that they had sent … a male associate of Carfagna’s … identified as ‘Porkchop,’ to make arrangements to get the cocaine on consignment in Colombia,” the agreed statement of fact says.

Court heard that in 2016, Carfagna also became a suspect in a Halton Regional Police Service case called Project Harland, which probed fentanyl trafficking.

That led to a raid at a storage locker at 1207 Appleby Line in Burlington, where police found a stash of cocaine and fentanyl and handguns, a sawed-off, pump action rifle, a .22 calibre rifle, ammunition and nine bundles of cash containing $45,550.

Project OTremens was assisted by the FBI, Homeland Security from the U.S., the Colombian National Police and Italian police departments, as well as RCMP liaison officers in Colombia, Mexico, Italy and the Netherlands.