Men guilty of cocaine trafficking
Alleged crime boss, one other await sentence after jury spent one-and-a-half days deliberating
In a historic case, alleged ‘Ndrangheta crime boss Giuseppe (Pino) Ursino of Bradford, Ont., showed little emotion as a Toronto jury found him guilty on several charges related to cocaine trafficking for a criminal organization Friday.
The jury also found Cosmin (Chris) Dracea, 41, of Toronto guilty of charges related to cocaine trafficking, but not guilty on a charge of trafficking the drug for a criminal organization.
The prosecution marked the first time in Canada the ‘Ndrangheta has been targeted as an organized crime group since the offence of criminal organization came into effect in 1997, senior federal prosecutor Tom Andreopoulos said earlier in an interview.
Upon hearing the verdict, Dracea’s shoulders slumped; Ursino maintained a stoic expression, in sharp contrast to his time on the witness stand when he sometimes appeared angry or lost in grief. There were no family members or friends for either man in the courtroom.
The jury took 1 1⁄ days to reach a deci2 sion. Sentencing by Judge Brian O’Marra is scheduled for Sept. 21. Ursino, 65, was found guilty of trafficking cocaine, trafficking cocaine related to a criminal organization, possession of property directly or indirectly related to an indictable offence, conspiracy to import cocaine and conspiracy to import cocaine related to a criminal organization.
Dracea was found not guilty of trafficking cocaine related to a criminal organization; he was found guilty of trafficking cocaine, possession of $60,000 directly or indirectly related to an indictable offence, conspiracy to import cocaine, and conspiracy to import cocaine related to a criminal organization.
Dracea pled guilty to trafficking a kilo of cocaine at the outset of the trial.
Ursino is a grandfather who runs a small food distributing company.
“Do you have any knowledge of the ‘Ndrangheta in the Greater Toronto Area?” his lawyer Dragi Zekavica asked him during the trial.
“No,” Ursino replied through an interpreter, even though he has lived in Canada since the 1970s.
“I’m not a boss, not even in my own family,” Ursino later said.
Ursino described his financial situation as a “disaster but surviving” and said a daughter has to give him gas money. He admitted talking about cocaine importing and other crimes such as extortion with Guido but said he didn’t really mean it.
“The stupid words come out of my mouth,” Ursino testified under cross-examination from federal prosecutor James Clark.
“What I’m talking is one thing,” Ursino said in oftenemotional testimony. “What I mean is another.”
Court heard of characters with nicknames such as “The Chosen One” for a senior boss, and “Frank Crutches” for a lesser boss whose legs were crushed in a car accident as a teenager. Another member was just called “the guy with the coffee truck” by star Crown witness Carmine Guido.
Staff Sgt. Brad Trainor told court the project originally targeted four GTA men: Ursino, Cosimo Commisso, Diego Serrano and Carmine Verduci.
Commisso was not charged. Verduci was murdered in April 2014 outside the Regina Café at 140 Regina Rd., in an industrial and retail plaza near Highway 7 and Martin Grove Rd. The murder remains unsolved.
Serrano was sentenced to four years, six months in prison in January for two counts of drug conspiracy and one count of possession of proceeds of crime.
Guido, 47, is a self-described ‘Ndrangheta associate and wise guy who agreed to work as a police agent for $2.4 million in an operation between 2013 and 2015 called Project OPhoenix.
Guido, who was once a construction executive, told the court he was heavily involved in fraud, drug trafficking, debt collection and enforcement before agreeing to work for police. He testified he could have made far more money if he had continued life as a criminal.
Court heard more than 40 secretly recorded conversations involving Guido in which the word “respect” came up at least 33 times.
Ursino appeared angry at the Crown when he said he doesn’t know about drug importing, debt collection, money laundering or ‘Ndrangheta structure beyond what he learned through gossip, news reports and school in Italy.
When Clark pressed Ursino to explain why he appeared to have a strong understanding of ‘Ndrangheta history and structure, Ursino said he studied it in Grade 5, his last year of formal schooling in his birthplace of Calabria in southern Italy.
Dracea, a Romanian born father of two and restaurant manager, made “the worst mistake of his life” when he became involved with Caputo and Guido, his lawyer Kathryn Wells told the jury.
Dracea said he was only posing as a cocaine trafficker so that he could scam Guido out of $80,000 by getting him to invest in a bogus drug importation scheme.
Dracea said he was recruited by a man named Gianfranco Caputo to scam Guido out of $80,000 in a bogus drug importation scheme. Caputo was not charged in the case.
The jury also heard an introduction to the ‘Ndrangheta from an Italian police expert, who described it as a highly structured international organization, which uses extortion, loan sharking, theft, electoral crimes, crimes of violence and drug trafficking, among other things, to sustain itself and make members feel respected.