Grandfather facing deportation denies being Mafia boss
TORONTO — An Italian grandfather “living in the shadows” north of Toronto until his arrest two years ago has been denounced as a prominent and influential Mafia boss from Italy and ordered deported to face trial in his homeland.
Despite what authorities say are his close ties to major gangsters in both countries, a life in Canada designed to avoid detection and a family tree that overlaps police files, Carmelo Bruzzese, 66, denies being a mobster, saying everything he knows about the Mafia he learned from reading newspapers.
He is now appealing the decision of the Immigration and Refugee Board to the Federal Court of Canada.
But unless overturned, the IRB’s decision stands as a sharp indictment of Bruzzese, who is wanted in Italy on a charge of Mafia association for alleged involvement with the ’Ndrangheta, the proper name of the Mafia that emerged in the Calabrian region of southern Italy.
“Mr. Bruzzese is a highranking member of the ’Ndrangheta, the Capo, managing the Grotteria locale, and making the most important decisions,” ruled IRB adjudicator Ama Beecham in July.
She said the evidence and testimony points to Bruzzese being “a central figure,” “at the centre of its operations” and having “managerial oversight over the group and its affairs.”
The IRB accepted evidence, much of it from authorities in Italy, that Bruzzese was influential with several ’Ndrangheta clans along Italy’s Ionian Coast.
He helped assign ranks and roles, he authorized the group’s expansion, approved of disciplinary actions, is informed of killings involving the clan and is involved in “interventions and mediations,” the IRB ruled.
Bruzzese is considered a fugitive from justice in Italy.
When police raided his home there looking for him, they instead found a sophisticated bunker concealed in his basement.
But Bruzzese wasn’t anywhere close, by then living in Vaughan, Ont., with his Canadian wife. That’s where Canadian authorities found him on Aug. 23, 2013.
He is intimately familiar with the area. He received permanent resident status in Canada in 1974, but returned to Italy in 1977 after marrying. He has been shuttling periodically between the countries since.
Beecham said the evidence of Bruzzese’s life in Canada portrays “a person living in the shadows, a person who lives a life trying to avoid detection.”
He was not charged criminally in Canada, instead deemed a non-Canadian permanent resident inadmissible to Canada on grounds of organized criminality.
He has remained in jail since his arrest.
Bruzzese, though, denies being a member of the Mafia, saying during his hearings he only knows about the Mafia from reading newspapers and first heard of the ’Ndrangheta inner workings from officials trying to deport him.
He said he has no idea what ’Ndrangheta even means.
After hearing testimony from Major Giuseppe De Felice, who helped run the large probe in Italy that led to arrest warrants against Bruzzese, his son, Carlo, and others, Bruzzese dismissed the officer as a liar.
“This man from Italy is a big liar, eh?” Mr. Bruzzese said privately during a break. “This is a big lie. I don’t know how much they pay him.”
He accuses Canada of doing an end run around the extradition treaty — deporting him on the basis of evidence from Italy but based on an accusation that is not an extraditable offence. (Mafia membership is not, in itself, a crime in Canada; our anti-gang laws require proof of a crime done for the benefit of a criminal organization.)
He called it “a disguised extradition.”
His lawyer, Barbara Jackman, said the IRB’s decision — and the hearings that preceded it — are deeply flawed. “He’s not accepting it, he’s challenging it,” Jackman said.
Brusseze remains in jail and will have yet another detention review this month, at which he can argue to be released pending his court appeal.
“Everyone ordered removed from Canada is entitled to due process before the law and all removal orders are subject to various levels of appeal,” said Travis O’Brien, a spokesman for Canada Border Services Agency.