Italian cops call Canada Mafia haven
Alleged mobsters living openly in Ontario thanks to key legal differences
Ontario has become an international “penal colony” for alleged Italian Mafia figures who find refuge here untouched by Canadian law, top Italian police authorities have told a joint Toronto Star/Radio-Canada investigation.
In the past two years alone, Italian authorities have identified more than 30 Ontario men in thousands of pages of wiretap transcripts and prosecution reports who they claim have Mafia ties.
At least10 of those have been publicly named in Italian arrest warrants.
But the Star/Radio-Canada investigation has discovered that only one has ever been sought by Canadian law enforcement so far — on an immigration violation. And Canadian police have yet to find him. RCMP officials counter that the Italians have failed to deliver actionable intelligence or evidence that can be used under Canadian law.
Beneath that international squabble, a surprising consensus has emerged on one point: Ontario is a burgeoning headquarters for a powerful Mafia faction called the ’Ndrangheta, which has flourished under the police radar in recent years and quietly risen to what the RCMP now calls a “Tier 1” threat in the GTA.
“For 10 years, we have been telling Canadians to pay attention because the ’Ndrangheta is very strong, especially in the Toronto region,” said Nicola Gratteri, one of the most famed and respected anti-Mafia prosecutors in Calabria, whose life has been threatened many times because of his relentless pursuit of organized crime.
Kevin Harrison, superintendent of the RCMP’s Combined Special Forces Enforcement Unit in Toronto, admitted that there has been a period of “no clearly identified focus on the Traditional Organized Crime” — the police code term for the Mafia.
The RCMP’s last major Ontario Mafia bust was in 2007, called “Project Omerta,” which led to the convictions of several Toronto members of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan linked to the Sicilian Mob.
“In terms of the scope or the span like Omerta was, no we haven’t gone there in the last few years,” Harrison said. “Our focus was on other organized crime groups.”
Harrison said the RCMP refocused 50 officers under his command in southern Ontario to the Mafia file about two years ago.
But police are paying the price for having taken their eye off the ball for so long, he conceded in a recent interview.
“When you’re out of something for a while, the intelligence gets a little stale,” the senior Mountie said. “Certainly when we are starting to recover from an intelligence gap, it takes time to close that gap. It’s a big hill to climb to get back to where we need to be.”
Harrison would not say if there were currently any major investigations involving the Ontario-based Mafia.
Differences in Italian and Canadian law are a major obstacle for RCMP Mafia hunters.
Italy has a stringent “Mafia association” law under which it has prosecuted and jailed dozens.
One of the identified chieftains of the Calabrian Mafia known as ’Ndrangheta, whose lengthy conversations with several Ontario visitors were caught on audio and videotape, received 14 years behind bars in Italy under this law.
No such offence exists in the Canadian Criminal Code.
“When the (Italian) charges say ‘Mafia association,’ it’s not recognized in Canadian law so they try to equate that to a Canadian charge in the Criminal Code system and it’s not there, so they won’t extradite,” said Ben Soave, who retired in 2005 as RCMP chief superintendent investigating organized crime.
“We have to reform our laws to be current for today. We have people in (law) enforcement who don’t understand organized crime.”
Italian and Canadian authorities have identified seven to nine “locali” in Ontario, close-knit ’Ndrangheta cells grouped around families
“The problem is how we identify organized crime. Relationships are the backbone of Mafia power. We don’t understand that in Canada.”
ANTONIO NICASO TORONTO AUTHOR AND MAFIA EXPERT “For 10 years, we have been telling Canadians to pay attention because the ’Ndrangheta is very strong, especially in the Toronto region.” NICOLA GRATTERI ITALIAN ANTI-MAFIA PROSECUTOR
and intermarriage and tied to their brethren in Italy.
“The Canadian bosses talk with the Italian bosses,” said Gratteri. “In every village there is a locale and through our investigations we discovered the same thing in Canada.”
Roberto di Palma, another prosecutor with the district anti-Mafia directorate in Calabria, said there was a “global village” of crime, aided by Skype and Internet chat lines that are harder for police to monitor than traditional land lines or even cellphones.
“We find a lot of these Canadians are travelling (back and forth) to Canada,” he said. “Often they go there for summits and meetings and they send messages from the mother house here in Calabria.”
Audio recordings of Mafia figures under surveillance in Italy, obtained by the Star and Radio-Canada, feature conversations in Italian punctuated with repeated references to “Toronto,” “Thunder Bay” and “Ontario.”
Arrest warrants issued in Italy for at least four men in the GTA on Mafia-related charges date back as far as 2006.
Another six from the Toronto area were named in December 2010. Four more men, most of them from Thunder Bay, were added in March of last year.
Canada cannot extradite a citizen or deport a non-citizen for a crime that is not an offence under Canadian law.
“We don’t make the laws, we just enforce them,” Harrison said.
The only Canadian action — so far unsuccessful — targeted Tito Figliomeni, a 43-year-old immigrant. The Canada Border Services Agency issued a warrant for his arrest in late 2010, not for any alleged Mafia crimes but for being “criminally inadmissible” and misrepresenting himself when he entered the country. Two years later, the CBSA “continues to actively investigate the whereabouts of Mr. Figliomeni and seeks the public’s assistance in locating this individual,” according to a statement provided to the Star. The Italians have arrested at least six Canadian citizens or residents who happened to be in Italy since the arrest warrants were issued in 2010. But Canadian officials said their Italian colleagues seem to be content with issuing arrest warrants in Italy without filing them through the proper international channels via Interpol and Ottawa. Harrison said not a single Italian arrest warrant has reached his desk in the two years he has been on the job. “We have received no specific formal requests to do something.” Harrison likened the warrants issued in Italy to a form of “pest control,” effectively keeping people named on them away from Italy and trapped in Canada. “The frustration I have is that no matter how many times you tell them, they can’t understand that our wheels don’t move as fast as theirs do,” the RCMP superintendent said. “Don’t bother us with ‘Mafia association’ because we can’t help you.” Experts say Canada’s current laws are ill-equipped to deal with the complex, international nature of organized crime. Antonio Nicaso, the Torontobased author of more than 20 books on organized crime, likes to quote one long-time mobster from Italy who once said of his adopted country: “In Canada, there is a lower risk of prosecution and detention [for Mafia crimes] than in any other country in the world. The only thing wrong with Canada is the weather.” The U.S. has listed the ’Ndrangheta under its “foreign narcotics kingpin” legislation, which subjects members to up to 10 years in prison and penalizes banks and institutions that deal with them. Canada has no similar rules. The only thing resembling Italy’s tough “Mafia association” law is Canada’s “criminal organization” law, enacted in1997, which has been used with some success against the Hells Angels biker gang. But it has never been directed toward the Mafia in Canada. Unlike Italian law, Canada’s legislation doesn’t target a specific organization, nor does it even make membership in a crime group — much less mere “association” — an offence. It requires evidence that an individual instructed or helped a criminal organization “to commit an indictable offence.” “The problem is how we identify organized crime. Relationships are the backbone of Mafia power. We don’t understand that in Canada,” said Nicaso. “We only focus on drug trafficking and violent crime. We are not fighting the political corruption, the money-laundering, the influence of drug money in our economy.” When the Star and Radio-Canada first reported on the Mafia’s new strength in Ontario two weeks ago, Premier Dalton McGuinty said he had never received warnings from police about organized crime infiltrating Ontario politics and the economy.
Days later, a Quebec inquiry into corruption in that province heard from a top Mafia expert with the York Regional Police who said Ontario police may be investigating at least one case of political corruption by a criminal organization.
York Regional Police Det. Mike Amato refused to provide specific examples of corruption to the Quebec commission, saying, “That question there is too close to something that we are working on right now.”
The 25-year veteran police officer said that the ’Ndrangheta is “stronger and more prominent” in Ontario thanks to growing numbers and successful integration in the community.
“There are persons who are criminals, who are suspects in murders, who . . . go and coach soccer for kids. They’re integrated into the community and most people don’t even know who they are,” Amato told the commission two weeks ago. Former RCMP superintendent Soave said the family-based structure of the ’Ndrangheta in Ontario makes it more difficult to infiltrate than the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal, which operates more like a hierarchical corporation.
“Generally speaking, it’s bloodlines and family. So, to rat out a family member is more difficult and therefore more difficult for law enforcement to penetrate,” he said.
There are signs of growing communication between Canadian and Italian police authorities.
The RCMP’s Harrison travelled to Italy in June to meet with his counterparts there. Since then, his office has received a steady flow of requests from the Italians — sometimes two or three a day — for intelligence about suspects living in Canada.
“This is something that wasn’t happening before because that cooperation had broken down,” he said.
And Harrison said if the RCMP can get more information and evidence from the Italians in return, it can seriously investigate suspected Mafia figures here even without a Mafia association law.
“There is all sorts of stuff we can do that’s not locking them up and putting handcuffs on them.”
Since 2005, Canada has managed to force at least six non-citizens suspected of Mafia-related crimes to return to Italy, either through arrest, deportation or removal.
Back in Italy, Gratteri, too, is hopeful Canadian police are taking up the challenge.
“Now there has been a change of consciousness,” he said.
Gratteri shows no signs of giving up his prosecutorial crusade against the Mafia despite extreme personal risks. He has been under heavy police guard since 1999.
His fiancée’s house was hit by gunfire and she was warned not to marry Gratteri because she would be marrying a dead man.
“Sure, there are moments when I am afraid because I feel the danger is near,” he said as he careered the wrong way down a one-way street, the siren on his car blaring. “But I will continue. I cannot live like a coward. And the fear goes away.”