Mafia boss with ties to GTA found dead in Italy

An alleged Mafia boss with a strong Toronto-area connection has been discovered dead in his Italian prison cell, the victim of an apparent suicide.

Giuseppe (Pino) Gregoraci, 51, of Siderno, Italy, was found dead in his cell last week, according to a report in the Italian newspaper Il Quotidiano del Sud. Gregoraci had hanged himself and was dead by the time first aid workers arrived at Voghera prison in the Lombardy region.

Italian police said Gregoraci was a lieutenant under Giuseppe “The Master” Commisso in the ’Ndrangheta — or Calabrian Mafia — and had tight ties to the GTA. Gregoraci visited the Toronto area last spring with Muia’s brother, Carmelo Muia, looking for clues on the murder of his cousin Carmelo “Mino” Muia, who was shot dead in Siderno on Jan. 18, 2018.

While in the Toronto area, they met the brothers Cosimo and Angelo Figliomeni of York Region, Italian police said. The Figliomeni brothers were arrested last August in the Canadian arm of a transnational operation called Project Sindicato, which York Regional Police called the region’s largest-ever anti-Mafia operation.

York police at the time said they considered Angelo Figliomini as the head of an international ’Ndrangheta group with a base in York Region. Angelo Figliomeni moved to York Region shortly after he was charged in Italy with weapons and Mafia-association offences in 1992.

York police said Project Sindicato targeted builders, bankers, real estate agents and others in the financial sector. Police say the organization was involved in illegal gambling and loansharking, and laundered some of its money through regular visits to legal, government-run casinos. At the time of the arrests last summer, police in the GTA seized five Ferrari sports cars, 27 homes and millions of dollars in cash while shutting down some 500 bank accounts.

“We have dismantled the financial structure of this organized crime operation, both here and in Italy,” York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe said at the time.

Gregoraci was one of 28 alleged members and associates of the ’Ndrangheta who were arrested in southern Italy in July 2019 in the Italian arm of Project Sindicato. At the time of the arrests, Italian police said they had snared the “top management” of the Muia and Figliomeni Mafia organization.

Il Quotidiano del Sud noted prison unions had complained to regional prison authorities about a lack of security at Voghera prison, which the union said endangers staff and inmates.