NickleCity:NickleCity wrote: ↑Fri Nov 08, 2019 9:58 amFrom the article: “Tony was well-known in TOC (Traditional Organized Crime) as Scratch,” the source said. “He is/was an enforcer for Joe Violi and linked directly to the Calabrian Commisso family.”antimafia wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 8:08 pm
Man slain near Sherway Gardens was 'Mob enforcer': Sources
https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/ ... etobicoke/
Does this mean he was an enforcer for the Luppino family (Joe Violi) and part of the Commisso family? Does Buffalo fit into this equation because of the Violi/Luppino connection?
Also, on February 21, 2016 Bongiovanni attended a party in Toronto with Coconspirator 2 and with “friends and associates involved with possession, use, and distribution of cocaine.” The Commisso’s are in Toronto and some are related to the Luppinos according to the Luppino family tree. Luppino Family Tree with Todaro Connection.jpg
Over the weekend I was right to be suspicious about the updated article mentioning that Fiorda was a mob enforcer for Joe Violi, especially because the original article mentioned that the former was an enforcer for a Frank Viola. This morning I received confirmation of my suspicion -- Fiorda was not a mob enforcer for Joe Violi. More soon, I hope.
I have my suspicions about Fiorda's made status -- and he may very well be made -- but I don't fault Adrian Humphreys for quoting the source who is apparently a mobster. Maybe Humphreys should have corroborated the claim -- maybe he did but couldn't say how he did so; or maybe quoting a police source who said that Fiorda "was considered a mobster for quite a few years; a periphery player who was always seen as a tough guy” wasn't enough substantiation. We have all read articles and books by Canadian organized-crime reporters and authors in which one or more sources are cited as support for a particular theory or claim and then, as time goes on, what the sources claim turns out not to be true.
When I tentatively first posted about this story both on Gangster BB and here, I wrote that more information would need to come out to see whether the shooting was related to Italian organized crime -- Fiorda's identity had not yet even been established. There is a very strong possibility that this murder has nothing to do with a mob war in Ontario and nothing to do with other mob violence in Ontario.
If I have time, I will repeat later what I have previously written here and elsewhere about the historically strange and interesting dynamics between the Calabrian crime groups in Ontario and Quebec (mostly the former), as well as stress that intermarriage and common ancestry -- even from the same comune -- are not prophylactics as regards intragroup and intergroup violence.
When you wrote
you didn't properly quote from p. 14 of the Bongiovanni indictment, which reads as follows:Also, on February 21, 2016 Bongiovanni attended a party in Toronto with Coconspirator 2 and with “friends and associates involved with possession, use, and distribution of cocaine.” The Commisso’s are in Toronto and some are related to the Luppinos according to the Luppino family tree.
45. On or about February 21, 2016, the defendant BONGIOVANNI attended a party in Toronto, Canada with friends and associates involved in possession, use, and distribution of cocaine.
It is a leap of logic or an erroneous reading that would cause someone to conclude that the friends and associates were Toronto based rather than people from Western New York or somewhere else in the US. Am I still intrigued about their presence in Toronto? Abso-fucking-lutely! The wording in the indictment is similar to what was in the release issued by the DOJ USAO for WDNY (https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdny/pr/re ... conspiracy):
The indictment alleges that between 2008 and approximately June 2019, the defendant had friends and associates who he knew were involved in the possession, use, distribution, and importation of controlled substances including marijuana and cocaine. Those friends and associates included individuals whom the defendant believed to be members of, connected to, or associated with Italian Organized Crime (IOC).
If you and other posters want to check with the various journalists about my disputing Fiorda's mob-enforcer duties for Joe Violi and Fiorda's made status, please do so discreetly, which includes not mentioning my poster handle and not quoting my posts here without my permission. The Black Hand Forum is a closed group for a number of reasons. I may very well contact the reporters myself and tactfully address the errors or possible errors; so if other posters do the same, the journalists are going to assume that on these forums I am bad-mouthing them, which I think I have avoided for the most part over the years because I can only imagine how difficult it is to get this stuff right.