Project Otremens Recordings

[OcSleeper]

Link to Metelsky's twitter where he shared a short clip of the actual induction ceremony. Zummo can be heard welcoming the agent to the family and seen kissing him on the cheeks.
https://x.com/StephenMetelsky/status/18 ... k-TYA&s=19

[Newyorkempire]

Wait a second, so Buffalo is actually a family still?? Shocking

[NickleCity]

B. Your speculation that Falzone may have been Underboss makes a lot of a sense to me. Fino has written and communicated to me that he believed that Falzone was the Front boss for the Todaro’s. We know that Todaro Jr was the Underboss for his father, but he is consistently described in Buffalo News articles as boss and running the family for his semi-retired dad who spends a lot of time in Florida. I would speculate Todaro Jr was the “Street/Front” boss for his father. If/when Falzone was promoted to the Underboss position he likely took Junior’s place and started serving as Street/Front Boss.

[Newyorkempire]

B. Your speculation that Falzone may have been Underboss makes a lot of a sense to me. Fino has written and communicated to me that he believed that Falzone was the Front boss for the Todaro’s. We know that Todaro Jr was the Underboss for his father, but he is consistently described in Buffalo News articles as boss and running the family for his semi-retired dad who spends a lot of time in Florida. I would speculate Todaro Jr was the “Street/Front” boss for his father. If/when Falzone was promoted to the Underboss position he likely took Junior’s place and started serving as Street/Front Boss.

Vic has been in high position for many many years too though

[B.]

I've been away from the subject since around October so my mafia mind is rusty, but was it ever suggested on the Otremens tapes when exactly Todaro Jr. became boss? I know there was speculation online that Falzone was an interim boss between Todaro Sr. and Jr., but is there anything negating the possibility that Todaro Jr. has held the position since 2012?

[Laughmatics]

How about not posting fucking paywall shit, fucking shame they charge for so-called "free" information nowadays.

[OcSleeper]

Is something wrong with using archive.is like I said or the paywall free articles that Anti shared?

[antimafia]

^^^^
There are solid arguments that can be put forth that Guy Panepinto, who uttered “Our friends,” was not even made into the American LCN or any other Italian secret society.

Adrian Humphreys changed his mind about Panepinto over the years: made, not made.

From https://www.pressreader.com/9148/202404 ... 3705935964:

On Oct. 23, 1997, sur­veil­lance was on Pat Mus­it­ano and Giuseppe (Pino) Avign­one as they drove to an Italian res­taur­ant in Wood­bridge [immediately north of Toronto]. Two sur­veil­lance officers, pos­ing as a couple, dis­creetly went inside and sat nearby as they observed the two mob­sters meet­ing with Montreal boss Vito Rizzuto and his Toronto rep­res­ent­at­ives.

“These are our friends from Hamilton,” Gaetano Pan­epinto, Vito’s right-hand man, said to Rizzuto as the men all shook hands, Farr recalled. The Mafia ver­biage was indic­at­ive of the two Hamilto­ni­ans being “made men” — given the spe­cific ver­nacu­lar uttered — an intro­duc­tion care­fully craf­ted and steeped in Mob tra­di­tion.

________

The article to which I’ve linked above, written by Stephen Metelsky, also describes Carmen Barillaro as the "underboss of the Papalia crime family."

The wording in the older article would have us think, as mobwatchers, that Pat Musitano, Pino Avignone, Guy Panepinto, and Vito Rizzuto were the only mafiosi in the restaurant at the time of the introduction. (Paul Manning has publicly provided the diagram of the meeting attendees, which was drawn up by the Halton Region’s Police Service.)

Putting aside the fact that Metelsky lumped Panepinto in with Rizzuto’s "Toronto representatives" — which are what exactly? — we know that there were other people present at this gathering whose made status and Family affiliation are unknown but about whom we speculate: to wit, Antonino Cammalleri (uncle of Vito Rizzuto’s wife) and Peter Scarcella. Law enforcement had long ago dubbed Cammalleri the head of the Toronto Sicilian Group. Four years after this 1997 meeting, Scarcella ended up being the one to indulge a request by the New York Gambino Family to look after Sicilian-born mafioso Michele Modica in the Greater Toronto Area because Modica is that breed of Sicilian man of hono(u)r who is a typical fuckup.

If we truly follow Scarcella’s criminal career, we see someone who appears to have had more dealings with the Commissos of the GTA Siderno Group than with American LCN members and who has often done the bidding of the Commissos. Scarcella’s ties to the Siderno Group were sort of replicated by Modica when Modica found friendship with suspected GTA-based ’ndranghetista Salvatore Calautti, who became Modica’s gambling buddy. The Italian authorities misidentified Modica’s other regular companion in the GTA: Michele Marrese. Mike Marrese was born in Pisticci, province of Matera, in Basilicata; he attended the renowned St. Michael’s College in Toronto. The authorities not only got his POB wrong but also his DOB.

We had already speculated that only Panepinto could have been the third party able to introduce to Vito Rizzuto the allegedly newly made Pat Musitano and the allegedly already made Avignone. Paul Manning wrote on our forum that Musitano wanted badly to be made by John Papalia because Musitano couldn’t get recognition from Calabria as an ‘ndranghetista (father Dominic and uncle Tony were); Papalia refused. Which raises questions about Avignone: Did he have trouble getting such recognition from Calabria? Did Papalia make him no problem but not Pino’s first cousin Pat?

When Panepinto uttered "These are our friends from Hamilton" to signal in front of all the meeting attendees that Musitano and Avignone were made, then Guy, if he were truly made, violated protocol.

Adrian Humphreys had warned me years ago to not always trust police intelligence, as had James Dubro before him. Nevertheless, Humphreys’s June 1, 1998 article makes mention at the very beginning of Pat Musitano and Dom Violi exchanging a peck on the cheek, with the former reaching out first. Was Pat made the year before or not? Did he initiate the peck because Dom was an ‘ndrangheta member? Or maybe they were both made, with Pat reaching out first because Violi was a few years older?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Peter Scarcella was never made. Nor would I be surprised to see him listed as an important affiliate in a Siderno Group chart. I wish there were more substantial evidence that Pat Musitano was made into any secret Italian society, but I don’t dismiss the circumstantial evidence. Manning wrote on this forum that Musitano was made before going to prison but, if not, definitely after getting out in 2006. So because I have my doubts, I wonder whether in the gambling-racket dispute in southwestern Ontario that came to light a number of years ago between a group of guys who were not made and a group who were, whether the Musitanos were the former.

While I appreciate more and more surveillance intelligence coming out in published newspaper articles written by Metelsky or co-authored by him, I’m realizing that we mobwatchers are forced to build up scenarios piecemeal because the articles come out infrequently and, when they do, leave out important information. One of the articles that came out last week mentioned Zummo and Semplice arriving at the hotel where the ceremony took place, meeting CW-1 in the hotel room, Zummo conducting a quick ceremony, and then immediately driving back to the States. No mention of the Violis being present or outside the room. So how and where did Antonio Nicaso get info that Dom Violi was in the Hamilton hotel room? Later, how and where did Anna Sergi get the similar info?

I don’t like important details being left out.

[antimafia]

The aforementioned diagram of the meeting attendees. Panepinto is deemed by the HRPS as a “soldier” in a crime group led by “boss” Scarcella. Avignone is shown below Musitano, with the former not being identified as a soldier but as belonging to the Musitano crime group, led of course by a newly made Pat Musitano.

GTA-based Frank Campoli, married to a first cousin of Rizzuto’s wife, is labelled “Toronto Sicilian Mafia.” For many years I assumed he grew up in Canada and had ancestry from the Rizzutos’ hometown in Sicily but then I came across information in one of Daniel Renaud’s books published in the last 10 years that stated Campoli was from Venezuela.

The diagram shows the meeting took place over 2 days. If Musitano, Avignone, Panepinto, and Rizzuto were indeed alone at the restaurant 1 day early on October 22, 1997, then the third-party introduction is more plausible but still subject to our valid criticism about the ambiguous wording.

I just don’t see how Panepinto was a made Bonanno Family member or a made member of another American LCN Family, given all his ties to Rizzuto in Montreal and the Caruana-Cuntrera group in the GTA; Panepinto’s hanging out with bikers a lot more than with mobsters; and of course by his being succeeded as a GTA-based Rizzuto “crew” leader by Juan Ramon Fernandez (“Joe Bravo”), who in turn was succeeded by aspirant mafioso Danny Ranieri. Panepinto, Bravo, and Ranieri all met the same fate.

[antimafia]

Panepinto is deemed by the HRPS as a “soldier” in a crime group led by “*leader” Scarcella

[Pogo The Clown]

Just for the record a chart from the actual Otremens investigation listed Luppino, Mustinano and Papalia as 3 separate organizations. It seems it was the local Buffalo media that first lumped Luppino in with the Buffalo family when the actual investigation revealed otherwise and then it spread to the forum. Now it looks like it is happening with Musitano.


Pogo

[NickleCity]

Just for the record a chart from the actual Otremens investigation listed Luppino, Mustinano and Papalia as 3 separate organizations. It seems it was the local Buffalo media that first lumped Luppino in with the Buffalo family when the actual investigation revealed otherwise and then it spread to the forum. Now it looks like it is happening with Musitano.


Pogo

I'm not aware of any local news organization that had a story lumping the Luppinos, Musitanos, and Papalia's into the Buffalo mob. Did a quick check and I didn't see that the Buffalo news didn't do this in any of their stories that included the Luppino, Musitano, and Papalia surnames, at least that I'm aware of. Can you point me to the media stories you are referencing?

[antimafia]

Inside the Mob’s deadliest conversations: Part 3 of 5

https://pressreader.com/article/281487872060296

[B.]

Just for the record a chart from the actual Otremens investigation listed Luppino, Mustinano and Papalia as 3 separate organizations. It seems it was the local Buffalo media that first lumped Luppino in with the Buffalo family when the actual investigation revealed otherwise and then it spread to the forum. Now it looks like it is happening with Musitano.

Canadian LE charts are generally based on criminal association and loosely-defined operational "organizations". The actual Otremens tapes revealed the Luppinos to be with the Buffalo Family and one of them a Buffalo capodecina, much as their nephew was the Buffalo underboss. There is a history of 'ndrangheta/Calabrian Camorra affiliation with the Luppino clan but we know there were dual memberships and Giacomo Luppino himself is heavily suspected of having been a Buffalo member himself, much as his sons and grandson(s) are Buffalo members today. I'm not aware of any evidence that the younger Luppinos are formally affiliated with the 'ndrangheta, however.

Are you contending that the Luppinos are not with Buffalo because of this chart that conflicts with the actual recordings made during the investigation?

I just don’t see how Panepinto was a made Bonanno Family member or a made member of another American LCN Family, given all his ties to Rizzuto in Montreal and the Caruana-Cuntrera group in the GTA; Panepinto’s hanging out with bikers a lot more than with mobsters; and of course by his being succeeded as a GTA-based Rizzuto “crew” leader by Juan Ramon Fernandez (“Joe Bravo”), who in turn was succeeded by aspirant mafioso Danny Ranieri. Panepinto, Bravo, and Ranieri all met the same fate.

Not understanding you here. You don't see how Panepinto could have been a Bonanno member when he was tied to confirmed Bonanno members like Rizzuto and some of the Caruana-Cuntreras? If Panepinto was a made member, it is likely he was with the Bonanno Family or perhaps a Rizzuto-allied Buffalo member. Also the idea of "succession" here appears to be purely operational (though of course Fernandez claimed to be made as we know).

The meeting in question is interesting but I'm now more skeptical of Metelsky's interpretation of the "our friends" comment as a formal introduction.

[Pogo The Clown]

The actual Otremens tapes revealed the Luppinos to be with the Buffalo Family and one of them a Buffalo capodecina, much as their nephew was the Buffalo underboss. There is a history of 'ndrangheta/Calabrian Camorra affiliation with the Luppino clan but we know there were dual memberships and Giacomo Luppino himself is heavily suspected of having been a Buffalo member himself, much as his sons and grandson(s) are Buffalo members today. I'm not aware of any evidence that the younger Luppinos are formally affiliated with the 'ndrangheta, however.

Are you contending that the Luppinos are not with Buffalo because of this chart that conflicts with the actual recordings made during the investigation?

Did the tapes/investigation actually reveal that or was that just the interpretation of the writer of that Buffalo “resurgence” article that kicked off this whole debate? We only really have that authors summary of it. The actual information put out by those who conducted said investigation shows they themselves considered them 3 separate groups.


Other than that one resurgence article that everyone ran with is there anything else showing Rocco and Natale Luppino as made Buffalo members? Thinking back neither of them were listed as members in the 1985, 1993, 1997 or 2006 Buffalo lists. They could have been made after 2006 but that seems highly unlikely considering their ages (Rocco would have been pushing 70 by then).


Pogo