Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

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Wiseguy
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Wiseguy »

NickleCity wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 6:47 amBack to Buffalo... If they are as active and organized as the recent reports suggest, then those of us with the interest need to go back and find any and all articles related to possible Buffalo activity and see if their is a connection. That is my interest and niche.... My biases drive my interests, just as yours and everyone elses drive their interests. Right now most of the interests on this board are going in other directions. That is great, and that is why I think we need each to help us form a full picture of what is happening in our areas of interest. But it is, also, evidence that we all have biased interests and opinions.
First, regarding your search to find things related to Buffalo, while I give you credit for looking far and wide, you weren't coming up with much. I saw all your posts about anything remotely related to Buffalo (in bold, large font letters) on this board and GBB and if anything, it only served to counter your belief about Buffalo.

Second, I realize you see the news from this week as a vindication of your gut feeling. But these recent articles don't really suggest what you claim they do. What we had is a journalist interpreting what he read as a "resurrection" of the family beginning a few years ago. But all we've seen so far, after 20 years of relative inactivity (i.e. minor, sporadic arrests here and there), is the OTremens bust. And while that may seem significant compared to what we've seen regarding Buffalo for years, what are you going to say if/when we go years without another similar sized bust? (If we ever see anything like that again.) As I pointed out yesterday, this is rather reminiscent of the 2006 gambling bust in Detroit. Like OTremens with Buffalo, it had a couple high ranking figures, and it was the closest Detroit had come to a "big bust" since the GamTax case in 1996. But here we are, nearly 13 years later, and not really anything but minor, sporadic arrests since then. This despite lots of claims about the family having a functioning hierarchy and stable membership. As I said, while there may be more left of the mob in Buffalo and Detroit than places like Cleveland, St. Louis, or Los Angeles, that's not saying much. And it doesn't mean the feds have been wrong about the state of the LCN in Buffalo.

Third, you may need to consider the possibility that, because Buffalo is your "interest," "niche," etc., it's a case of you wanting an active family to still be there. And then you work backwards to try and verify that desire. Because, without an active family in Buffalo, you have nothing to be interested in as far as the mob goes. And that's coming from someone who has their own "niche" - the state of the LCN in the U.S. from 2000 to the present. I've spent years compiling every case involving the remaining families, as well as remnants of others including Buffalo. And while some of the news this week was intriguing, I'm not expecting to see anything resembling a "resurrected family" in Buffalo going forward.
Last edited by Wiseguy on Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:16 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Frank »

B. wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 9:32 pm I'm enjoying this new info and see no reason why it should be an emotional discussion or why anyone's ego needs to be invested in anything that's been written so far. Let's enjoy this and have a discussion, not ruin it with ill-natured back-and-forth arguments.

What Constitutes a "Cosa Nostra" Mafia Family 101

Since I have been riffing on St. Louis so much lately, you can look at them as an example. All informants and their own members referred to them as a nearly defunct organization in the 1960s, but they still had a full administration, at least one capodecina, and 20+ members during that period, and only select members were making money illegally. Still, the STL membership were able to meet and do business, big and small, with members of other mafia families throughout the US and at no point did other families tell them they were "too small" or had too little criminal activity going on for them to recognize them as a family with ranks and membership. Opportunities still existed, and more importantly they were still recognized by other groups. Crimes and peak periods come and go, sometimes changing, but the organizational structure and recognition by other groups does not go away unless a group formally disbands and we have few examples of that officially happening, though some groups do seem to have completely died out due to old age and attrituion.

It appears from these developments that Buffalo, a "Cosa Nostra" mafia family, still has an organizational structure and membership which includes its Hamilton membership, the latter of which has been in place now for many decades and is hardly "news". I'm not going to weigh in on whether they are "criminally viable" or anything else about their importance, but this new information which has been mentioned by multiple sources and generally reputable journalists tells us that the Buffalo mafia family has not been disbanded and still has an organizational structure, including members in leadership positions. I don't see any argument against those basic facts, assuming what came out in the Violi case is even half-accurate.

I question the use of "Commission", though that has at times been used incorrectly simply to refer to NYC bosses in general and it's overall a minor detail in all of this. We heard for years, even from some reputable sources, that NYC held a "Commission" meeting during the Joe Massino era and though a meeting of top five families leaders did happen at this point, when Massino defected he claimed there hadn't been a formal Commission in place since the 1980s which shows that the term "Commission" was just being used casually to refer to this meeting of NYC leadership.

We also don't know the full extent of everything going on in the US mafia at any point in its history, let alone now, and as evidenced by some of our best researchers we are continually finding out new, interesting details from periods we thought we had completely covered. It would be vain to pretend that we know everything that is going on in recent years simply based on journalists and what limited information LE makes available outside of indictments. Information could come to light in 20 years and one little FBI report about 2018 could completely change our perception about something we thought we had mapped out.

Members of Multiple Families Attending a Making Ceremony

I do agree it is strange that a Buffalo member may have attended a Bonanno ceremony, though remember that the "Cosa Nostra" mafia is one organization and families are branches. It raises some questions, but it's not necessarily some kind of jarring revolution in the way they operate, especially in an area like Canada with relatively few made members. It may have been done for convenience so that the Buffalo-Ontario members could be easily introduced to the new Bonanno member while the visiting Bonanno leader and members were still in town to make the formal introduction. Without knowing the identity of Bonanno member "John", I believe the Bonanno members involved in the Morena case were all visiting from out of town, so inviting the Violis may have been to ensure the formal introduction as amico nostra took place before they left, especially if they felt there was LE scrutiny that may have prevented a later meeting of that nature. It would be important to make sure the new Bonanno member Morena was recognized as amico nostra by other amico nostra members in Canada. We should also note that, like many other Bonanno ceremonies as documented by LCNBios, this was a very informal verbal-only ceremony and the informal nature may have made it less questionable to invite a member of another family. (Side note, but from what's been released of the making ceremony, "John" was introduced simply as a Bonanno member. Zancocchio was a ranking member, I believe, during this time and would have been introduced with a title if it were him.)

Also, Joe Valachi's induction was attended by members of both the Bonanno and Lucchese families. There was a war-time alliance in place, but they were separate mafia families prior to the war and after, and to the best of my knowledge they were still formally distinct groups during the war but simply operating in conjunction. I have vague memories of seeing some other information about members of different groups attending in Sicily and possibly early US, but I'd have to dig quite a bit. EDIT: It may be a reach, but we even discussed in this very thread how Stefano Magaddino was believed to have been made into the Bonanno family in Chicago. EDIT 2: Los Angeles member Jimmy Fratianno attended and helped conduct an induction ceremony for the Cleveland mafia in the 1970s. EDIT 3: I believe Felice mentioned something about a Gambino ceremony in NYC that included Sicilian mafiosi in attendance, not sure it was ever substantiated though his info is almost always excellent. Along those lines, JD's info about Domenico Cefalu's 1990 induction describes his uncle Riccardo, a native of Sicily, being "allowed to attend" which despite the assumption that Riccardo is a Gambino member does lend itself to questioning based on the wording.

I would be more surprised to hear that members of multiple families were inducted in the same ceremony than to hear that members of multiple families attended a ceremony, especially since there is at least a little bit of precedent for the latter.

--

Anyway, this is a fun development! I love following the mafia and when new, thought-provoking stuff comes out. Let's enjoy the fact that it's the holiday season and we have fun stuff to theorize about and talk about since we're all into this little niche that gets little coverage these days. You want to talk about dying families? Think about how public interest in the mafia has died out over the years and be grateful you have people to discuss this with.
I agree, it's great to follow this. This is what I have been say is that maybe the Buffalo Family was not doing much of anything in Buffalo, with there major action being in Canada. I definitely think you got it correct about why the Viola Bros attended a Bonanno making ceremony, and the examples of this happening in the past. There is no need for people to over complicate this after your post that explains this. Moreno and the Violas were doing business together. Also if all this is found true, the part about Todaro Jr is very interesting. I wonder if he has been official boss since his dad died or since Falzone the Calzone died.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Pogo The Clown »

It’s really nothing new. Since I’ve been on the forums I have seen people try to resurrect the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rockford, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francesco families. The same arguments and reasons are always used and are always proven to be BS as times goes on. We saw the same pattern when it came to the massive overhyping of Detroit and Chicago back in the day. Now I guess it is Buffalos turn. Fantasy is always more fun and exciting than reality I guess. Hell I myself bought into a lot of it back in the early days. We just have to let this run its course again.


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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by NickleCity »

HEY, JOE, WELCOME BACK, BOSS: BUFFALO MOBSTER BIG JOE TODARO MIGHT NOT BE RETIRED AFTER ALL


From Scott Bernstein
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by antimafia »

NickleCity wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:03 pm HEY, JOE, WELCOME BACK, BOSS: BUFFALO MOBSTER BIG JOE TODARO MIGHT NOT BE RETIRED AFTER ALL


From Scott Bernstein
Scott got the information wrong about the audio and video evidence being for a Buffalo induction ceremony. I left him a comment on the webpage to which you linked--hopefully he'll correct the error soon.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Wiseguy »

Pogo The Clown wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:35 am It’s really nothing new. Since I’ve been on the forums I have seen people try to resurrect the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rockford, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francesco families. The same arguments and reasons are always used and are always proven to be BS as times goes on. We saw the same pattern when it came to the massive overhyping of Detroit and Chicago back in the day. Now I guess it is Buffalos turn. Fantasy is always more fun and exciting than reality I guess. Hell I myself bought into a lot of it back in the early days. We just have to let this run its course again.


Pogo
Yeah, I thought we were over this nonsense. As I said before, at least it's no longer cities like St. Louis or Milwaukee. So that's progress, I suppose.
NickleCity wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:03 pm HEY, JOE, WELCOME BACK, BOSS: BUFFALO MOBSTER BIG JOE TODARO MIGHT NOT BE RETIRED AFTER ALL


From Scott Bernstein
This is so fitting.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Snakes »

The Gangster Report article just seemed like a rehash of the Post article.

It feels like it would be easy to wait around for some type of confirmation one way or another considering this is an active case; I'm sure some type of court documents will be released sooner or later -- hopefully to prove or disprove some of the stuff getting tossed around the past couple of days.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by antimafia »

CabriniGreen wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 12:58 am @antimafia

If you go back to that thread on Gbb, I flat out told everyone arguing over whether there is or isnt a Buffalo is a waste of time until more info comes out. I said FOCUS ON THE VIOLIS AFFILIATION, it will shed light on the structures in Canada. I said that, I did, lol

Dont lump me in with Fuckin Rooster, I never interacted with rooster, lol

You frustrated me only because you were VERY insistent the Violis were Bonnano members, Almost smug, even.... And you are still kinda insistent, THAT I dont understand. One guy is Buffalo, one isnt ed ven made yet,.. End o f.c Story, No? okay....

Business or Blood, it says the Musitanos had contracts on the Violis AND Luppinos, but the hitman didnt want to take the contracts.

If they were Bonnanos then, why would NY give a green light on em, THEN? What did they do?
If the Rizzutos were still answering to NY, why would they be putting hits on guys in thier OWN family? For another of their CREWS?

Business or Blood has Vito meeting with Buffalo people in 2001.....


I asked you guys, why the Violis never showed up on any of the well researched charts. Silence, Crickets....

I asked WHO from Canada was represented when the Bonnanos had that big family meeting at the restaurant. Did anyone come down? I even asked if the Bronx capo represented the Canadian interest. Silence, crickets again....

So to me, they had to have been made recently, like VERY recently....

Again, what's with hostility? It reminds me of Hairy cause it seems outta nowhere....
CabriniGreen, I choose my words carefully. I repeat them to another poster if I think the poster misread them the first time.

When I repeated "If you assert--I'm not pointing you out personally--that the Violi brothers were Buffalo Family members at the time they attended Morena's induction into the Bonannos, then you are either in one of two camps...," did you ignore the "I'm not pointing you out personally" part that I even highlighted in red?

When I wrote "Nor was the banned poster The_Rooster on the Gangster BB board, with whom you may share a certain perspective (see farther below)," did you ignore reading the word "may"? Thankfully, you are nothing like The_Rooster. You ask questions a lot because you are capable of entertaining possibilities; he on the other hand dismissed other posters' evidence, opinions, and information if these last three did not agree with his. He rarely asked questions because, you know, he has all the answers. I thought the longer part of his quote that I posted jibed with your impressions of the state of today's Italian mafie, especially because you subscribe to John Dickie's Transatlantic Syndicate theory and you have been very curious about whether double affiliation exists--was I wrong?

After I posted a link here to the June 5, 2018 article by Anna Sergi in which she was the first person to publish information about the presence of the Violi brothers at the Bonanno induction ceremony, there was a lot of discussion here about their probable mafia affiliation to the Bonanno Family, especially because many of us were trying to parse what she meant by the "Todaro syndicate," which she also wrote is no longer part of LCN. I did not and could not declare the brothers to be made Bonannos because of the information I was privy to that I received on June 1: the Violi brothers may not be on the same page. (I posted a link to Sergi's article here on June 12.) The research, theories, and opinions that posters are sharing now about the presence of made guys from one family at another family's making ceremonies weren't shared back in June but are now because of the details that emerged this past Monday. Incidentally, to address your comment that Domenico Violi is a made Buffalo member and Giuseppe isn't even made yet, please note that the details from the articles published this past Monday do not state that the latter isn't made now--Giuseppe Violi could very well be a made member.

Before this past Monday, when I put forth the argument that the Violi brothers were made Bonannos, the best evidence I had was what I cited in Sergi's article--presence at a Bonanno making ceremony--the type of strong evidence that the FBI uses to determine whether someone is a made member of an American LCN group, with corroboration by witnesses at the ceremony of course being another very important criterion. The circumstantial evidence about the Violis' probable made-Bonanno status was the extent of their involvement, whether minimal or heavy, at various stages of the Montreal mob war--this involvement has been a topic discussed in numerous articles, a couple of books, lots of tweets, and many forum posts. When the Violis became the subjects of French-language articles almost two years to the day as a result of the presence of Domenico Violi and some Cotronis at a restaurant in Quebec in October 2016, I looked out for other articles about the Violi brothers and furthered my research into their presence in Quebec, as well as their relatives', since Rocco Violi's murder in October 1980. Like a very few posters on these forums, I sometimes prefer not to share my research, especially if I discover information that I consider, for example, to be a unique find, a treasure trove of new information, a base for building an important theory, or a pattern for constructing a timeline of events.

Long story short, the younger generation of Violis, whom we knew to have at least one criminal contact in Laval, Quebec since at least before October 1993, appeared to continue to cultivate such contacts in Quebec even after being arrested in 1995 in a major drug-smuggling case. The Violis have always had relatives in Quebec, and other reasons for visiting the province would have been to visit their father's grave. Since at least October 2016, I have catalogued more evidence of the Violis' involvement in crime alongside criminals in Quebec, especially those who, going back to at least the early 1990s, were either close to Frank Cotroni Sr. or in his circle.

I made a quick assessment after reading a few articles about the restaurant meeting in Quebec and, of course, the torching of the restaurant later on. For a number of reasons, I didn't think there was anything ominous or significant about the meeting. I didn't picture a group forming that would be Cotroni-Violi v2.0; for example, Paolo Violi and Frank Cotroni Sr. didn't like each other very much, and someone like Frank's son Michel had been inactive for many, many years. I felt that Domenico Violi was trying to network with these hapless Cotronis. Once some of us started making connections between Montagna's visits to Hamilton shortly after April 2009 and the evidence of the Violis' presence at the Bonanno induction ceremony, I then thought that Domenico met with the Cotronis to possibly recruit and groom some of them into becoming made Bonannos--just like the Violis--the idea being that if the New York Bonannos had the goal of making people in Canada and still had plans in place to take back control of Montreal, the Violis were some of New York's main men for accomplishing both goals.

With the details that emerged this past Monday, now of course I wonder whether Domenico Violi, whose mafia affiliation hasn't been confirmed by the FBI or the RCMP, was trying to recruit and groom the Cotronis for membership in the Buffalo Family. Earlier this year I was rereading the 2002 Bloodlines... book by Lamothe and Nicaso, and in it is a sidebar (p. 30) that references a 1985 U.S. Justice Department report that mentions that Frank Cotroni Sr. regularly met with Joe Todaro Sr.--makes you want to do more research about the interaction between the Buffalo Family and the Bonanno Family's Montreal crew after 1985, as there were many articles about this interaction in the 1960s and 1970s but then the information kind of almost stopped.

I often find it hard to explain to other posters that while my main area of research is the Canadian 'ndrangheta (in particular the Siderno Group), I have known for years that its structures, organizations, activities, and membership have been overestimated because of the overwhelming media coverage of the Italian 'ndrangheta, which in my estimation eclipsed the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as early as 2003 and does not appear to be losing the top spot anytime soon. Hypothetically speaking, even if I were to agree with you that one or both Violi brothers are made into Buffalo or you were to agree with me that one or both are made into the Bonannos, would we agree that the Violis are not 'ndrangheta members anymore? never were 'ndrangheta members? Over the years, a number of posters on various forums have listed Musitanos, as well as their relatives with different surnames, as Buffalo Family members--if the Musitano crime group members are also under Buffalo, do we say that they are not 'ndrangheta members? never were?

Because I can tell you right now that if we have evidence that there are currently no 'ndrangheta members in Hamilton (as well as Waterdown, Ancaster, Burlington, Beamsville, Guelph, and some other cities and towns in southwestern Ontario), there are going to be forum posters living in all corners of the globe who are going to slit their wrists upon learning that Hamilton is not a centre of 'ndrangheta power in Ontario because, well, there is no 'ndrangheta there.

The hitman you referred to is Ken Murdock. In the 1990s, before going to jail, Pat and Angelo Musitano plotted the murders of Buffalo Family members John Papalia and Carm Barillaro; Murdock killed the targets within months of each other in 1997. Numerous theories have floated around since then as to why Papalia and Barillaro were killed, and there has even been new information that came out this year that Buffalo was aware of the Musitano brothers' intentions and even authorized the killings. Only after November 2010 did I read an important article by Adrian Humpheys that was published June 1, 1998 in the Hamilton Spectator, which is where Humphreys was working at the time. In the article, the evidence about Domenico Violi's made status may appear to be scant--Pat Musitano was seen giving Violi a quick peck on each cheek--but that evidence is sometimes all a researcher like me has to go on. When Mafia inc. was first published in November 2010, it mentioned that Domenico Violi was very well respected in the Italian underworld in Ontario. For the most part, then, I had always been assuming and continued to assume that the Violi brothers and the Luppinos were 'ndrangheta members in the orbit of the Buffalo Family. So if Violi stated on tape that he was made into the Buffalo Family in January 2015, was he a made man before then? If yes, into what secret society was he made when Pat was seen initiating the kiss on the cheeks?

Because there are no proper organized-crime charts for Italian crime groups in Ontario, I have questioned the size of the Luppino-Violi group a number of times ever since the theory was floated that Paolo Violi's sons were seeking revenge for the murder of their father and uncles at the hands of the Rizzutos. I started to question the size even more when the Project OTremens bust was first reported--did the two brothers constitute the entire Luppino-Violi group as of November 2017, especially because their surviving Luppino uncles were quite old? But as often happens when Calabrian mafia members have been arrested, their power and influence only grows on these types of boards (not this one, thankfully), whereas when mafia members with Sicilian ancestry or loyalty to the Rizzutos had been killed and arrested in Quebec a number of years ago, there was always much discussion of the weakened state of the Rizzutos (very fair point) and the end of their dominance in Quebec (a fair point to an extent). While I have posted for many years about the internal friction within the Siderno Group in the Greater Toronto Area, I did not predict that the violence in the GTA, which has seen a number of criminals with Calabrian ancestry killed in the last five years, might have spilled over into Hamilton. Details from Monday's articles reveal that Rocco and Natale Luppino are still kicking around, and if Rocco has a sizable crew, I underestimated the involvement of the older Luppinos in organized crime.

I'm not sure whether I addressed your question about why the Violi brothers Domenico and Giuseppe never showed up on any organized-crime charts, but if you want to follow up with me, please don't hesitate.

Remind me again about which Bonanno meeting at a restaurant saw no Bonanno rep from Canada--I might have missed the post and, if I did, I'll try to answer.

I'm not hostile, CabriniGreen. Just trying to figure out how elaborate you want my answers to your questions to be and whether I have to sugarcoat my words in case you don't like my answers.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by scagghiuni »

Pogo The Clown wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:35 am It’s really nothing new. Since I’ve been on the forums I have seen people try to resurrect the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rockford, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francesco families. The same arguments and reasons are always used and are always proven to be BS as times goes on. We saw the same pattern when it came to the massive overhyping of Detroit and Chicago back in the day. Now I guess it is Buffalos turn. Fantasy is always more fun and exciting than reality I guess. Hell I myself bought into a lot of it back in the early days. We just have to let this run its course again.


Pogo
in this case there are the violi wiretaps, if he really said the buffalo family is active it's true, i doubt he would lie about it
i think the buffalo family is mainly active in canada (hamilton/niagara falls) that's why fbi thought it was defunct
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

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scagghiuni wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:53 pm
Pogo The Clown wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:35 am It’s really nothing new. Since I’ve been on the forums I have seen people try to resurrect the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rockford, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francesco families. The same arguments and reasons are always used and are always proven to be BS as times goes on. We saw the same pattern when it came to the massive overhyping of Detroit and Chicago back in the day. Now I guess it is Buffalos turn. Fantasy is always more fun and exciting than reality I guess. Hell I myself bought into a lot of it back in the early days. We just have to let this run its course again.


Pogo
in this case there are the violi wiretaps, if he really said the buffalo family is active it's true, i doubt he would lie about it
i think the buffalo family is mainly active in canada (hamilton/niagara falls) that's why fbi thought it was defunct
BINGO! scag. Still money to be made in Hamilton.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Pogo The Clown »

The FBI doesn't know about it and there is still money to be made in (insert city). Like I said the same arguements and reasons are always used.


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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by Wiseguy »

scagghiuni wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 2:53 pm
Pogo The Clown wrote: Wed Dec 05, 2018 11:35 am It’s really nothing new. Since I’ve been on the forums I have seen people try to resurrect the Milwaukee, St. Louis, Rockford, New Orleans, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles, Cleveland and San Francesco families. The same arguments and reasons are always used and are always proven to be BS as times goes on. We saw the same pattern when it came to the massive overhyping of Detroit and Chicago back in the day. Now I guess it is Buffalos turn. Fantasy is always more fun and exciting than reality I guess. Hell I myself bought into a lot of it back in the early days. We just have to let this run its course again.


Pogo
in this case there are the violi wiretaps, if he really said the buffalo family is active it's true, i doubt he would lie about it
i think the buffalo family is mainly active in canada (hamilton/niagara falls) that's why fbi thought it was defunct
Canada is certainly where the OTremens case took place, for the most part. The raids, those arrested, etc. But I'd venture to say the feds believe the family is inactive because it more or less has been for the past 20 years. Where has all the activity been before recently? And are we going to see ongoing cases going forward? Don't hold your breath.

I'm usually not one to get into the prediction game but I'm going to bet this Buffalo bust (and this week's news) will end up being a lot like the 1994 video gambling case involving the New Orleans family. By that point, the family was considered basically defunct by the feds. After some remaining New Orleans members got involved with a couple NY families in the video gambling operation, there was talk about the family being "resurrected." Sound familiar? Of course, a whole lotta nothing in New Orleans since then.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by willychichi »

I'd be very surprised if this turns out to be true in it's entirety. Obviously that would mean the Feds really dropped the ball here. And while I think the Feds are often more crooked in there tactics to put these guys in prison than the bad guys are themselves, they are not stupid. I'll wait to see what else comes out as this is just one report about a LCN Family that has supposedly been on life support for many years, but who makes excellent pizza and chicken wings. The Feds are just like everyone else they wanna catch the bad guys so they can go home and nuke their supper. ;)
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by John W »

I think the fact that released official court documents (including his own words on wiretap talking about being Underboss) state that Domenico Violi was made in 2015 and was named as the Buffalo Underboss in 2017 that you can take it to the bank that Buffalo has living LCN structure, also his brother having decide between being made into the Buffalo or Bonanno gives more weight to its existence.

On another note I’m not convinced that the commission exists just because documents say that 3 of the New York families were notified of the goings on with the Buffalo family, that doesn’t constitute the reamergemce of the commission in my opinion.
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Re: Buffalo/Ontario Mob Acitivity

Post by antimafia »

B. wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 9:32 pm I'm enjoying this new info and see no reason why it should be an emotional discussion or why anyone's ego needs to be invested in anything that's been written so far. Let's enjoy this and have a discussion, not ruin it with ill-natured back-and-forth arguments.

Members of Multiple Families Attending a Making Ceremony

I do agree it is strange that a Buffalo member may have attended a Bonanno ceremony, though remember that the "Cosa Nostra" mafia is one organization and families are branches. It raises some questions, but it's not necessarily some kind of jarring revolution in the way they operate, especially in an area like Canada with relatively few made members. It may have been done for convenience so that the Buffalo-Ontario members could be easily introduced to the new Bonanno member while the visiting Bonanno leader and members were still in town to make the formal introduction. Without knowing the identity of Bonanno member "John", I believe the Bonanno members involved in the Morena case were all visiting from out of town, so inviting the Violis may have been to ensure the formal introduction as amico nostra took place before they left, especially if they felt there was LE scrutiny that may have prevented a later meeting of that nature. It would be important to make sure the new Bonanno member Morena was recognized as amico nostra by other amico nostra members in Canada. We should also note that, like many other Bonanno ceremonies as documented by LCNBios, this was a very informal verbal-only ceremony and the informal nature may have made it less questionable to invite a member of another family. (Side note, but from what's been released of the making ceremony, "John" was introduced simply as a Bonanno member. Zancocchio was a ranking member, I believe, during this time and would have been introduced with a title if it were him.)

Also, Joe Valachi's induction was attended by members of both the Bonanno and Lucchese families. There was a war-time alliance in place, but they were separate mafia families prior to the war and after, and to the best of my knowledge they were still formally distinct groups during the war but simply operating in conjunction. I have vague memories of seeing some other information about members of different groups attending in Sicily and possibly early US, but I'd have to dig quite a bit. EDIT: It may be a reach, but we even discussed in this very thread how Stefano Magaddino was believed to have been made into the Bonanno family in Chicago. EDIT 2: Los Angeles member Jimmy Fratianno attended and helped conduct an induction ceremony for the Cleveland mafia in the 1970s. EDIT 3: I believe Felice mentioned something about a Gambino ceremony in NYC that included Sicilian mafiosi in attendance, not sure it was ever substantiated though his info is almost always excellent. Along those lines, JD's info about Domenico Cefalu's 1990 induction describes his uncle Riccardo, a native of Sicily, being "allowed to attend" which despite the assumption that Riccardo is a Gambino member does lend itself to questioning based on the wording.

I would be more surprised to hear that members of multiple families were inducted in the same ceremony than to hear that members of multiple families attended a ceremony, especially since there is at least a little bit of precedent for the latter.

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Anyway, this is a fun development! I love following the mafia and when new, thought-provoking stuff comes out. Let's enjoy the fact that it's the holiday season and we have fun stuff to theorize about and talk about since we're all into this little niche that gets little coverage these days. You want to talk about dying families? Think about how public interest in the mafia has died out over the years and be grateful you have people to discuss this with.
B.:

A thanks to you and other posters who are furnishing examples of protocols that are not always followed for making ceremonies.

Have you or others come across examples of inductions at which there were nonmade members?

Domenico Violi indicates he was straightened out by the Buffalo Family in January 2015. He and his brother, Giuseppe, were present at Vincenzo Morena's Bonanno induction ceremony in Canada in November 2015 per the court filings Anna Sergi accessed. I don't think anyone, not even Capeci, has let slip in which city the ceremony took place, unless Capeci tipped off that the city was Hamilton when he wrote the following in one of his Gang Land News columns: "Sources say Morena's trip from Bayside, Queens to Hamilton, Ontario, was a circuitous one that began with his Brooklyn Federal Court indictment along with Bonanno soldier Baldassare (Baldo) Amato and 20 other Giannini Crew members who were vying for big time roles with the Bonanno, Colombo and Gambino families."

I recall digging up information that Morena was living in Quebec on the day of his arrest on August 18, 2014, with my guess being he was living somewhere between Laval and Drummondville. I have guesstimated that Morena started co-operating sometime between that date and 24 days later on September 11. I wonder whether his becoming a police agent meant continuing to live and "work" in Quebec or moving to Ontario.

If the Violi brothers were invited to the Bonanno induction ceremony, then that means Giuseppe Violi, regardless of in which city it took place, got made after his brother did in January 2015 and before the November 2015 induction ceremony. Giuseppe must have made up his mind--did he choose the Buffalo Family or the Bonanno Family--or was his mind chosen for him? For him to have a choice might mean the Bonanno Family, not just the Buffalo Family, wanted to make him, a plan that perhaps Sal Montagna and New York had made years ago.

Peter Edwards wrote in his article published yesterday that the transcript filed in Domenico Violi's case includes an excerpt of the 2015 Bonanno induction ceremony but does not name Morena or "Bonanno family officials who were present at the ceremony." Further, Edwards writes: "Detailed transcripts of the agent’s activities in the Violi brothers’ cases were not made public, but some of his conversations were filed in American courts." We should consider ourselves lucky that we have been able to figure out at least four of the attendees' names at the ceremony (Morena, Damiano Zummo, Domenico Violi, Giuseppe Violi).

What I understand from B.'s post is that John Zancocchio could not have been present because Zummo would have addressed John LNU by his rank when making introductions? If John Zancocchio had been at the ceremony, would he have presided rather than Damiano Zummo? (Was Zancocchio the Bonanno consigliere in November 2015?)
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