So it's very possible Sciascia was introduced to the DeFilippos and even Bill Bonanno at this event given that Sciascia was already believed to be a mafioso at this time. I'd be curious if other mafia members from NYC or the US, particularly the Bonannos, attended the wedding aside from the Bill Bonanno caravan. Nicolo Alfano or anyone from his group wouldn't be a surprise.antimafia wrote: ↑Thu Jan 03, 2019 10:26 pm ^^^^
Sciascia did attend Vito Rizzuto’s wedding reception in Toronto; in fact, the very first photo in Renaud’s new book shows, from left to right, Sciascia; the bride; Rizzuto; and a woman whose face has been blurred out. The unidentified woman could be Sciascia’s second wife, Mary Elizabeth MacFadyen, whom he married on April 28, 1963 in White Plains, NY; however, the woman pictured has black/dark hair, as well as somewhat chubby arms—she doesn’t strike me as Sciascia’s Scottish-born wife.
I'd love to know what Sciascia's relationship was to Carmine Galante in the 1970s. It would seem that the Sciascia/Rizzuto takeover of Montreal in the late 1970s was done with Galante's approval given that he was still alive at the time and seems to have had the entire Bonanno "zip" faction under his thumb at the time. With Galante's heavy history in Montreal and Sciascia living in NYC, there must be much more there.
Great information here. However, I do wonder if the language of what consitutes a "mafia family" is getting a bit distorted once again, in the same way that I've pointed out before.antimafia wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 12:06 amfelice (our fellow TBHF poster) once suggested on the Real Deal forum that Cuntrera is the only Caruana-Cuntrera male relative who, by virtue of membership in the Montreal Mafia, was made in another mafia family as opposed to being made in the Caruana-Cuntrera Sicilian Cosa Nostra family. This might be true; it might not. As Antonio Nicaso often says in his talks and presentations, the Caruana-Cuntrera crime family is unique among Sicilian Cosa Nostra families because it is a blood family. Giovanni Falcone himself famously said, in Italian, that every male Caruana or Cuntrera in the clan was a made member of the family. (Are there other Sicilian CN blood families?)
Recall that early on in Nicaso and Lamothe’s 2002 Bloodlines book, Agostino Cuntrera is described in a sidebar on p. 2 as follows:
Agostino “Dino” Cuntrera (b. 1944) is a resident of Montreal, Quebec. He is variously described as the number-one member of the Caruana-Cuntrera in Montreal, or as the number-two man in the city, operating under Mafia godfather Nicolò Rizzuto.
In Renaud’s 2016 book, Cellule 8002 vs mafia, Cuntrera is identifed by Renaud as a made man in the Caruana-Cuntrera clan (p. 235) (I added the copy "[Paolo]" below for clarification):
À la suite de la disparition de [Paolo] Renda, Agostino Cuntrera, homme d’honneur et membre de la famille sicilienne des Caruana-Cuntrera –- une alliée indéfectible des Rizzuto –-, devient le nouveau chef du clan, mais pas nécessairement parce qu’il en a envie.
Incidentally, in the same book, Renaud lists Cuntrera as a (brief) leader of the Montreal Mafia, holding the "title" (my quotation marks) for June 2010. (insert following p. 36)
My understanding is that the Caruana-Cuntreras are made members of the Siculiana family and/or an official Sicilian mafia family in Venezuela. (A Sicilian expert could correct me if I'm wrong, but I have read before that the Sicilian mafia allowed the creation of a family in Venezuela / South America similar to how they used to have an officially recognized in family in Tunisia, but that's not that important to the point). The main point is that the Caruana-Cuntreras wouldn't be members of a mafia family exclusively created for their bloodline, but they would be members of the Siculiana or Veneuzela groups that happened to be made up primarily or even solely of their bloodline. For all practical purposes, they dominate these groups and their blood family might even comprise the entire membership, but that's technically a bit different than a mafia family being created exclusively for a certain bloodline.
Looking at someone like Joe Bonanno, virtually every male member of his immediate family was a mafia member in Sicily and the USA, with most of them clustered in the same mafia families. Father, son, uncles, grandfather(s), brother-in-law, cousins, second cousin(s), and that's not even getting into others related by marriage. In that sense, they were also a mafia group made up of a certain bloodline and their dominance spanned generations, cities, and continents but the mafia family wasn't formally based on this bloodline. The difference with the Caruana-Cuntreras is that they seem to make up a much larger percentage of their mafia family (or families) because the groups are smaller, but technically I believe it's the same.
In Sicily we also have heard of the sometimes-enforced rule of limiting the number of blood relatives in each mafia family to limit their dominance / power. What resulted is brothers being inducted into different families, which arguably could have made them even more powerful since they would then have representation in multiple groups. Aside from what Felice said about Agostino Cuntrera possibly being made into a different family (Bonanno Montreal), I don't know that this would relate to the Caruana-Cuntrera group, but it is interesting to consider since they are a group who had influence in multiple countries and possibly multiple mafia families. I've mentioned this before, but if Agostino Cuntrera were a Montreal Bonanno it could have actually given the Caruana-Cunterera group more influence in Canada than if he were a Siculiana member.
Something I've also wondered though is if Sicilian mafia members have been inducted in Montreal and Canada. We know that Sicilian mafia members have lived and operated in Canada outside of the formal Bonanno crew and it sure looks like Sicilian mafia members have transferred into the Bonannos at least historically, but you have to wonder if inductions in Montreal were even allowed in the city unless the member was being made into the Bonannos. If Agostino Cunterera came to Canada as a Sicilian mafia member, he may have transferred to the Bonannos because that was the path to power/influence in Montreal. Or if he immigrated as a non-member he may have joined the Bonannos because that was the only option, the path to power, or both.
Alfonso Gagliano is a good example in all of this because he likely came from the Caruana-Cuntrera orbit as a Siculiana native, though he doesn't appear to be a relative of the Caruana-Cuntreras that we know of. Since he is a Bonanno member and Agostino Cuntera may have been, it's an indication that it was either proper protocol for non-members from Siculiana to join the Bonanno family as Montreal residents and/or it was more advantageous (at least at the time of their induction).
