Toronto/Windsor

[CabriniGreen]

Going back to Toronto, it is significant that Termini Imerese and Vita had such a strong presence in the early Italian colonies of Toronto. Not because most people from those towns were mafia members or associates but because colonies of those compaesani were likely to bring the mafia network with them. Termitani could be confusing to criminology-minded researchers because they often represented the upper crust of the Alta Mafia -- businessmen, professionals, and politicians were as much part of the mafia there as anything else and just about every Termitano colony in the US was a major node in the Palermitan mafia network. An upper class Termitano businessman is as likely to have been a Cosa Nostra member as an arch-criminal, if not more.

I got no dog in this.... but I think Antimafia just said these people, (or at least their decendants?) really are not mafia. And are in fact, staunchly anti-mafia. He even posted they had issues with Blackhanders and the Banana Society right? And intermarried, as well as sold thier businesses to fellow Italians if there was no son to inherit it. The poster Bronx said Bensonhurst Sicilians did the same thing.....


Would a powerful mafiosi businessman be subject to Blackhand extortion attempts? Real question....

I think Tony said some similar stuff in the Chicago Zips thread... he pegged a bunch of Italian grocers as being early mafia. But they honestly just look like Italian grocers to me. Didn't see the point in arguing about it though.

What's the status of this Toronto network today?

[CabriniGreen]

Ah, okay. Having interacted in the Greater Toronto Area with many pachinesi and termitani in Italian-Canadian and Sicilian-Canadian cultural and business-professional organizations, I haven't encountered individuals with ancestry from either comune expressing contempt for the other group or for Sicilians with provenance from elsewhere, nor have I witnessed individuals putting on airs because of their particular ancestry. An antimafia stance comes through loud and clear from everyone I've met.

Below is part of what Lee Lamothe posted back on Dec. 1, 2006, 1:17 am, on Rick Porrello's old crime forum on AmericanMafia.com. Lamothe is referring to the Project Colisée bust that happened 9 days earlier.

The thirty in Toronto weren't touched by the Montreal project yet. The "crews" are actually relationships bound either by blood and marriage -- in the case of the Cammileris -- or by drug trafficking associations -- in the case of the Genua/Arcuris. In spite of what's been said recently in the media Toronto does have at least four Sicilian cells -- there seems to be a great effort on the part of people -- including so-called journalists -- to suggest Toronto isn't up to the task. Actually the Toronto Sicilians -- many of them from Trapani and Cattolica -- were deeply into the French and Pizza Connection cases and these guys are still around and are, I can tell you, tough old bastards.

Original link (no longer operational, nor archived on Wayback Machine): http://cybermessageboard.fatcow.com/rpo ... .php?t=155

Given that Lamothe was such a mob groupie and was obsessed with determining a criminal's formal mafia affilation -- this was before he started tending more and more to his wheelchair-bound wife, who was also a journalist -- I wonder whether today he would admit or clarify that individuals like Giacinto Arcuri, Peter Scarcella, and Antonino Cammalleri were "freelancers," as Anna Sergi was told in the last year by law enforcement here in Canada. One of my interpretations of this term "freelancer" -- maybe posters can reach out to her for her take -- is that 1. there have been Italian-Canadians in the Greater Toronto Area who have indicated they are part of the mafia when in fact they aren't (this behaviour is possible in Quebec too); and 2. law-enforcement agencies, true-crime writers, and organized-crime reporters have sometimes asserted that individuals are in the mafia who are not.

The relationships that individuals like Arcuri, Scarcella, and Cammalleri had to actual mafia members need to be carefully scrutinized but not embellished for the purpose of ascribing mafia membership to the former as well. In the case of Scarcella, you also have to look at how he seemed at times to be collaborating more often with the GTA-based Commissos of the Siderno Group than with Sicilian-Canadians or Sicilians in Ontario and Quebec.

This is a highly interesting post. I just recently replied to a post by Stubbs, that the Sicilians are a network of families, not just rackets. That it's based on families from Catollica and Siculiana, and the primary economic activity was narcotics.

Also interesting these Toronto Sicilians. Caruana people? Rizzuto people? A combo of both? Are they extensions of an existing group in Sicily? Or do they just have origins in Sicily, but a wholly newly formed thing?


Sergi wrote a paper that B. went into a little on mafia hybridization and Mafia " Brands" being appropriated by Italian criminals in certain territories where no mafia group established an absence of competition. In fact I forget exactly all of her reasons for this type of criminal behavior, I gotta go back and read..

Outside of the 'ndrangheta, the members in Canada are made members of mafia Families headquartered elsewhere. The mafia at its traditional core is a network of families and not just rackets, you are 100% right, but its primary activity isn't narcotics, it's everything they do. To mafiosi, there is no separation between who they are in the mafia and who they are in life. It's why an accountant / politician like Gagliano can be a member of the Bonanno Family -- he has to keep it quiet because he's part of a corrupt secret society, but there is no true "double life" in the mind of a mafia member, everything he does makes him what he is and is internally consistent.

I'm one of the cynics when it comes to "new organizations" and "mafia hybrids". What gets called a hybrid organization from the outside is just the network -- Calabrians, Sicilians, and others with their own groups co-mingle and it doesn't mean their individual groups change or become one. Members of the 'ndrangheta and Camorra can become Cosa Nostra members but their groups don't hybridize, they just become Cosa Nostra members and the network expands. Same for the idea of "new" Families forming -- if the "sixth Family" idea was true, then who recognized them? Rarely do mafia members try to form their own Families without permission and when they do, they are often left unrecognized and their place in the network weakens. We know recognition is still a factor in modern Canada with membership, as Todaro and the Luppinos agreed they didn't have to recognize a couple of Caruana-Cuntreras even though they had been formally introduced as "friends of ours", so you can infer the formation of a Family is still subject to this.

Something that gets lost in the Canada discussions is how small the membership is in Cattolica Eraclea and Siculiana. Sicilian Families, especially in Agrigento, are extremely small by North American standards. In 1993, Italian authorities said there were six affiliati of the Cattolica Eraclea Family and thirteen affiliati of Siculiana. This may not have been all of the members but it wasn't a fraction either and membership is by no means a given even for well-connected relatives. Some of the Cattolicensi and Siculianesi in Canada have been made with the Bonannos, Caracas, or the original Sicilian Families but I believe a lot of the mafia figures in this circle in Canada may be associates of those groups and it takes nothing away from them as participants in the network, it's just a detail worth mentioning if you're interested in the formalities of Cosa Nostra. There is an assumption sometimes that many of the Sicilians in Canada who weren't members of an American group must be members of the Sicilian mafia but there isn't supporting evidence for it in most cases and they are still beholden to the mafia regardless.

I can't remember offhand, but I don't think she meant hybrid organization, like a half mafia, half Ndrangheta family.

She meant American Bonnanos, reaching out to Canadian Buffalo guys plugged into a Ndrangheta network. She meant Pagliarelli guys being supplied by Naples based guys. Or the Corso Di Millie people doing business with the Barbaros. I think she meant a greater permeability amongst the mafias to better facilitate new business opportunities. She insinuated this occurs much more in basically what we would call "open" territories, where no one group "owns" the land, so to speak.

On the Sixth family thing.... yall just will beat a dead horse to death, resurrect it, and beat it some more....
They are not a recognized family. But they are most certainly an OC group that would qualify as a Mafia association in Italy. I mean Nigerians got charged with mafia association, and they obviously are not members of the mafia.To me, They actually are very much like an Agrigento Stiddari clan...

Canadas criminal landscape is similar to Rome, or Messina.

Also, many of these families are very similar in structure. I doubt the Nuvolettas were ever more than 10 guys...


On the part I bolded, it seems this is exactly what Antimafia is saying about these Termitani you pegged as early mafiosi...and they are NOT beholden to the mafia... if I'm wrong holler at me and let me know...

[CabriniGreen]

Outside of the 'ndrangheta, the members in Canada are made members of mafia Families headquartered elsewhere. The mafia at its traditional core is a network of families and not just rackets, you are 100% right, but its primary activity isn't narcotics, it's everything they do. To mafiosi, there is no separation between who they are in the mafia and who they are in life. It's why an accountant / politician like Gagliano can be a member of the Bonanno Family -- he has to keep it quiet because he's part of a corrupt secret society, but there is no true "double life" in the mind of a mafia member, everything he does makes him what he is and is internally consistent.

On the bolded part. I really don't know why yall always feel the need to say this. I mention an Italian and narcotics, and for whatever reason, the interpretation is like, ALL Italians deal drugs, everywhere, EXCLUSIVELY.
If I write an article on Camuso, and I say his primary ECONOMIC activity is construction racketeering, I didn't just say the Gambino Family, or the Italian mafia in its entirety is a construction gang. The guy who wrote the Takedown book, was not saying the mafia is a Garbage racketeering gang. He just took a particular interest in the Waste Racketeering. If I do a piece on the Batanesi agriculture subsidies, I'm not saying the mafia is JUST corrupt landowners....

You confused me with the double life thing. Like.... if they are doing it right, they kinda ARE living a double life, at least in the States with Rico and all. In Italy it's whatever....

[B.]

I can't remember offhand, but I don't think she meant hybrid organization, like a half mafia, half Ndrangheta family.

She meant American Bonnanos, reaching out to Canadian Buffalo guys plugged into a Ndrangheta network. She meant Pagliarelli guys being supplied by Naples based guys. Or the Corso Di Millie people doing business with the Barbaros. I think she meant a greater permeability amongst the mafias to better facilitate new business opportunities. She insinuated this occurs much more in basically what we would call "open" territories, where no one group "owns" the land, so to speak.

On the Sixth family thing.... yall just will beat a dead horse to death, resurrect it, and beat it some more....
They are not a recognized family. But they are most certainly an OC group that would qualify as a Mafia association in Italy. I mean Nigerians got charged with mafia association, and they obviously are not members of the mafia.To me, They actually are very much like an Agrigento Stiddari clan...

Canadas criminal landscape is similar to Rome, or Messina.

Also, many of these families are very similar in structure. I doubt the Nuvolettas were ever more than 10 guys...


On the part I bolded, it seems this is exactly what Antimafia is saying about these Termitani you pegged as early mafiosi...and they are NOT beholden to the mafia... if I'm wrong holler at me and let me know...

Okay, if she was just referring to the network of relationships then I agree with the information just not the terminology "hybrid organization" as the mafia is and has always maintained relationships inside and outside of the mafia, with other organized crime groups, etc. This is one of the reasons why American Cosa Nostra was able to integrate mainlanders relatively easily back in the 1910s/20s. When the Calabrian organization was brought into the Pittsburgh Family in the late 1910s, this was after a decade or more of close association between leaders like Gregorio Conti and the Calabrian leadership.

I don't see any evidence that Montreal mafia members are like the Stiddari. If anything, they would be like Rochester or Tucson who declared themselves a Family but it went unrecognized but we truly don't have any hard evidence of that either. The problem with Montreal is that we have a total lack of insider sources willing to fully open up and that's what is required to figure this out.

I didn't peg anyone as early mafiosi. I pointed out that the Termitani were a core part of the developing North American mafia virtually everywhere they appear and that they weren't always overtly criminal and often appeared to be the opposite. Termini Imerese produced men like the practicing surgeon Dr. Romano who became boss of Cleveland and powerful Pittsburgh member Salvatore Catanzaro aka the "Banana King" who was a fruit mogul, as well as possible early Boston boss Gaspare DiCola who was another wealthy fruit merchant. There are other examples we could discuss, especially in Chicago which it turns out was closely connected to the Termitani colony in Toronto. I didn't say "the Toronto Termitani businessmen were mafiosi and that's it", I brought it up because it's a strong potential lead.

I got no dog in this.... but I think Antimafia just said these people, (or at least their decendants?) really are not mafia. And are in fact, staunchly anti-mafia. He even posted they had issues with Blackhanders and the Banana Society right? And intermarried, as well as sold thier businesses to fellow Italians if there was no son to inherit it. The poster Bronx said Bensonhurst Sicilians did the same thing.....


Would a powerful mafiosi businessman be subject to Blackhand extortion attempts? Real question....

I think Tony said some similar stuff in the Chicago Zips thread... he pegged a bunch of Italian grocers as being early mafia. But they honestly just look like Italian grocers to me. Didn't see the point in arguing about it though.

What's the status of this Toronto network today?

A powerful mafia businessman could be subject to Black Hand extortion and there are examples of it happening. These situations were often not as black and white as they appear.

The Termitani network really faded in the US during the eras we're more familiar with. It is the 1800s and early 1900s when they look to have been influencing the shape of the North American mafia. This is also when Termitano politician Raffaele Palizzolo was in power working as a direct aide if not member/leader of the mafia back in Sicily and the Alta Mafia roots of the North American Termitani go back to Sicily.

No idea what the status of this network would be today, as there's not much reason to believe it survived and as of now it's only a lead and not a definitive branch of the early North American mafia. We see the Vita side of it did continue with major heroin traffickers like Baldassare Accardi and men from neighboring Salemi like the Zazas and Aguecis playing a big role but that looks to have faded decades ago. Settimo Accardi himself, arguably one of the most powerful Vitese in mafia history, allegedly spent time in Canada while trying to re-enter the US and the ongoing mafia links between Vita and Toronto suggest to me that compaesani colony had early mafia ties in Toronto which could suggest Termini did as well.

[antimafia]

[Paolo Orlando’s] [s]on Lawrence's Province of Ontario Registration of Death indicates that he was a restaurant owner before retiring.