New book _The Wolfpack_; Canadian OC landscape

[antimafia]

As I continue to read the book, I hope to make at least a few posts in this new topic I've created to discuss some of the book's content and what the content is saying about the ever-changing Canadian organized-crime landscape. I'm not going to provide any chapter summaries. Anyone else reading the book should feel free to post here, and of course all questions are welcome.

The book's author's, Peter Edwards and Luis Horacio Nájera , were interviewed by the editor-in-chief of media outlet Canadaland today -- farther below is a link to the written item that accompanies the podcast interview. The direct link to the podcast is

https://omny.fm/shows/cndlnd/millennial-mobsters

but I urge you to read the item found at

https://www.canadaland.com/overview-of- ... ss-canada/:

An Overview of Organized Crime Across Canada.
How different cities figure in the criminal underworld, as explained by the authors of The Wolfpack

[antimafia]

The book's *authors, Peter Edwards and....

[antimafia]

Back on October 25, in another thread, Moscone65 and I exchanged just a couple of posts re: Tony Fiorda (nickname: "Scratch") and Joey Catroppa during a discussion of the upcoming publication of the book -- go to viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4122&p=210589&hili ... pa#p210589 for Moscone's last post, which I've quoted below.

That’s interesting, yes I remember saying that catroppa was with Musitano + commisso which makes sense that he was with Tony fiorda. The thing I am not sure about is tony fiordas death linked to catroppas murder? I’m thinking maybe not but who knows.

Fiorda was killed in the west end of Toronto on November 4, 2019; the book reveals -- for the first time, as far as I know -- that at the time of his murder, he was accompanied by Catroppa.

Catroppa would later be murdered in Cancún on September 27, 2020.

In book chapter 37 titled "Scratched," the authors write that Fiorda imported cocaine from western Mexico; that he was "frequently approached by businessmen who wanted bad things done to their rivals" and that "[o]ften, he was accused of cheating the very people who hired him"; that he had developed a reputation for skimming cocaine loads belonging to other people; and that police had started warning him as early as 2017 that "there were credible threats against his life."

The chapter continues as follows:

* In Fall 2019 (which is when Fiorda was killed), there had been discussion in the Greater Toronto Area about someone skimming coke that was being imported from Mexico. The authors do not give dates as to when this discussion occurred, which would be important to know if we're trying to piece together a sequence of events that might have been related to Fiorda's murder and that possibly explain why he was killed.

* At the time of this discussion, there was a story going around about two loads of coke destined for Toronto that "had left the same southern source." The first batch, which was of very, very high purity, stopped for a short time in Newfoundland. The second batch, which should also have been of the same purity, got to Toronto in a very diluted state.

* About three weeks before Fiorda was killed, the skimming of loads was the main topic (only topic?) being discussed at a meeting of outlaw bikers that took place in Toronto. The book states:

The Hells Angels were responsible for handling transportation to the East Coast and Montreal for the Mexicans, and they were concerned that the "purity issues" might piss off their Mexican partners. As Nick Nero had learned years before, the Mexicans were excellent at testing cocaine. They were also skilled at finding out the source of the skimming and ruthless about eliminating the problem. This time, the problem seemed to be Scratch.

Perhaps he wanted to address those rumours on Monday, November 4, 2019, when he went for lunch in Mississauga, [sic: Etobicoke] next to the Sherway Gardens mall, shortly before 1:00 p.m. He was near the corner of North Queen Street and the Queensway, a few kilometres east of the curvy condo towers where the people from the Sinaloa Cartel involved with Nick Nero had stayed while in the GTA. It was also across from the street from the Starbucks where former Hells Angels enforcer Paris Christoforou (part of the hit team that shot and paralyzed civilian Louise Russo in 2004 at a North York sandwich shop) had been shot himself--but not killed--as he sat in a parked vehicle in August 2018.

Tony Scratch was a slow-moving target as he crossed the parking lot that afternoon. Walking with him was Joseph Catroppa, an ally of the Musitano brothers of Hamilton who had run afoul of Nick Nero and the Wolfpack. It had offended Nero that the Musitano brothers expected him to pay them a tax to move drugs through the Niagara Region.

...

Catroppa was somehow uninjured.

There was an understandably queasy mood at Tony Scratch's funeral home visitation. Was this a move solely against Scratch, or was it the first of a series of moves against GTA mobsters in general? At the visitation, 'Ndrangheta members confiscated a funeral home security video of the attendees, hoping it might give them some clues.

Many of Scratch's Toronto enemies assumed it was the Mexican cartels who'd caught up with him. It didn't take a huge problem for the cartels to decide it was time to end a life on their own turf, so maybe the same kind of thinking was at work here. There were plenty of reasons, big and small, to shoot Scratch that day. The actual cause might never be known. In the meantime, Scratch's rivals didn't seem much troubled by the thought of a powerful foreign influence asserting itself on their own turf....

[Moscone65]

Interesting, working in some storage warehouses in Woodbridge, I have come across a couple of greasy looking Mexican dudes, but they seemed to be almost like Cumpari with the italian guys running the warehouse. I must note though that the warehouse owners were connected to Sicilians not calabrese. The commisso reputation for ripping people off seems to be catching up to them, however the part regarding the video tapes are interesting. Those guys may have been lower level guys trying to find out what happened to scratch, I doubt very much that the higher level calabrese weren’t informed before hand.

[Moscone65]

Also, they were not Mexican guys here working on a visa, they were definitely something else, not sure what. Woodbridge is a relatively small community where a lot of the people know someone that knows a relative or friend, it all overlaps, so a lot of the time the lower level calabrese and Sicilians share a lot of contacts and friends.

[antimafia]

The book doesn't go into as much detail about the funeral-home visitation as Peter Edwards did when he gave an in-person talk in the month following Fiorda's murder. You might recall our exchange at viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4122&p=188685&hili ... do#p188685.

So either Edwards later found out that it was not a senior 'ndrangheta member who had the security footage pulled or a decision was made not to mention this fact about the requestor, a decision perhaps made the authors -- most likely Peter -- but maybe by the publisher.

Incidentally, the book does not mention any rift between the Commissos and the Caruana-Cuntrera group in the GTA; rather, the book repeats what Edwards and Nicaso wrote in Business or Blood about the cozy, amicable relationship in the GTA between the 'ndrangheta and some Sicilian crime groups. In addition, in The Wolfpack, chapter 8 (titled "Greed") provides the following new details about the 50th-anniversary celebration of Paolo Cuntrera and wife Antonina Caruana in 2011 (but, interestingly, does not mention Paolo Cuntrera) and about Martino Caputo:

* Caputo was living in Niagara-on-the-Lake when he was doing business with Nick Nero. Caputo was not a member of the Wolfpack, but Nero was. The book states that Caputo "was among the crème de la crème of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) Mafia world who attended a February 11, 2011, fiftieth wedding anniversary at a Vaughan banquet hall for an elderly couple connected to the Cuntrera-Caruana crime family."

* Other attendees were underworld guests from Venezuela and Italy. (The book also mentions guests came from Toronto and Montreal, but we already knew that.) Recall that in Business or Blood, the book's authors wrote that among the 300 attendees were representatives from Hamilton, York Region, and Ottawa (all in Ontario); representatives from Montreal and Sherbrooke (both in Quebec); several members from the Commisso crime group; and hitman Sam Calautti (who is also mentioned in the new book as being a guest).

In one of my next posts about the book, I'm going to mention Peter Scarcella's in-prison mentoring of Nick Nero, as well as the theory that Scarcella wanted to work for Nero, based upon the former's request upon coming up for parole that he be transferred to a halfway house in the St. Catharines (Ontario) area.

[motorfab]

It's only focused on the Ontario area ? Is it good ? I ask because I find that Edwards has a tendency to exaggerate certain facts in my very humble opinion (for the little that I have read of him)

[OcSleeper]

It's only focused on the Ontario area ? Is it good ? I ask because I find that Edwards has a tendency to exaggerate certain facts in my very humble opinion (for the little that I have read of him)

I'm around chapter 30 so I haven't finished it yet but I've enjoyed it so far. To me the first half of the book kinda seemed more like a Nick Nero story with a focus in Ontario that would briefly jump to BC or Montreal. From what I've read already and saw when I skimmed the index there isn't a whole lot of info on the Mafia side of things.

All in all like I said I've enjoyed the book so far. It's given a nice look into players outside of our typical guys like the Rizzutos and Siderno Group.

[CabriniGreen]

My opinion of Nero plummeted reading the book. He was an ametuer playing in the big leagues because he managed to hit a nice lik.

The whole coke diluting thing made very little sense to me. The fact that they couldnt trace who was doing it.
They didnt even have the expertise to properly test the coke.
You need time and opportunity to do that to multiple kilos. Dudes were just amateurs, a couple times I got the impression it might just be the Mexicans taking advantage. Maybe they saw who they were dealing with, and saw easy marks.

You read about Domenico Pelle getting ripped off by Albanians, they just TOOK the coke. And took off somewhere. This whole dilute the coke thing....strange.
How could a guy like Fiorda expect to get away with it?

[Cheech]

Is it worth reading?

[antimafia]

Is it worth reading?

I’m finding it worthwhile but I don’t think most members of these boards are interested in the subject. Nevertheless, I still plan to post in this thread.

Accused Hells Angel killer almost faints in court

https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/high ... rt-4811571

[antimafia]

Crime reporter Peter Edwards talks cartels and cocaine as new book with Niagara connections hits shelves

https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ent ... elves.html

[antimafia]

The Wolfpack: Niagara’s “Millennial mobsters”

https://thevoiceofpelham.ca/2021/12/11/ ... -mobsters/

[antimafia]

How Mexican Cartels Settled in Canada

https://insightcrime.org/news/how-mexic ... ed-canada/

[antimafia]

Les jeunes loups, de Peter Edwards et Luis Horacio Najera : la relève du crime

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premi ... cio-najera