Ranieri, said to be leading Toronto-area operations of the Mafia family of the late Vito Rizzuto, and associate Lucas Day are wanted men.
A manhunt is on for a Bolton man who, according to police, heads the Toronto-area operations of the Mafia family of the late Vito Rizzuto of Montreal.
Daniele Carlo Ranieri, 30, of Bolton, and his associate Lucas Day, 41, of Toronto are described by police as armed and dangerous.
Police couldn’t locate them when they conducted a series of raids across the GTA that resulted in charges against five men.
Police said Ranieri took over the Rizzuto operation in Toronto in 2013 after the murder of his former associate, Juan Ramon Fernandez, also known in the GTA as “Joey Bravo.”
Fernandez (a.k.a. Joey Bravo) and his associate, Fernando Pimental, formerly of Mississauga, were shot dead in Sicily in April 2013.
Ranieri and Fernandez served time together in prison between 2009 and 2011, when Ranieri was serving time for gambling offences and Fernandez was in prison for a series of drug offences.
Ranieri was given a further 60 days for threatening two guards in Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston in 2009.
Police allege that Ranieri took over Fernandez’s duties after the murder, with involvement in extortion, fraud, obstruction of justice, drug trafficking and firearms offences.
Raids were conducted against the alleged crime group this week by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, a task force also involving the RCMP and OPP.
Police put a bold face on things on Wednesday afternoon, even though Ranieri and Day remained on the run.
While describing the two as armed and dangerous, police did not indicate the precise charges they are facing.
“This is a highly successful example of how police agencies work together where matters of public safety go beyond the border of one city or region,” York Regional Police Chief Eric Joliffe said in a prepared statement. “We’re very proud of our partnership with surrounding police services, and we continue to work together towards the common goal of safe communities for everyone.”
Vito Rizzuto was considered by police to be Canada’s most powerful mobster when he died suddenly in a Montreal hospital a year ago, at the age of 67.
He frequently visited the GTA, where he had relatives, friends and business associates.
There was considerable criticism at the time that no autopsy was conducted, since he was in the midst of a lengthy and bloody mob war.
GTA organized-crime expert Antonio Nicaso suggested immediately after Rizzuto’s death that his body should have been checked for poison, especially since one of Rizzuto’s enemies, Giuseppe (Ponytail) De Vito, had been killed with cyanide in Donnaconna Penitentiary near Quebec City six months earlier.
In the weeks before his death, Rizzuto appeared in good health as he celebrated the Christmas season with friends, several times until the wee hours of the morning.
Rizzuto’s death last year came amid at mob war that stretched from Montreal to the GTA, to Mexico and Italy. It began after Rizzuto was dispatched to a Colorado prison in August 2006 to serve five and a half years for his role in three gangland slayings in Brooklyn.
As Rizzuto sat in prison, his eldest son, Nick. Jr., was murdered in December 2009, and his father was shot dead in front of Rizzuto’s mother and sister in the kitchen of the family home by a sniper in November 2010.
A brother-in-law, close friends and several business associates were also among those murdered while Rizzuto was in prison.
When Rizzuto was released in October 2012, bodies of his enemies started to fall.
A month after Rizzuto flew into Toronto from Colorado, a gunman ended the life of his one-time ally, Joe Di Maulo, 72, who was rumoured to have strayed from the Rizzuto family fold while he was in prison.
In November 2013, wealthy Montreal baker Moreno Gallo, 68, was shot dead in an Acapulco pizzeria.
Gallo was murdered three years to the day after Nicolo Rizzuto Sr.’s murder.
In the GTA, reputed hit man Salvatore (Sam) Calautti, 50, and his longtime associate James Tusek, 35, were shot dead after attending a stag for a bookie at a Vaughan banquet centre in July 2013.
Calautti was the prime suspect in the unsolved murder of Vito Rizzuto’s former right-hand man, Gaetano (Guy) Panepinto, in Toronto in November 2000.
Panepinto, a fitness club owner who ran a discount casket business on St. Clair Ave. W., was shot a half-dozen times as he drove his maroon Cadillac through the intersection of Laurel Ave. and Bloor St. W., near Highway 427.
Last April, Rizzuto revenge was suspected in the murder of GTA mobster Carmine Verducci in a Woodbridge cafe.
Verducci, nicknamed “Ciccio Formaggio” for his love of cheese, was a force in the GTA underworld since the 1970s.