Adrian Humphreys |
The latest victim of Montreal’s mob violence — shot dead by masked gunmen Monday in a Rivière-des-Prairies restaurant — was recently named in court in Italy as a member of the rebellious faction of mobsters fighting to overthrow Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto.
Antonino Callocchia, usually called Tonino or Tony, was hit Monday afternoon by multiple bullets from one or more masked gunmen who then fled.
It was the second attempt on Mr. Callocchia’s life; on Feb. 1, 2013, he was seriously injured in a similar ambush in a restaurant in Laval.
Born Nov. 6, 1961, his ties to the Mafia in Montreal have been documented for decades. Part of his underworld strength came through his link by marriage to the Armeni clan of well-known mob-linked drug traffickers. One of his first arrests, according to Quebec court records, was in 1985 alongside four members of the clan, although he was acquitted.
He was also arrested in a landmark money laundering and drug trafficking case in Montreal in 1994 alongside notable mobsters and lawyers who helped invest mob money linked to Mr. Rizzuto.
Why, Pete? Why?”
Sprawled across the front seat of a rental car in a ramshackle construction yard in Sicily and bleeding from a dozen bullet wounds, Juan Ramon Fernandez did not beg for his life or cry or shout or pray. A perfect gangster knows when and how he is going to die. He spent his final breath only voicing surprise at who was standing over him.
“Why, Pete? Why?”
The retort from the gunman at the open car door, nursing an injury of his own from the frantic ambush, was to lift his pistol once more, aim at Fernandez’s head and fire a finishing round.
Fernandez did not learn the answer to his question that spring night in 2013 but a court in Palermo is now filling in the blanks.
But before his death, the enigmatic man was moving from the criminal sidelines and becoming more central to the city’s underworld.
The move brought increased scrutiny over his standing and allegiance in the Mafia war that has rocked Montreal — a sweeping power struggle between Mr. Rizzuto and rebels trying to oust him when he was imprisoned in the United States in 2006. The war went badly against the Rizzutos until the boss returned to Canada in October 2012 and fought to reclaim his position of power.
Some saw Mr. Callocchia as a Rizzuto loyalist and even a possible successor to Vito Rizzuto — who died of natural causes in December 2013. His involvement in a case of extortion against a woman with ties to Raynald Desjardins, a gangster named in Italian court as the leader of the rebellious faction, furthered that view.
Others saw his closeness to Calabrian dissidents unfriendly towards the Sicilian-born Rizzuto as well as to Joseph Di Maulo, an influential Mafia boss killed in 2012, likely for not remaining loyal to Mr. Rizzuto, as a sign he too had strayed.
Mr. Callocchia, however, was subject to a recent assessment by the anti-Mafia police in Sicily, the birthplace of the Mafia, as they investigated the murders in Palermo of two mobsters from Canada.
Police in Italy are analyzing reams of secretly recorded telephone calls made last year by a mobster from Canada who was living in Sicily. The chatty mobster, Juan Ramon Fernandez, was close to Mr. Rizzuto for decades and spoke disrespectfully of Mr. Callocchia when talking to other Rizzuto loyalists.
Mr. Fernandez called him “a f———ing idiot,” according to wiretap transcripts obtained by the National Post.
A few days after the 2013 attack on Mr. Callocchia, Mr. Fernandez phoned for an update from a friend in Montreal, identified in court as Antonio Carbone who was described as a veteran Montreal mobster close to the Rizzutos.
The two spoke of the attacks against enemies of Vito Rizzuto; Mr. Callocchia was named on a list of perceived opponents.