Calautti fed off the adrenalin of tough jobs, and the thought of avenging his friend Napoli made the idea of a hit on Panepinto doubly appealing. Aside from the Loiero hit, Calautti was already a suspect in a string of other mob killings and considered a made man in the ’Ndrangheta. He worked for three GTA families, all of whom were considered strongly opposed to Vito’s stranglehold on Montreal and recent moves in Ontario. Shortly before 8 p.m. on Tuesday, October 3, 2000, Panepinto was driving his maroon Cadillac on Bloor Street West, just west of Highway 27, when a van pulled alongside with its passenger-side window rolled down. Seconds later, the Cadillac rolled through the intersection with Panepinto slumped over the steering wheel, bleeding from shotgun pellets and six bullets in his shoulder, chest and abdomen. His murder was never officially solved, but it wasn’t considered a mystery. Suspicions stopped at Calautti and a close associate.
Vito appeared at the Toronto funeral home to pay his respects, even though he had sent Panepinto to his death. Perhaps he even felt bad, as he didn’t have a personal grudge against the dead man, who trusted him until the end. Accompanying Vito from Montreal were Paolo Renda, Frank Arcadi and Rocco Sollecito. The murder marked a rare lapse in Vito’s judgment, and a subtle turning point in his fortunes. It would have been far better to take action himself against Panepinto if he needed to sacrifice his lieutenant. By bending to the pressure of the Italian team that visited him, Vito had further legitimized the ’Ndrangheta on the streets and undermined his own security.
CHAPTER 18
Man in the shadows
Guy Panepinto’s replacement on the streets of Toronto came in an equally large and powerful package. Juan Ramon Paz Fernandez was alternately known on the streets as James Shaddock, Joey Bravo and Johnny Bravo. He shared Panepinto’s affection for the gym and once posed for a photo with wrestler Hulk Hogan, beaming like a schoolboy.
Fernandez had been ushered into Vito’s circle in Montreal by Raynald Desjardins a decade earlier. When police investigated Agostino Cuntrera between November 1990 and April 1991 for shaking down pizza parlours, Fernandez showed up on wiretaps as a principal aquaintance of the Sicilian Mafioso.
Like Vito, Fernandez was capable of charm and threats in Italian, Spanish and English. Also like Vito, he had been brought to Canada as a child. Born in the fishing port of Ribeira in Galicia, Spain, Fernandez was just five years old when he first set foot in Canada. He graduated from youthful break-and-enters for jewellery, cash and credit cards to being the driver for mob boss Frank (The Big Guy) Cotroni. Fernandez stood out for his movie-star good looks, volcanic temper and black belt in karate, which let him act out his aggressions in an efficient and deadly manner. His temper put him behind bars when in 1977 he punched his seventeen-year-old stripper girlfriend in the throat so hard that it killed her, after she reportedly refused to have sex with one of his associates. At age twenty-two, he was looking at twelve years in prison for her death. In an odd way, the sentence proved to be a career boost. It was behind bars that he met and impressed Desjardins.
He was back behind bars in 1991 for trafficking three kilos of cocaine, and somehow found the time to become engaged. When Fernandez was married in Archambault prison in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines on April 10, 1992, Desjardins and his brother Jacques were among the guests. Vito was invited too, but authorities considered him too notorious to allow into the prison.
In 1994, Fernandez was in maximum-security Donnacona penitentiary near Quebec City. Somehow, he was able to arrange for strippers to visit and liven up the cellblocks. It was a telling display of power, although running strippers into prisons was not without precedent. Lawyers have the power to designate legal assistants, meaning they can send in assistants who specialize in removing their briefs rather than drafting legal ones.
While doing his time, Fernandez remained an unrepentant gangster. At Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines maximum-security prison, fifty kilometres northwest of Montreal, he was led into a room with Hells Angels hit man turned informer Serges (Skin) Quesnel by a compliant guard. Quesnel would later tell author Pierre Martineau that he feared for his life, until he learned that Fernandez wasn’t after his blood. Instead, Fernandez wanted Quesnel to corrupt another prisoner who was to be a witness in an upcoming Mafia trial for a promise of fifty thousand dollars. The bid failed when Quesnel told authorities. This brought furious words from Fernandez and Quesnel was moved out of his reach.
Fernandez had never taken out Canadian citizenship, remaining a Spanish national. His sentence served, he was ordered deported, but remained in Montreal on appeal, selling high-end vehicles and running a juice bar. Soon police were seeing him in the company of Vito, walking a few steps behind, as a trusted associate but not close to an equal. When finally ordered deported in 1999, Fernandez reportedly boasted: “I’m going to show them how I dance.”
He danced around Canadian border security, returning to the country within months. He was deported again in 2001, and this time it took him only two months to sneak back. Now known in the GTA by the cartoonish moniker Johnny Bravo, Fernandez had the confidence and friendship of both Vito and Desjardins. He must have thought that such friendships would make him doubly safe.
In January 2001, Vito called a meeting at a north Toronto restaurant, where invited guests included a broad cross-section of Mafia groups, including members of the ’Ndrangheta, the Gambino crime family, the Buffalo mob and local Sicilian mobsters. Vito recognized a power vacuum in the Toronto area, and he was going to fill it with help from associates. He had clearly broken away from the Bonanno crime family and wanted to go from being a strong player in Ontario to the province’s dominant force. It went without saying that no one person at the table had the power to stop him.
Vito pushed into Ontario, setting up an ecstasy ring in the Toronto, Mississauga, Bolton and Barrie areas and a hydroponic marijuana grow operation on a farm outside Barrie. At the same time, Vito oversaw the formation of a high-tech gambling ring that worked through video rental stores, bookies with portable computers and gas stations and took in some two hundred million dollars’ worth of sports bets per year in Hamilton, Ottawa, the GTA and Montreal for wagering on professional football, basketball and hockey, US college sports and horse racing.
Vito’s point men were Stefano (Steve) Sollecito, a son of his lieutenant Rocco Sollecito, and Joe Renda, who wasn’t directly related to Vito’s brother-in-law/cousin, Paolo. Fernandez was in and out of the country so much at this point that he could not be counted on to maintain a daily presence in the Toronto area. He also had more of a mind for violence than for business. Joe Renda had recently come up from New York City, where he had been on good terms with Vito’s friend Gerlando (George from Canada) Sciascia, a Bonanno member and former Montrealer who acted as an emissary of sorts between the Rizzutos and the New York families. It was Sciascia who ran his hand through his silver hair to signal the start of gunfire in the Three Captains Murders. Then Sciascia ran afoul of John Gotti by criticizing a senior Gambino member for his drug use. The worst part about his criticism was that it was wholly true. That made it embarrassing for the Gambinos, and so Big Joey Massino decided to paper things over by having Sciascia killed. Vito could never forgive Big Joey for that betrayal. He had seethed and held his tongue when Salvatore Vitale travelled up to Montreal after the Sciascia murder and lied that Sciascia was likely murdered because of a drug deal gone wrong. Perhaps Vito already suspected that Vitale had been part of the plot to kill his friend. Maybe it sounded like an insult to Vito when he was offered Sciascia’s old post as the Bonannos’ Montreal emissary, because when the Americans met with Vito in Montreal, a chair was pointedly left empty in the place where Sciascia would have sat.
One of Vito’s Toronto contacts at the time was Carmelo Bruzzese of Maple, in York Region. Bruzzese had no full-time job, although he alternately told authorities that he sold cars, furniture and wood. He had lived on and off in Canada since the early 1960s, but remained an Italian citizen. He became a permanent reside
nt of Canada in May 1974 and married a year later, raising a family of five with his wife. Despite having no discernible income, he lived well in both countries, driving a BMW in Canada that was not his own. Pressed by immigration authorities, Bruzzese said he couldn’t immediately identify the car’s legal owner because the name was Iraqi and difficult to remember. His medical prescriptions were filled from the health plan of an acquaintance. He had homes in Italy and Canada and plenty of cash, but none of that cash was traceable. Like Vito, Carmelo largely stayed out of the public eye.
Italian authorities concluded Bruzzese held a senior rank in the ’Ndrangheta, although he had no criminal convictions in Canada or Italy. Bruzzese’s villa in Italy had a custom-built, remote-controlled hiding spot behind the bar. Pressed about it by immigration officials, he described it as a storage space for valuables, such as wine, money and legal firearms.
Police might not have paid much attention to Bruzzese if not for his son-in-law, Antonio Coluccio, whose brothers Giuseppe and Salvatore were considered major international ’Ndrangheta drug traffickers. Their father, Vincenzo, had been a member of the ’Ndrangheta who was murdered in Italy in a Mafia war when Antonio was less than two years old.
Italian police listened in on Christmas Eve 2004, as Bruzzese took a call from Vito’s lieutanant, Compare Frank Arcadi, who was about to visit Vito in jail in Montreal shortly after his arrest. Bruzzese asked Rizzuto’s lieutenant to send the jailed Mafia leader “my best regards,” according to the wiretap transcripts.
Earlier that year, Italian police had intercepted a conversation between Vito and Bruzzese in which Vito had spoken reassuringly to the Calabrian grandfather. Vito spoke confidently of the future, saying, “There is no problem.”
CHAPTER 19
Steel bracelets
Juan Ramon Fernandez was stylishly dressed when he appeared in Newmarket court in June 2004, wearing a tailored grey suit and open-collared black shirt. He was a vain man and this was a public appearance. Sitting aloof in the body of the court was his girlfriend, a former table dancer dressed smartly in a sleek, bronze-coloured skirt suit.
His trip to court marked the culmination of the police investigation into the murder of Vito’s former Toronto lieutenant Guy Panepinto. The investigation was dubbed Project RIP, a not so subtle allusion to the dead man’s discount casket business. Panepinto’s killers were never charged, but the investigation provided enough evidence to bring Fernandez to court for conspiring to murder one of Panepinto’s crew, Constantin (Big Gus) Alevizos, over a rip-off. That murder plot fell apart when Fernandez contracted a police undercover officer to do the hit. There was also a convincing case from prosecutors that Fernandez had conspired to move a thousand kilos of cocaine with Vito and Woodbridge Hells Angels.
Fernandez didn’t flinch that day when Mr. Justice Joseph Kenkel hit him with a twelve-year prison term. However, the mobster became visibly upset when he heard that he might not get back all of his jewellery, including bracelets, a gold chain with a cross and a Rolex watch that was said to be a gift from Vito himself. Fernandez was obviously proud of his connection to Vito, and police bugs picked him up referring to the Montrealer alternately as “V,” “the old man” and “my partner.”
Federal prosecutor Rosemary Warren told the court that she wanted to be satisfied that none of the jewellery was stolen before it was handed back to him. Fernandez snapped at the insinuation. “It’s not just a bracelet,” he called out from the Plexiglas-enclosed prisoners’ box, his wrists bound now with far less expensive metal.
The outburst contrasted sharply with his show of indifference earlier in the trial when he pleaded guilty to the murder plot, drug-trafficking conspiracy and fraud. Those charges were tough to dispute, even though he availed himself of veteran Toronto lawyer Joseph Blumenthal, counsel of choice for many of the province’s top mobsters.
In passing sentence, the judge said that Fernandez exhibited a “level of market sophistication in his criminal activity.” His sentence would be more than cut in half, as he received fifty-one months’ credit for time spent in pretrial custody. The time he did serve was softened by an affair he had with a female staff member at Toronto’s aging Don Jail, where he had a reputation with staff as a perfect gentlemen, once even providing them with Valentine’s Day chocolates.
Although Joe Renda was supplying Vito with brains on Toronto-area streets, Fernandez’s departure left a void in the muscle end of the family business, and Vito enlisted Compare Frank Arcadi to help fill it. Flanked by his bodyguards, Compare Frank made frequent trips to Woodbridge for Vito in the early 2000s even before Fernandez was nabbed. It didn’t hurt that Arcadi was Calabrian as he attempted to build ties between Vito’s group and the GTA ’Ndrangheta.
In the year that followed, as Vito found himself in a Quebec jail awaiting extradition, new faces appeared in the mob-connected social clubs of Woodbridge. First to arrive was Bruzzese’s son-in-law Antonio Coluccio, whose Canadian wife sponsored his emigration from his family home of Marina di Gioiosa Ionica in southern Italy in December 2004. Most unsettling among the decorations in his million-dollar Richmond Hill home was a five-foot-high portrait of his murdered father, Vincenzo.
Antonio’s older brothers, Giuseppe (Joe) and Salvatore, soon followed. Both were considered among Italy’s thirty most dangerous men and were on the run from charges in 2005 stemming from an Italian police operation dubbed Project Nostromo. The project had pursued money that was initially extorted from tuna fishermen and then invested in a South American drug ring of global scope.
An Italian court eventually sentenced Salvatore in absentia to six years and eight months in prison for a string of charges including drug and weapons possession and membership in the ’Ndrangheta. Giuseppe was also sentenced in absentia to twelve years for organized crime–related charges, including ’Ndrangheta membership and cocaine trafficking. He already had a criminal record in Canada, and his serious drug conviction from 1993 would have made him ineligible for citizenship even if he wasn’t a fugitive.
Not surprisingly, Giuseppe and Salvatore Coluccio both entered Canada using false names and papers. Salvatore chose the new name of Maurizio Logozzo, which appeared on his Ontario driver’s licence, health card and Canadian Social Insurance card. Giuseppe chose the new name of Giuseppe Scarfo, using his mother’s maiden name as his surname. It appeared on several pieces of false identification, including credit cards, a health card and an Ontario driver’s licence. In case life in Canada got too complicated for Giuseppe Scarfo, he had a set of backup fake identification bearing the name Antonio Bertolotti.
The Coluccio brothers were living, breathing proof of the ’Ndrangheta’s capacity to continually change and refresh its leadership. They arrived in the Toronto area around the time Antonio (The Lawyer, The Black One) Commisso was facing deportation from Canada for Mafia association. Commisso had lived in Canada for about a year before his deportation was ordered in July 2005. The Coluccio brothers’ arrival immediately changed the balance of power in Ontario’s underworld. In deference to his international power, Giuseppe was quickly given a seat on the ’Ndrangheta camera di controllo.
In the course of his new duties, Giuseppe Coluccio made frequent drives from his downtown Toronto waterfront condo to Woodbridge. Sometimes he travelled in a yellow Ferrari or his silver Maserati. Other times a chauffeur drove him in a Range Rover or a Porsche Cayenne. Salvatore wasn’t quite so flashy, but he was certainly active as well.
Surprisingly, Giuseppe Coluccio was spending time in Woodbridge with members of the Cuntrera–Caruana crime family. It was easy to wonder if something major was happening. The Coluccio brothers’ group in the ’Ndrangheta looked to be forming an alliance of sorts with the Cuntrera–Caruana group of the Sicilian Mafia, which would amount to a seismic shift in the underworld landscape. Antonio Coluccio was also in contact with a money launderer and fraudster from Vito’s group, who had been active in a Toronto-based recycling company. Vito’s wish to forge ties
with the Calabrians was being fulfilled, but without him. And his supposed allies in the Cuntrera–Caruanas seemed to be leaving him behind.
October 10, 2006, saw a startling arrival at Pearson International Airport, the timing of which would be hard not to connect to the emerging alliance. At sixty-one, the Italian fugitive was a long-time veteran of the Sicilian mob and the suspect in a number of hits for the Sicilian Mafia, as well as a suspected weapons smuggler. Interpol had issued a “Red” notice, which called on its 190 member countries to locate and arrest him on sight. The suspected hit man, who had dual Italian and Belgian citizenship, was detained at the airport by the CBSA under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and deported back to Belgium to face extradition to Italy.
Not long after that, Salvatore Coluccio fled Canada for Calabria, where he disappeared into a secret bunker with an electric generator, air conditioning and lots of food. His subterranean hideout was just a few kilometres from the five-star Parco dei Principi hotel in Roccella Ionica on the Ionian Sea, in Calabria. The swank hotel featured Turkish steam baths and a helicopter pad, and was considered by authorities to be the crown jewel of the brothers’ Coluccio–Aquino ’Ndrangheta group.
There was a high-level meeting in Woodbridge two months after Vito’s August 2006 extradition to the USA. Sitting together at a restaurant were Frank Arcadi, Francesco Del Balso, Skunk Giordano and Giuseppe Fetta, from Vito’s Montreal groups, and Antonio Coluccio. The agenda for the meeting concerned a $200,000 gambling debt owed by hit man/restaurateur Salvatore (Sam) Calautti to Del Balso. It was the same $200,000 debt that had been the focus of the Woodbridge hotel gathering in 2004, and the matter wasn’t yet resolved. The debt was assumed by an Ontario-based ’Ndrangheta boss who was wanted in Italy on weapons and Mafia association charges. In return for settling his debt, Calautti owed the ’Ndrangheta boss his services. One way of working it off could be for Calautti to kill someone important. For a killer like Calautti, this would be a means of combining pleasure with business. Two hundred thousand dollars was a large sum of money for a hit, since in his world a life can be ended for the price of a cheap used car.
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