Dozens of killings in Toronto’s record-tying year remain unsolved — so why do some killers avoid justice?

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/an...o-why-do-some-killers-avoid-justice.html
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From Peter Edwards's article:

Killings by strangers who didn’t have a relationship with their victims are particularly challenging. There’s often a fear factor in gang-related cases, meaning officers need trust to gather information, Rossmo said.

In hardcore organized crime cases, a hired killer might not know his victim or even the motive for a killing.

In Toronto, recent unsolved murders with sharp organized crime overtones include the slayings of Simon Giannini and Antonio (Tony Large) Sergi in 2017, and the fatal shootings of John Ignagni, Sukhvir Deo, and Alfredo Patriarca in 2016.

In York region, recent unsolved murders with a professional edge include Cosimo Ernesto Commisso in 2018, Domenic Triumbari in 2017, Carmine Verduci in 2014, Salvatore (Sam) Calautti, 40, and his associate James Tusek in 2013.

A retired veteran organized crime investigator in the GTA said that police often feel they know who committed gangland murders, but they can’t make arrests because they don’t have co-operating witnesses. Sometimes the victims are suspected hit men, who evaded murder charges themselves.

“It was utter frustration,” the officer said. “You knew who did it but you could rarely prove it unless you got someone to completely roll over.”

Organized crime cases often require a sizable budget, police say.

“They require a lot of surveillance and it’s expensive,” said Paul Bailey, a retired York Regional Police detective said.

Investigating organized crime cases often requires “spin teams” of several officers who follow suspects’ cars discreetly, Bailey said.

Police forces have a restricted number of spin teams, and numerous investigations compete for their services, Bailey said.

“We would have to make a pitch to get a spin team to work on that,” Bailey said.

Sounds like more evidence of police corruption in Toronto: Rizzuto, Toronto, Police Corruption

The State Police has notified in prison to Tommaso Costa, 60, a prominent member of the homonymous gang of 'ndrangheta di Siderno , currently detained in Viterbo, an order for precautionary custody because he was considered the perpetrator of the murder of Vincenzo Figliomeni, alias "il brigante", which took place on December 19, 1988.

Tommaso Costa, in competition with another person, then deceased, killed Vincenzo Figliomeni, father of Angelo and Cosimo, "the brigands", currently fugitives in Canada.

2018 Annual Report: Moka Café Homicide
https://www.yrp.ca/en/Modules/News/index.aspx?newsId=1c577afa-f967-41b7-8c09-cc96ce8d15f9
Posted on Tuesday July 23, 2019

Three years of persistence sends killer to prison for 50 years

One on one with the lead detective

Staring at the phone on August 14, 2015, Detective Kevin McCloskey reflected on the summer that had just passed.

“What summer?” he quipped, three years later. Truth is, for seven-and-ahalf weeks, the homicide investigator and his team had spent nearly every waking minute hunting a killer.

When the phone rang, he learned that the hunt was over. The work, however, had just begun.

“Getting this ready for court was going to be 10 times the work than it was to investigate the case up until arrest,” Detective McCloskey said.

Sixty kilometres away in Barrie, Jason Hay sat on the sweltering hot shoulder of a highway, his hands cuffed behind his back. The 27-year-old was arrested for killing two people at a Vaughan café two months earlier. He had spent his last summer as a free man.

The summer was only three days old on June 24 when Hay, shrouded in a mask and hoodie, rushed into the Moka Café with a semi-automatic weapon and fired 11 shots, hitting four people. Two of those people— 24-year-old patron Christopher De Simone and 47-year-old server Maria Voci—were left dead at the scene.

During his month-long trial in May 2018, the jury never learned that those murders were not the first in which Hay had been involved. In fact, the charges he faced in the café shooting were only the latest on a record that included 58 criminal convictions, stretching back to childhood.

“This offender was easily one of the most violent people I have ever dealt with,” said Detective McCloskey.

The jury also never learned that when Hay’s image was first released to the public—captured on surveillance footage while he cased the Islington Avenue plaza the day before the murders—that it was a correctional officer who recognized him from a stint in Milhaven Institution who identified him to police.

Two guns recovered from the vehicle during the high-risk Highway 400 arrest were also barred from the dialogue in court.

That information would have easily compromised the integrity of the trial. But knowing the trail of victims Hay had left behind served as motivation for members of the Homicide Unit to put forth an airtight case and send the career criminal to prison for life.

“When you’re in court, you experience the emotion and grief of the families of victims,” Detective McCloskey said. “That’s when it resonates with you, the impact of the work police teams do.”

In this case, that work was plenty. Investigators conducted roughly 130 interviews and executed 40 warrants in the three-year span between the slayings and court proceedings.

Those warrants uncovered cellphone tower information that placed Hay at a Burger King in Toronto, calling for a cab hours after the murder. Just minutes earlier, surveillance cameras captured a Nissan Versa pulling into a nearby industrial area.

That stolen car, recovered by police a week later, was the same vehicle Hay drove to the Moka Café the morning of the shooting.

When investigators searched his phone, they also found a picture of Hay taken days before the shooting. He was seen smiling, wearing a Toronto Blue Jays baseball cap.

The cap was the same one he was seen wearing in the plaza’s surveillance footage the day before the murders.

"Ultimately that phone contained a lot of valuable evidence." Said Detective McCloskey.

The lead investigator believes that information gleaned from the phone was one of the greatest influences on the jury, who ultimately found Hay guilty of two counts of FirstDegree Murder and two counts of Attempted Murder on May 28.

After three years, the work of more than 100 officers who contributed to the investigation was finally done. “I could actually feel the stress physically leaving my body,” McCloskey said.

On July 8, Hay became only the sixth murderer in Canadian history to receive consecutive life sentences, putting him in prison for 50 years without chance of parole.

‘Ndrangheta in Greater Toronto Area hit but still too powerful – “There are 9 (Mafia clans) of us” http://gangstersinc.ning.com/profil...onto-area-canada-hit-but-still-too-power

GangstersInc good article.

Crazy how the Toronto-Hamilton crime groups are all in some kind of war. Wonder how the bikers will take advantage of this situation.

Yeah great article, was Rocco Remo Commisso arrested or not?

All the Italian-language newspaper articles published the last few days about the second phase of Operazione Canadian Ndrangheta Connection are based on the official press release issued by the Questura di Reggio Calabria. Here is the link to the release:

https://questure.poliziadistato.it/it/ReggioCalabria/articolo/9145d4d4972c0837771328023

It seems that the Canadian individuals more recently arrested are in pre-trial detention.

Thanks, yesterday's article by Peter Edwards .

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/cana...n-italy-following-mafia-sweep/ar-AAFApDs

"Toronto? By now it's worse than Siderno », slots in bars sparked the 'ndrangheta war
by Rocco Muscari - 12 August 2019

"But where c .. you have to go ..., says that it has become worse than here [to Siderno], a c ... of brothel" . It is February 13, 2019 when Macrì conversed with a family member of Carmelo Muià, known as "Mino", advises him not to go to Canada where, in recent times, there have been a series of criminal events and conflicts that had also affected some of the "Major" of the families of Siderna, operating overseas.

These are some of the background contained in the precautionary custody order of the operation "Canadian 'Ndrangheta Connection" which in recent days has led to 28 arrests.

Disagreements related also to a split by some belonging to the Calabrian clans, allied "with the Sicilians" present in Canada - reconstructs the Gazzetta del Sud on newsstands -; a coalition that, in fact, placed those subjects in opposition to their own criminal interests.

According to one of the conversants, it is up to the group of "Sicilians" to impute a series of violent actions committed against the members of the "Siderno Group of Crime", such as "the bomb at Co 'bar", the fire in the "Gimì" room and the killing of the grandson of "Remo Commisso".

https://reggio.gazzettadelsud.it/ar...ta-7f1610be-592f-4ae3-a85d-360285b86f09/

The bolded part.....

I have a basic understanding I think, but what the hell does " impute" mean? That they have to make it right?

Who are these " Sicilians"? The Rizzutos? Cuntreras? Are they referring to the Canadian Bonnanos? Or someone else?

As far as the Calabrians allied with the Sicilians, do they mean the Collucios, and maybe Bruzzese?

"Imputare" in this context probably means to blame, so they blamed the group of Sicilians for the incidents mentioned.

Is the grandson the Commiso that the Wolfpack killed?

they find the shooters? according to the calabrians in italy the murder was ordered by sicilians to send a message to remo commisso, probably the rizzutos or caruana/cuntreras

Imo, most certainly the Rizzutos and Cuntreras. I think the Bonannos maintain a good relationship with the Calabrians.

Its fucking confusing in that one bust you have three Vincenzo Muiàs lol.

Vincenzo Muià (born in 1968), Vincenzo Muià (born 1969), Vincenzo Muià "fontaniere" (class 1969).

So what did Verducci ever do to get himself killed?

He became a big target of Italian LE and exposed all of them. An interview with National Post didn't help either.

I thought he also stole a cache of weapons or something...

He became a victim of a conflict between the Coluccio and Figliomeni clans. He also allegedly sided with Montagna against the Rizzutos, who knows whether that played a role too.

And yet another theory is provided by Anna Sergi -- go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdUnm2PSqpo&feature=youtu.be and scrub to the 16:00 mark.

Ontario Superior Court of Justice reasons for sentencing of Domenico Scopelliti last September:

https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2018/2018onsc4826/2018onsc4826.html

PDF of the above document will be found in my Evernote note to which I've linked below.

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s229...56127fb/47b2db195583cb964ef1f9beeb63844b

Really good article here by the Montreal Gazette's Paul Cherry. Discusses not only the prison release denied Charles Gagné, who killed Eddie Melo in 2001, but also makes references to the related conflict within the 'ndrangheta in Ontario back then and the 2012 warning given Jimmy Demaria of the Siderno Group about the Rizzuto camp in Montreal wanting him dead.

Hitman who killed Mafia enforcer Eddie Melo denied a release

https://montrealgazette.com/news/hitman-who-killed-mafia-enforcer-eddie-melo-denied-a-release/

One of the commisso restaurants got torched a week ago https://www.google.com/amp/s/toronto.citynews.ca/2019/12/27/woodbridge-business-suspected-arson/amp/

^^^^

Fire sounds like it was at Motorino Enoteca restaurant … (4101 Rutherford Rd, Woodbridge, ON) some will recall that this place was also shot up a year and a half ago

https://www.yorkregion.com/news-sto...dge-restaurant-york-regional-police-say/

Remind me who is gunning for the Commisso's?

No idea, Toronto is crazy the last years so many different groups feuding. In June last year the boss Cosimo Commisso was even arrested in a bust involving the Chester Le crew (Bloods set).