by Lamothe, Lee
It would decide what the family was to be—a support player in an American Mafia group glued to its own narrow city turf, or a leading player in a global underworld enterprise. But first, they had to survive.
CHAPTER 8
CATANIA, SICILY, 1972
On the eastern edge of Sicily, hugging the Ionian coast, the island’s second-largest city, Catania, bustles in the shadow of Mount Etna, the highest and most active volcano in Europe. Many visitors are drawn to the city for its baroque architecture, blackened by the volcanic dust, and ancient Roman relics, some of them encrusted in lava from Etna’s periodic eruptions. For Paolo Violi, who was on something of a pilgrimage to his native country, Catania’s antiquities held little interest. It was people he was interested in—or rather, one person. Before Violi indulged himself with a trip to his native Calabria, he had serious business to attend to in Sicily.
In Catania, a city close to the narrow straits that separate Sicily from Calabria, Violi had sought out Antonino Calderone, a mafioso who was the boss in the port city before he went on to become an informant. He granted Violi an audience, and the Montrealer inquired about other Men of Honor. Whether Violi was seeking to build new international enterprises of his own, to compete with those of his rival, Nick Rizzuto, or, as was later suggested by Calderone, trying to reconnect with Mafia traditions, the quest drew derision.
“Paolo Violi, the well-known Canadian mafioso and a native of Calabria, arrived in Catania,” Calderone later recalled. “He came to my office for half an hour, enough time for us to have a cup of coffee together and for him to ask me if I knew any men of honor in Calabria. Violi was a native of Sinopoli, a small town in the province of Reggio Calabria, and he explained to me that he was the boss of a decina [in Canada].” (Decina, Italian for “ten,” was a name for Mafia cells that were often divided into groups of 10 men. It is now more often used to denote any sub-group of mobsters within a family.)
Violi said his New York boss “didn’t want to hear anything, he just wanted dollars from his decina,” Calderone said. “Violi could do as he pleased … but at the end of the year, Violi had to bring him cash,” he added. “Paolo Violi didn’t make a great impression on me. He was a braggart, a big, fat man who didn’t seem to have much upstairs. In any case, he was going to Calabria because he thought there were ‘men of honor’ there. Things are different, in fact, in America. American ‘men of honor’ aren’t just Sicilians, but even Calabrians and Neapolitans. It doesn’t matter,” the old don said. “The Calabrians would talk, talk, talk. They talked all the time. Not to others, of course, but among themselves. They would have endless arguments about their rules, especially in the presence of us [Sicilian] Men of Honor. They felt uneasy because they knew that in reality they were inferior to the Cosa Nostra [the Sicilian Mafia].
“We’ve always considered the Calabrians inferior, garbage. Not to mention the Neapolitans, who we’ve never trusted much.” These were harsh words that spoke volumes about the contempt some Sicilian mafiosi felt for their Calabrian counterparts. It was certainly a view held by many in the Sixth Family, even while they built alliances and close ties with those Calabrians powerful enough to aid their cause or dangerous enough to threaten it. Calderone’s thoughts on Violi would have mirrored—and perhaps even been tainted by—those held by friends of the Rizzutos. News could travel quickly through underground whispers and Calderone was not the only Sicilian Man of Honor Violi had met on his trip. In Agrigento, the heartland of the Rizzutos’ Sicilian base, Violi met with Giuseppe Settecasi, a meeting he requested as a way to personally and directly make complaints about Nick Rizzuto. Violi was aware of the sway the old don had with the Sixth Family.
Settecasi was an imposing presence; taking a complaint to him might have given most people pause, but Violi seemed excited at the prospect, apparently reveling in the idea that it was a meeting of minds, a gathering of two great mafiosi. It is doubtful that Settecasi shared his enthusiasm.
Settecasi avoided colorful or embarrassing nicknames during his life in crime. As a sign of his success at balancing extensive underworld activity with his public persona, he was invariably called “Mr. Settecasi” in and around Agrigento. He was a gentle-looking figure, but looks can deceive. In his younger years, Settecasi was the epitome of the peasant mafioso: quiet in demeanor, thoughtful in action. His violence was legendary, although police had little success proving any of it. His name was whispered in talk of murders, extortion, political corruption, mysterious disappearances and cattle rustling. In several decades as a member of the Sicilian Mafia, Settecasi reached the rank of capo-provincia, or boss of the province. For those living in the original hometowns of the Sixth Family, there were few higher authorities.
Settecasi’s business increasingly involved heroin. He appeared at meetings in Montreal, weddings in Toronto, conclaves in New York, underworld conferences in Palermo. Almost without exception, his contacts were fellow Sicilians of the expatriate Mafia—like the Rizzutos—who were stitching together a drug network across the Americas and across the Atlantic, regardless of conflict arising from established organized crime interests. Settecasi recognized the power of the American Mafia families in the U.S. and Canada on their home turf, but he had little use for them.
By his late fifties, Settecasi was considered a Mafia statesman. His position in Agrigento was secure. When his position in the Mafia of western Sicily was noted by a parliamentary commission, it was greeted with mock surprise by local officials, who protested that Settecasi was simply an elderly gentleman who spent his days with other retirees, playing cards and talking about the good old days. The denials persisted even after his murder, in 1981.
Despite the popular image, throughout the late 1960s and 1970s, Settecasi was very much consumed by criminal affairs, much of it on matters of policy and the settling of disagreements between the codes of the Sicilian Men of Honor, the ’Ndrangheta of Calabria and the American Mafia. The question of compatibility or equivalency between the old Italian criminal fraternities—a question put in acute context by Calderone, the old Catania boss—was a vexing one that was eroding once-cordial relationships. Such problems were arising exponentially in North America as the Sicilian traffickers, particularly members and associates of the Sixth Family, found themselves in conflict with existing organized crime groups. It was happening in all of the important drug transit points—in New York, Montreal and, to a lesser degree, South America. These were early days for such disputes and Nick Rizzuto and Paolo Violi were on the cutting edge of a dangerous trend that would repeat itself wherever the expatriate Mafia landed. Everyone should have been paying closer attention.
Paolo Violi’s complaints about Nick Rizzuto were nothing new to Settecasi. A skilled diplomat who kept a poker face, he listened patiently to Violi and promised to come to Montreal to deal with the situation directly. His show of concern, and even a measure of sympathy, was certainly a charade. It is inconceivable that Settecasi would have considered siding with Violi against the Rizzutos. All evidence suggests that, behind the scenes, Settecasi was biding his time while putting on the expected show in a bid to accomodate the old codes.
While the Sixth Family in Montreal was struggling with the frustrating obstinacy of Violi, Settecasi was maneuvering to arrange a made-in-Agrigento heroin pipeline. Drug intelligence analysts have long documented Settecasi’s interest in international drug trafficking at the highest levels: “Settecasi is said to have been one of the few Sicilian Mafia Men of Honor present at both Apalachin and Grand Hôtel et des Palmes in October and November 1957,” a police report reads, referring to the two seminal “Mafia summits” during which the world’s heroin networks were mapped out—the Palermo hotel meeting that went off without a hitch, and the disastrous follow-up meeting in Apalachin, in rural New York State. Canadian police believe Settecasi and other attendees fled into the woods when the gathering was uncovered by authorities. Police scooped up dozens of men that day who held rank in the American Mafia, but
others are believed to have escaped. Among those noted by police was Pasquale Sciortino, from Cattolica Eraclea. Montreal was represented by Luigi Greco and Pep Cotroni, some police investigators believe. Despite repeated and largely speculative references to Settecasi and the Montreal mobsters being at the Apalachin meeting, it seems unlikely that these three would be among the lucky few who escaped without being caught and identified by U.S. authorities. It seems more likely that the Sicilians and Canadians met with American mafiosi involved in their budding heroin partnership in separate meetings in the lead-up to the Apalachin debacle.
Certainly there is an intriguing timing to an early notation U.S. authorities made on Nick Rizzuto: his first registered crossing into America. Just nine months before the infamous Apalachin Mafia meeting, Nick traveled by land into New York State on February 9, 1957, crossing the border from Canada at Champlain, less than an hour’s drive south of Montreal. (The crossing apparently caused no alarm on either side of the border and, for a decade, the single record on it lay dormant in the voluminous U.S. border files. On May 10, 1967, the crossing record was retrieved and the file on Nick was restored into an active investigation file by U.S. law enforcement in St. Albans, Vermont, another city near the border with Canada, about a 90-minute drive from Montreal.)
Violi’s position as a leader within the New York Bonanno Family in the 1970s—and his status as an ’Ndranghetisti with strong family ties to powerful Calabrian criminal figures in North America and Italy—made negotiating a solution a delicate situation, even for someone with Settecasi’s power and experience.
Settecasi did not much care for Calabrian gangsters, whether in Italy or in North America, but there had been a formal recognition of the codes of the Sicilian Mafia and Calabrian ’Ndrangheta, an acceptance that both were steeped in history, honor and mutual respect. To old Sicilian Men of Honor like Settecasi and Calderone, the Mafia of Calabria consisted largely of peasants who talked too much, were loose in whom they allowed to join and had no vision of the world outside their often tiny fiefdoms. Nonetheless, they were recognized as legitimate outlaws, part of the same malavita—the “bad life.” Because of this, just as Violi was having difficulty getting permission to take care of Nick Rizzuto, Nick likewise needed to show more restraint toward Violi. So the problem, which would normally have been sorted out by a late-night assassination—by either party—required some adherence to procedure. Added to the mix was the fact that the Montreal decina was under the protection and guidance of the Bonanno Family—the most Sicilian of the American Five Families and the leading architect of the Mafia heroin summits of 1957. Except as a channel for receiving heroin, the American crime families meant little to hard-core Sicilian Mafia traditionalists. Already, several dozen Sicilian Men of Honor had made their way into the United States, often through Canada, in preparation for the planned heroin pipelines. The Sicilians might have disdain for the American mobsters, but their guns and manpower had to be acknowledged. It was a growing international problem, an internal strain on the world’s foremost criminal groups.
While professing to be in search of a solution on Violi’s behalf, as early as February 1973, Settecasi was in fact meeting in Rome with two powerful members of the Caruana clan: the up-and-coming Alfonso Caruana and Giuseppe Cuffaro, a money launderer who had moved to Montreal and helped forge the Caruana-Cuntrera clan’s alliance with the Rizzutos. One of the issues discussed was Violi’s leadership in Montreal and his increasingly aggressive behavior toward the Sicilian faction.
Tomasso Buscetta, the once-powerful Sicilian mafioso (later a star government informant), said that Violi did not approve of the heroin ventures the Sixth Family was putting through Montreal. It is debatable, though, whether it was opposition to drugs on moral or principled grounds—as it is often presented in popular accounts—or just resentment over the wealth his rivals were accumulating from it. Evidence that Violi himself was involved in drugs comes not only from the extensive involvement of the Cotroni family in major drug-smuggling operations under Violi’s watch, but from evidence presented in an Italian court in 1979. Two U.S. drug investigators, working undercover in Italy as major narcotics buyers, had sought to purchase large quantities of cocaine and heroin from Saverio Mammoliti, a mafioso in Calabria. Mammoliti said any amount of cocaine was available, so long as he secured the consent of two other ’Ndrangheta bosses in neighboring territories; as for the heroin, he said he would have to contact Montreal and speak with “his friend Paolo Violi, a well-known Italo-American mafioso.”
Settecasi promised Violi he would travel to Montreal to examine the situation personally. Before arriving, however, he apparently traveled to Venezuela and Brazil, touching base with all of the branches of the expatriate Sicilian Mafia that were aligning with the Sixth Family.
In spite of Settecasi’s promise of a fair hearing for Violi, it is far more likely he was merely going through the motions of adjudication, satisfying the required protocol before Violi could, as a last resort, be eliminated. Settecasi’s true motive seemed to be a firming up of the Sicilian clans in Canada, the United States and South America, an action in direct opposition to Violi’s request.
But Violi’s trip to Italy was not the only flank to his diplomatic offensive against Nick. He was keenly aware of the importance of bringing both Agrigento and New York to his side if he wished to triumph over the Sixth Family. He also likely recognized the futility of expecting Settecasi to turn on one of his own.
Early in 1972, within months of his visit to Sicily and Calabria, Violi traveled to New York and met personally with the Bonanno boss, Natale Evola. During meetings in Brooklyn and Manhattan, Violi spoke openly and disparagingly of Nick’s inappropriate behavior. Like Settecasi, gangland disputes were not new to Evola, who had sat through his share of “sit-downs”—the face-to-face mediation sessions used to settle “beefs” between “wiseguys.” Like Settecasi, Evola was prepared to settle the Montreal dilemma, a beef he seemed to understand as a simple matter of listening to both sides, then making a pronouncement that all would accept. Evola nonetheless needed more time; he had become boss during a period of great uncertainty for the family and he told Violi he needed first to put New York affairs in order.
With the internal feud turned over to outside forces, Montreal became the focus of intense underworld attention and intrigue.
CHAPTER 9
MONTREAL, MAY 1972
Agrigento’s Giuseppe Settecasi was the first to respond to Paolo Violi’s diplomatic entreaties, and he arrived in Montreal to aid in arbitration. Over several days in May 1972, Settecasi held high-level talks with Cotroni and Violi about their complaints. He brought with him a man well known in both Sicily and Montreal—Leonardo Caruana, a Sicilian-born mafioso who had come to Montreal from Agrigento in 1966 after the Italian courts issued a preventative custody order against him for Mafia association. Settecasi valued his input as a trusted man with deep and direct ties to Agrigento, who at the same time had an intimate familiarity with Montreal. Caruana’s presence was a distraction for Violi; he knew well the strong ties the Caruana family maintained with the Rizzutos. One thing Violi could count on was that anything he said to Settecasi in front of Caruana would soon be repeated to Nick Rizzuto. On May 11, 13 and 21, 1972, Violi, Settecasi and Caruana spoke at length. At the May 21 meeting, at Violi’s Reggio Bar, Cotroni joined them. Not long after, Settecasi and Caruana seem to have sought further counsel on the matter. As with many mob matters in Canada, that meant traveling west to Hamilton. The ostensible occasion for the Settecasi-Caruana visit was an important Mafia wedding of a Luppino daughter to the son of a Commisso, a powerful Calabrian ’Ndrangheta clan in Toronto. The visit did not go smoothly, however, as Caruana, who was in Canada illegally, was arrested at the City Motor Hotel in Hamilton and deported to Italy.
Far more meaningful meetings for Settecasi during his visits to Canada—and certainly the sessions were held in greater secrecy—were his discussions with several Sicilian Men of H
onor: Guiseppe Bono, whose wedding would later be the focus of intense police attention; Giovanni Gambino, of the Sicilian Mafia clan that became known as the Cherry Hill Gambinos in New Jersey (not the same family of Gambinos that are one of the Five Families); and members of the Caruana-Cuntrera clan. That these people would emerge years later as some of the world’s most important drug traffickers suggests where their common interest lay.
These 1972 sessions in Montreal were not even known to have taken place until, some two decades later, an informant named Giuseppe Cuffaro was debriefed by Giovanni Falcone. Cuffaro, not the man of the same name who laundered money for Montreal mobsters, was arrested in 1988. He outlined for authorities the Sixth Family’s bridge between Montreal and Venezuela, the activities of the expatriate Mafia on the island of Aruba and links to the Colombian cartels that were in the process of offering a “license” to the Sicilians to market their cocaine in Europe. Cuffaro, who ended up in the U.S. witness protection program, said much of the planning for the emerging heroin routes was done in Montreal with Settecasi present.
With these meetings revealing Settecasi’s true objective, it was a surprise to no one when he offered no assistance to Violi.