Without doubt Canada’s legendary Cotroni brothers were among the most powerful and notorious gangsters to ever operate on the North American continent.
Headquartered in the bustling City of Montreal, for over a half-century the Cotronis, led by eldest brother, Vincenzo (Vic the Egg) Cotroni, were dominant figures within that city’s underworld whose presence was also felt in other cities and territories throughout the region.
Vic Cotroni, along with his younger brothers Giuseppe and Francesco — known as Pepe, and Frank the Enforcer, respectively — headed one of the larger and more durable criminal networks.
Born in Reggio Calabria, Italy, all three brothers were very respected and very feared members of the Calabrian underworld. After immigrating to Canada as young men, by the late 1920s Vic was already deeply enmeshed in the local underworld. As his kid brothers came of age, Vic brought them into the criminal fold and slowly but surely their power and influence grew, to the point that by the early 1950s Vic and Pepe Cotroni were now the heads their own clan, or crime Family.
Their reputations were now such that they came to the attention of the notorious Carmine (Lilo) Galante, the trusted underboss of Giuseppe (Don Peppino) Bonanno, the Sicilian-born Mafia boss of New York’s Bonanno Family.
After a series of high-level meetings an agreement was reached between Cotroni and Galante whereby from that point forward the Cotroni Calabrian-based organization would align themselves to, and work in tandem with, the more powerful Bonanno Family.
In keeping with this “marriage” Vic was formally initiated into the ranks of Cosa Nostra, as were both his brothers, with Joe Bonanno appointing Vic the capo di decina, or territory boss, over the Bonanno Family’s Canadian interests.
With his new power, Vic Cotroni quickly initiated a small loyal group of clan members into his regime as soldiers, “making” them formal members of the Mafia as well.
From that point forward the Cotroni Crime Family was recognized and respected throughout the entire Italian underworld as both a Calabrian ’ndrina and a Sicilian regima of Cosa Nostra who maintained power and good standing with underworld factions in Canada, the United States and Italy too.
The “dual” memberships they now boasted as members in good standing of both the Sicilian-oriented Mafia and the Calabrian N’drangheta allowed Cotroni and his faction to forge even greater criminal partnerships with members of these various organizations, which in turn helped Vic Cotroni facilitate his criminal operations and expand his reach.
Now unimpeded by borders and less constrained by potential rivals, Vic and his brothers led their crime Family as they grew in size and strength and diversified into other racket activities.
Canada’s Largest and Most Prolific Syndicate
Law enforcement authorities on both sides of the Atlantic say that by at least the early 1950s the Cotroni clan had developed a complex and far-flung international narcotics network that for decades smuggled thousands of kilos of heroin and cocaine into Canada from France and Italy for wholesale redistribution into the United States. It is believed that the vast drug network Cotroni built continued operating for over thirty years into the 1980s.
Through the years Cotroni’s uncanny ability to consistently obtain the purest form of heroin for his customers quickly earned him a reputation among traffickers and helped his clan corner the illicit drug market as the suppliers of choice among Cosa Nostra borgatas and other drug organizations in both the U.S. and Canada.
In addition to their vast heroin smuggling operation, members of the Cotroni Family we also noted for operating major robbery and burglary rings that pulled off multimillion-dollar heists of jewelry and diamonds, stocks and securities and other high-end targets.
And when they weren’t actually committing robberies themselves they often acted as the “fences” on behalf of other robbery gangs for the receiving and disposing of stolen goods.
For their part, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (FBNDD), had this to say about Vincenzo and Giuseppe Cotroni, “He and his brother head the largest and most notorious narcotic syndicate on the North American Continent. The Cotroni brothers supply major Mafia traffickers in the U.S., with heroin obtained from direct French-Corsican sources. They are terrorists and vicious hoodlums who engineer various major crimes in the Montreal area.”
And that’s not all. In addition to their narcotics, theft and “fencing” rings, Vic and his membership operated a whole gamut of other lucrative rackets that included gambling, labor-union racketeering and industry corruption, business infiltration, fraud of every kind, loan shocking, and the extortion of nightclubs and restaurants.
And despite suffering through decades of constant police surveillance, criminal investigations, indictments, and the occasional prison term, Vic and his brothers and their subordinates were seemingly unstoppable.
During his long reign as boss of Montreal Vic Cotroni became so powerful that he was generally looked upon by other criminal factions in the Canadian underworld as a Godfather-type figure and arbiter of sorts, who was often counseled for his help in settling street disputes and maintaining stability between the various criminal factions, not only among members of the Italian underworld, but among Canada’s independent and semi-independent gangs as well.
Until next time…The Other Guy
If you’d like to read more in-depth on the Cotroni Family of Montreal or other fascinating stories about the mob in Canada, these are only a few of the stories on Button Guys that fit the bill:
- The Vincenzo Cotroni Family of Montreal – The Vic Cotroni Family Mafia chart is a one-of-a-kind hierarchy chart listing 246 hoodlums that made up this Montreal mafia crime family.
- The Cotroni Regime of Montreal Canada – Montreal was a city custom-built for the mob and what the Cotroni Regime accomplished in partnership with the American Mafia was second to none.
- Canada’s Elusive Santo Scibetta – Santo Scibetta was an elusive mafioso who served as the Magaddino Family’s Canadian-based representative and overseer of that country’s underworld.
