Canada's Italian Mafia

"This [“Camera di Controllo” — literally meaning “control room,” which acts as a board of control for the ’Ndrangheta — in Canada that mirrored the structure in Italy] is the highest and most important structure of ’Ndrangheta in Canada."

"Vincenza Muià, [who was coming to Canada to try to learn who within ’Ndrangheta had murdered his brother so he could avenge his death], but also other persons, have great respect for Vincenza DeMaria. They consider him a person worthy of respect. They think he could carry a lot of weight within their organization."

Chief Commissioner Giampiero Muroni headed the Polizia di Stato’s Central Anti-Crime Directorate from 2008 to 2019

 

"What we have here is an abuse of process by the minister [of public safety]."

"It is an absurdity that the minister, on a whim, is changing the nature of this entire hearing. How can Mr. DeMaria properly prepare for a matter when they are literally changing the foundation of their case four days in?"

Shoshana Green, one of three lawyers representing Vincenzo DeMaria

 

"Tell Jimmy" Vincenzo [Jimmy] DeMaria."

"For my brother, once I know who it was, if I can, I'll eat him in pieces, in pieces, but I have to be sure ..."

"l'll eat him in small pieces, small pieces on the barbecue and I invite  him to come eat."

Calabria mobster Vincenza Muia

 

"When it comes to entering documentation as evidence, almost anything will be admissible as long as it is relevant to an issue to be decided by the IAD [Immigration Appeal Division]."

Benjamin Dolin, Immigration and Refugee Board member  

Vincenzo "Jimmy" DeMaria is led to a police car after being arrested in April 2009. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post/File

 

 

Vincenzo DeMaria is not a Canadian citizen. He never applied for citizenship. At 71 years of age he has lived in Canada since he was nine months old. He emigrated from Italy with his parents. And Ottawa has been attempting for over forty years to deport him to Italy and rid Canada of his presence. He was convicted of shooting a man who owed him money, killing him in Toronto in 1981. He was convicted of second-degree murder, and since then the government has tried to deport him. Each of those attempts was fully challenged and litigated by a battery of lawyers hired by DeMaria.

 

In 1992 he was released from prison on full parole. Over the succeeding years, police investigators appear to have garnered evidence pointing to DeMaria's having become an influential member of the 'Ndrangheta, in Toronto. There are, in Canada, a number of 'Ndragheta groups, each one of which is associated with a particular family. A police officer at one immigration hearing characterized DeMaria as the mob's "top guy in Toronto". He has himself denied being a mobster, of even knowing anything about the 'Ndrangheta. Claiming ethnic profiling and anti-Italian prejudice has led to deportation efforts. 

 

The latest deportation hearing is ongoing, with the government declaring against expectations that it no longer planned to rely on any evidence from controversial Italian police wiretaps made covertly with the use of bugged phones of visiting members of a mob family to Canada. Although DeMaria denies allegations he is a member of the 'Ndrangheta -- the powerful Mafia from the Calabria region of Italy -- an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing is underway currently. 

 

DeMaria's lawyers had called repeatedly for the Italian police wiretaps to be rejected as evidence, insisting they represented illegal foreign interference. When the government surprised them by agreeing in the middle of the hearing on Friday, the lawyers objected. Claiming that in two days of earlier testimony this week by a senior police officer from Italy, the government's first witness at the hearing, the wiretaps had been extensively 'co-mingled' along with other evidence over the past two years.

 

Lawyer Shoshana Green asked for a stay of proceedings, to suspend the government's appeal of an earlier immigration board decision to allow DeMaria to remain in Canada. She appealed to Benjamin Dolin, the IRB member whose decision on the matter would determine whether her client would be deported. "Or in the alternative, we would certainly consent to the minister abandoning their appeal", she offered. Mr. Dolin responded that the change "would seem to benefit" her client. "I don't see any prejudice to Mr. DeMaria."

 

The wiretaps under discussion provided an intriguing look into the 'Ndrangheta activities, revealing links between those under investigation in Italy to affiliates in Canada. Italian police learned in 2019 that a mobster in Calabria was coming to Toronto to speak with people there to find out who, in the 'Ndrangheta, had murdered his brother in Italy, so he could avenge his death by killing the individual responsible, once he was identified.

 

Mindful of organizational volatility, Muia said he needed to speak with DeMaria and other 'Ndrangheta bosses in Canada, to be one hundred percent certain before acting out his retribution for his dead brother. Police had inserted a Trojan horse virus into Muia's phone, turning it into a microphone that recorded all sound where the phone was present, even when not in use. While the bugging was approved by an Italian judge, no judicial authorization by a Canadian court for intercepted communications in Canada when Muia visited with his bugged phone, had been sought. 

 

Where Italy's high court accepted the operation as legal since the bugs were installed in Italy and the recordings captured by them in Canada were transmitted to Italy before police heard them,last year in Canada, DeMaria's lawyers had asked the IRB to exclude the wiretaps with other evidence. since Canada's courts would dismiss the wiretaps as illegal. Stating that under Canadian law, immigration hearings used different rules of evidence than criminal courts, the IRB's Dolin refused their motion.

 

Vincenzo "Jimmy" DeMaria, right, is led to a police cruiser after being arrested in Toronto on April 20, 2009. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post