Would-be mob boss sought big role: police
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks. After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks. Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 26/11/2011 (5301 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MONTREAL — Salvatore Montagna, a reputed mafioso killed on Thursday, was active in construction fraud in the U.S. and continued the practice when he was deported to Canada, says an expert on money laundering.
Jeffrey Robinson, the New York-based bestselling author of such books as The Merger: How Organized Crime is Taking Over Canada, was not surprised to learn Montagna, who was briefly the head of the Bonanno crime family in the U.S., was fatally shot in an apparently well-planned hit as he was leaving a house on Ile Vaudry, a small island just east of Montreal. No one has been arrested.
Robinson said Montagna, 40, was “a great earner” for the Bonanno family in New York in to construction fraud, which perhaps explained his quick ascent to the top of the organization despite being in his mid-30s at the time.
Montagna was deported to Canada in 2009 after authorities realized he wasn’t an American citizen and had a criminal record for contempt of court. Montagna, a dual citizen, was born in Montreal and raised in Italy. For his deportation he chose to return to Montreal and, after apparently laying low for months, suddenly emerged in 2011 as someone police sources believe was eagerly seeking to take control of the Mafia in Montreal.
Robinson said he had learned that Montagna tried to apply what he was doing in New York to the construction industry in Montreal.
“I know he simply exported the construction fraud to Montreal. It was what he knew. He took what he knew and brought it to Montreal,” said Robinson who is often invited to speak to police investigators at conferences on money laundering in the U.S. and Canada.
Montagna, known as Sal the Ironworker when he was in the Bonanno organization, owned a steel company in New York.
The author said it is estimated that the five major Mafia families in New York account for five per cent of all construction projects in the city.
“The Bonanno family was a big part of it,” Robinson said while alleging the organization was expert in over-estimating the number of workers or amount of materials needed for large-scale construction projects. “From early on, the Bonannos saw a niche in construction. They were experts in inflating invoices.”
— Postmedia News