MONTREAL CRIME FAMILY
Part 1: THE BEGINING
Author: Little Joe Shots
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The history of the Montreal crime family centers around two Italian crime groups and the men who have led these groups in the Canadian province of Quebec creating a powerful and influential criminal organization that has dominated the Canadian underworld for roughly 8 decades. The "Great Canadian City of Montreal" has been the base of operations for this powerful Italian criminal organization or "crime family" since it's beginnings, more accurately when it was formed in the 1940's, but Montreal's Italian underworld started in the mid to late 1800's like it's American counterpart and continued to grow in the 1920's with the immigration of two European men who carried different Italian decent. One was originally from the mainland area of Calabria, one of the four regions of Southern Italy that encompasses the legendary "Mezzogiorno" (the other three are Basilicata, Campania and Apulia), while the other man came from the legendary island of Sicily. Just as America experienced a big influx of European immigration that included a large number of Italians in the mid to late 19th century and the early 20th century, large numbers of those Italians emigrating to America's were mainly from the island of Sicily! Canada experienced a similar European immigration at the same time, but for some reason the large number of Italians settling in the "Great North" of the continent came from the area of Calabria, many settling in the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario! One of those Italian families was the Cotroni family who emigrated from Mammola, Calabria in 1924 and after a brief stopover in New York they headed North to Montreal, Canada, settling in the large Italian slum community of St. Timothee, Montreal's original "Little Italy" now known as Jean Talon North. Italian carpenter Nicodemo Cotroni and his wife Maria and their two eldest sons, Vincenzo (14) and Giuseppe (4) settled into the crime infested Montreal of the 1920's, the mafia had flourished in Italy's rural settings and along with the immigration of Italians citizens into North America mafia groups traveled to the rife conditions of Montreal's underworld long before the Cotroni's had emigrated to Canada!
Black Hand Gangs had formed in the Italian communities all across Canada in the late 1890's, and up to the early 1900's Italian businessmen, merchants, labor leaders and citizens alike were prey for the mafia groups! Even one of Montreal's wealthiest, most respected and well connected Italian businessmen, banker and labor recruiter, Antonio "The King" Cordasco was not immune to the threats and requests of the Italian Black Hand Gangs as Cordasco found himself terrorized and extorted in 1904. The Cotroni family arrived in Montreal midway through the American experiment of Prohibition and entrepreneurial Canadians were all for it, the big businessman who owned the large and lucrative Canadian liquor manufacturing companies that were making millions selling their surplus liquor to American gangsters and smugglers all they way down to the average citizen which included Nicodemo Cotroni and his eldest son Vincenzo who accumulated a number of minor bootlegging offenses in the late 1920's and early 1930's.
In the early 1920's Montreal's Italian underworld was led by a Sardinian born gangster of Italian decent, Tony Frank. Frank was so powerful throughout his area of influence that other high level career criminals paid him a "street tax" to operate in his territory and at the same time they were to receive access to the wide ranging legal connections that Frank maintained. The Frank Gang were based in the downtown area of Montreal, the gang's keys members included Frank Gambino (aka Mike Capuano), Mike Valentino (aka Jack Foster) and Salvatore Arena who could all be found holding court at an Italian social club located 315a St. Laurent St. and along Cadieux St. were prostitutes, thieves, drug pushers and bootleggers plied their trades.
In the spring of 1924 the top members of the Frank Gang and several American associates were placed on trial along with the group's leader, Tony Frank. The group of criminals were charged with conspiring to commit armed robbery and murder concerning the robbery of an armored car full of payrolls in downtown Montreal where a security guard and a gang member where killed during a wild shootout allowing the gang to make off with over $140,000 in cash. What is remarkable and apparent, even important about the Montreal heist and the subsequent trial is that several associates of the Montreal Frank Gang were American criminals, a group of pimps, thieves and drug dealers who seemed to split their time and criminal careers between New York and the thriving underworlds of Ontario and Quebec. The 1924 Frank Gang trial clearly shows that American criminals were closely linked to Canadian crime groups as early as the 1920's, Montreal Frank Gang associates like Ciro Niegri Nieri, Mike Serafini and Adam Parillo were all known to Canadian authorities as having been involved in robberies, prostitution and narcotics rings that linked American cities in the states of New York and Connecticut to Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. There was no direct sign of American control over the Montreal gangsters, but even in the 1920's the American gangsters and the New York underworld seemed to be linked with their Canadian counterparts and associates. The American crime Bosses even in the 1920's appeared to carry an amount of influence concerning such criminal activities in Canada as narcotics, prostitution and bootlegging, all the top criminal endeavors of the North American underworld at the time! So long before the American mafia apparently held an great deal of influence over the Canadian mafia and certain criminal operations controlled by the Canadian mafiosi, it is a fact that American crime Bosses of Italian and Jewish decent held close business relationships and operated joint criminal activities such as liquor, narcotics and contraband smuggling over the North American border! The Montreal crime family is the best example of the strong and influential underworld alliance that the American and Canadian Mafia's have held with each other since the early 1900's, an underworld and business relationship that has lasted and for decades and still hold today.
As stated earlier, the Frank Gang trail in Montreal strengthens the notion that the American and Canadian underworlds had strong links and operated joint criminal activities with each other at the very least since the early 1900's! The 20th century brought improvements in automobile, seafaring and road building technology, the alliance and bond formed between America and Canada helped create a North American underworld that carried strong links, flourished and maintained it's underworld supremacy for decades to come! The crime groups of Montreal and New York are just one example of the alliance created in North America by the Italian mafia being that the cites are just 385 miles down the road from each other! North America's railways, waterways and highways were undoubtedly transportation resources not only used in the continent's legitimate business world, but in it's criminal underworld as well, as the smuggling of illegal goods and contraband items across the American-Canadian border has thrived for well over a century, at one point in the 1920's Montreal Custom's House was accused by the Crown Attorney of being "one of the greatest clearing houses for stolen goods in Canada!" Regarding the Frank Gang and their American associates, all of 1924 Montreal watched as to see if this time Frank's connections were strong enough to set him free, they weren't, and on October 24, 1924 one of Montreal's first Italian crime lords, Tony Frank, along with Frank Gambino, Mike Serafini and Louis Morel (the only Canadian born associate in the group) had their lives ended at Montreal's Bordeaux Jail by the hangman. Mike Valentino and Leo Davis (a Paris-born Jew who had emigrated from New York to Montreal during Prohibition and became an associate of the Frank Gang) both had their executions commuted at the last minute and ended up serving 15 years in prison.
Black Hand Gangs had formed in the Italian communities all across Canada in the late 1890's, and up to the early 1900's Italian businessmen, merchants, labor leaders and citizens alike were prey for the mafia groups! Even one of Montreal's wealthiest, most respected and well connected Italian businessmen, banker and labor recruiter, Antonio "The King" Cordasco was not immune to the threats and requests of the Italian Black Hand Gangs as Cordasco found himself terrorized and extorted in 1904. The Cotroni family arrived in Montreal midway through the American experiment of Prohibition and entrepreneurial Canadians were all for it, the big businessman who owned the large and lucrative Canadian liquor manufacturing companies that were making millions selling their surplus liquor to American gangsters and smugglers all they way down to the average citizen which included Nicodemo Cotroni and his eldest son Vincenzo who accumulated a number of minor bootlegging offenses in the late 1920's and early 1930's.
In the early 1920's Montreal's Italian underworld was led by a Sardinian born gangster of Italian decent, Tony Frank. Frank was so powerful throughout his area of influence that other high level career criminals paid him a "street tax" to operate in his territory and at the same time they were to receive access to the wide ranging legal connections that Frank maintained. The Frank Gang were based in the downtown area of Montreal, the gang's keys members included Frank Gambino (aka Mike Capuano), Mike Valentino (aka Jack Foster) and Salvatore Arena who could all be found holding court at an Italian social club located 315a St. Laurent St. and along Cadieux St. were prostitutes, thieves, drug pushers and bootleggers plied their trades.
In the spring of 1924 the top members of the Frank Gang and several American associates were placed on trial along with the group's leader, Tony Frank. The group of criminals were charged with conspiring to commit armed robbery and murder concerning the robbery of an armored car full of payrolls in downtown Montreal where a security guard and a gang member where killed during a wild shootout allowing the gang to make off with over $140,000 in cash. What is remarkable and apparent, even important about the Montreal heist and the subsequent trial is that several associates of the Montreal Frank Gang were American criminals, a group of pimps, thieves and drug dealers who seemed to split their time and criminal careers between New York and the thriving underworlds of Ontario and Quebec. The 1924 Frank Gang trial clearly shows that American criminals were closely linked to Canadian crime groups as early as the 1920's, Montreal Frank Gang associates like Ciro Niegri Nieri, Mike Serafini and Adam Parillo were all known to Canadian authorities as having been involved in robberies, prostitution and narcotics rings that linked American cities in the states of New York and Connecticut to Canadian cities such as Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. There was no direct sign of American control over the Montreal gangsters, but even in the 1920's the American gangsters and the New York underworld seemed to be linked with their Canadian counterparts and associates. The American crime Bosses even in the 1920's appeared to carry an amount of influence concerning such criminal activities in Canada as narcotics, prostitution and bootlegging, all the top criminal endeavors of the North American underworld at the time! So long before the American mafia apparently held an great deal of influence over the Canadian mafia and certain criminal operations controlled by the Canadian mafiosi, it is a fact that American crime Bosses of Italian and Jewish decent held close business relationships and operated joint criminal activities such as liquor, narcotics and contraband smuggling over the North American border! The Montreal crime family is the best example of the strong and influential underworld alliance that the American and Canadian Mafia's have held with each other since the early 1900's, an underworld and business relationship that has lasted and for decades and still hold today.
As stated earlier, the Frank Gang trail in Montreal strengthens the notion that the American and Canadian underworlds had strong links and operated joint criminal activities with each other at the very least since the early 1900's! The 20th century brought improvements in automobile, seafaring and road building technology, the alliance and bond formed between America and Canada helped create a North American underworld that carried strong links, flourished and maintained it's underworld supremacy for decades to come! The crime groups of Montreal and New York are just one example of the alliance created in North America by the Italian mafia being that the cites are just 385 miles down the road from each other! North America's railways, waterways and highways were undoubtedly transportation resources not only used in the continent's legitimate business world, but in it's criminal underworld as well, as the smuggling of illegal goods and contraband items across the American-Canadian border has thrived for well over a century, at one point in the 1920's Montreal Custom's House was accused by the Crown Attorney of being "one of the greatest clearing houses for stolen goods in Canada!" Regarding the Frank Gang and their American associates, all of 1924 Montreal watched as to see if this time Frank's connections were strong enough to set him free, they weren't, and on October 24, 1924 one of Montreal's first Italian crime lords, Tony Frank, along with Frank Gambino, Mike Serafini and Louis Morel (the only Canadian born associate in the group) had their lives ended at Montreal's Bordeaux Jail by the hangman. Mike Valentino and Leo Davis (a Paris-born Jew who had emigrated from New York to Montreal during Prohibition and became an associate of the Frank Gang) both had their executions commuted at the last minute and ended up serving 15 years in prison.
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