Founded by Vincenzo Cotroni Territory Montreal | Years active 1950s-2004 Membership (est.) 20 made members | |
Founding location Montreal, Quebec, Canada Ethnicity Made men are Italian, Italian-Canadian, Calabrian. Criminals of various ethnicities are employed as "associates" | ||
The Cotroni crime family was a Mafia organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Cotroni family was historically controlled by mobsters of Calabrian ancestry. The territory controlled by the family once covered most of southern Quebec and Ontario, until the Rizzuto crime family supplanted them. The FBI considered the family a branch of the Bonanno crime family.
History
In the 1950s the family formed a strong connection to the New York Bonanno crime family as the crime family began controlling the majority of Montreal's drug trade. The Cotroni family also kept ties with other Mafia families in Italy and throughout the US and Canada. In the 1970s an internal war broke out between Sicilian and Calabrian factions in the family. During the violent Mafia war in Montreal Paolo Violi (who was acting capo for Vic Cotroni) was murdered along with others in the late 1970s. The war ended in the late 1970s, when Vic Cotroni the Calabrian leader had to let go the Sicilian faction led by Nicola Rizzuto.
The Calabrian faction continued to operate after the late 1970s with Vic Cotroni as the boss until he died leaving his youngest brother Frank Cotroni as the boss. The faction would lose more power in Quebec and operated in the shadow of the Sicilian faction led by Nicolo Rizzuto. Their leader Frank Cotroni died of cancer in August 2004 leaving the Rizzuto Sicilian faction as the most powerful crime family in Canada.
On November 4, 2012 Joseph Di Maulo, a longtime ally of the Cotroni family, was executed outside his Montreal home. Police believe his murder is part of an ongoing power struggle between the Sicilians and their rivals.