Vincenzo Cotroni

Cotroni was born in 1911 in Mammola, Calabria, Italy.

Cotroni was born in 1911 in Mammola, Calabria, Italy.

The precise spelling of his surname remains unknown as Italian, American and Canadian records variously spell his surname as Cotroni, Controne, Coutroni, Catrino, Catroni, and Citroini.

Cotroni was illiterate for his entire life and never gave a precise spelling of his surname.

His tombstone gives his surname as Cotrone, but the Cotroni surname came to be the one most preferred by journalists and court officials, and this became the accepted spelling of his surname.

His family left Italy for the United States and later came to Canada.

Quebec was the only province in Canada that did not ban alcohol, and for much of the 1920s Quebec was the only place north of the Rio Grande where it was possible to legally drink alcohol.

Members of the Cotroni family had moved to Montreal to take part in bootlegging and were repeatedly arrested during the Prohibition era for smuggling alcohol into the United States.

Rather than attend school, Vic Cotroni worked briefly as a carpenter and then as a professional wrestler under the name "Vic Vincent."

By the age of 20, Cotroni had accumulated a lengthy record of minor offences, including theft, possession of counterfeit money, and assault and battery, as well as bootlegging with local bootlegger Armand Courville.

Montreal was notorious during the interwar period as one of the most corrupt cities in the world and for being a global centre of drug smuggling and prostitution.

As an young man, Cotroni spent much of his time working as a guard and a bouncer in various gambling houses and bars, becoming involved in organized crime in the late 1920s.

Courville served as a mentor to Cotroni, teaching him professional wrestling.

In 1924, he immigrated to Montreal.

In his early life, he worked as a professional wrestler under the name "Vic Vincent."

By the age of 20, Cotroni had accumulated a lengthy record of minor offences, bootlegging with local bootlegger Armand Courville.

In 1924, he immigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada with his two sisters, Marguerita and Palmina, and his brother Giuseppe; his two other brothers, Frank and Michel, were later born in Montreal.

By 1924, Montreal had been a key centre in the business of bootlegging, forming a crucial link in the smuggling network running south from Montreal to New York City and the other cities of the American Northeast.

In 1928, Cotroni was charged with rape against Maria Bresciano.

The charge was dropped when Maria agreed to marry him in May 1928, and later had a child, Rosina.

Throughout his life, Cotroni kept a low profile.

In 1928, Cotroni was charged with rape against Maria Bresciano, but the charge was dropped when Maria agreed to marry him in May 1928, and later had a child, Rosina.

As an young man, Cotroni was deeply influenced by the 'ndranghetista subculture of his native Calabria, whose ethos stressed an ultra-aggressive, almost mindlessly macho persona for 'ndranghetisti, who proved their virility, strength and dominance over men through violence, most notably by castrating rival men.

'Ndranghetisti were expected to be just as sexually aggressive as physically aggressive and could never accept a refusal of sexual advances, which would question his sense of machismo.

The Italian sociologist Pino Arlacchi wrote about the 'ndranghetista subculture, "Except among relatives, the two sexes represented qualities in constant antagonism: the uomo di rispetto ("man worthy of respect") had the task of demonstrating his virility at every opportunity, even if this meant committing violence against women or seizing them by force."

Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star, wrote that Cotroni was almost certainly guilty of raping Maria Bresciano, who had rejected his offer of marriage, which he took as a humiliation that questioned his sense of machismo, which in turn required an act of extreme violence to prove his virility and strength as a man.

Likewise, Edwards wrote that it was the same need to dominate others that led Cotroni to work as a professional wrestler under the ring name of Vic Vincent, as he wanted to prove his machismo by demonstrating his strength and fierceness as a brawler who apparently won victories over other men in front of thousands of people.

Cotroni became a Canadian citizen in 1929.

Cotroni grew up in a house at the junction of Ontario and St. Timotheé streets in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal (now in Montreal), a poor neighbourhood that more affluent Italian immigrants avoided because of its high crime rate.

His father, Nicodemo, was a carpenter whose average weekly income was $35.

French police reports from the 1930s listed Montreal as the world's third most "depraved" city, after only Port Said and Marseilles.

The fact that the matches were staged in the pseudo-sport of professional wrestling was not widely known in the 1930s, and many believed that the wrestling matches were authentic bouts.

In 1936, the mayor of Montreal, Adhémar Raynault, estimated that Montreal's vice industry was worth $200 million per annum, making the vice business one of Montreal's largest industries.

Cotroni flourished as a gangster in this climate.

In the late 1970s, Cotroni transferred control of the day-to-day activities of the family to Violi, together with his brother Frank Cotroni, Nicolas Dilorio, and Luigi Greco.

In 1974, he was subpoenaed to stand before a Quebec government commission inquiry into organized crime and was jailed for one year for contempt.

The following year, Cotroni and his capodecina Paolo Violi, along with Hamilton, Ontario mobster Johnny Papalia, were convicted of extortion and sentenced to six years in prison; Cotroni's sentence was later reduced on appeal to just six months.

A power struggle between the Calabrians led by Violi and a Sicilian faction led by Nicolo Rizzuto soon broke out; in the mob war that followed the Sicilian Rizzuto crime family emerged as the preeminent crime family in Montreal by the early 1980s.

Vincenzo "Vic" Cotroni (born Vincenzo Cotrone; ; 1911 – September 16, 1984), also known as "The Egg", was an Italian-born Canadian crime boss of the Cotroni crime family in Montreal, Quebec.

On September 16, 1984, Cotroni died of cancer.