Paolo Violi

Paolo Violi (6 February 1931 – 22 January 1978) was an Italian-Canadian mobster and capodecina in the Cotroni crime family of Montreal.

Violi was born in Sinopoli, Calabria, Italy, in 1931; his father Domenico was the boss of the Violi clan in his hometown.

Violi was born in Sinopoli, Calabria on 6 February 1931.

He was born into the mob; his father Domenico Violi was the head of the 'Ndrangheta Violi clan in Sinopoli.

Violi immigrated to Southern Ontario in 1951.

He married Grazia Luppino, the daughter of the boss of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton.

He later moved to Montreal where he became associated with the Calabrese Cotroni crime family, which controlled much of organized crime in Montreal.

Violi later immigrated to Southern Ontario in 1951.

On 24 May 1955, he fatally shot Natale Brigante in Toronto, sustaining a stab wound from Brigante.

He was charged with manslaughter in a Welland court, but was acquitted, claiming it was self-defense, showing the stab wound as evidence.

Violi testified at his trial that both he and Brigante were pimps and the dispute that led to the killing was about the control of a prostitute.

However, it is believed that Brigante was murdered as part of a bloodfeud, with one policeman saying, "I'm sure [Violi] was told 'Take care of this problem for us'. Otherwise he never would have shot up [in status] the way he did."

Violi gained Canadian citizenship in 1956, and by the early 1960s was running illegally manufactured liquor from Ontario to Quebec.

In Quebec, Violi opened the Reggio Bar in Saint-Leonard in the mid-1960s, which he used as a base for extortion.

Stefano Magaddino, the boss of the Buffalo family, saw Violi as his "beachhead" who would win Montreal for him from the rival Bonnano family.

Violi was closely associated with Frank Cotroni and became known as "The Don of St. Leonard".

In the 1960s and 1970s, Vic Cotroni used associate William "Obie" Obront to supervise a bookmaking network in the Ottawa-Hull area that handled around $50,000 in bets per day, with 25 percent going to Violi.

Obie also served as Cotroni's chief banker and financial adviser, responsible for laundering money.

For Montreal's Expo 67, Obront also helped the Cotronis land the meat and vending machine supply contract; most of the meat turned out to be tainted.

Violi saw himself as the future boss of the Cotroni family and in private he mocked Cotroni as a weak leader.

Violi told Luppino in a phone conversation that the police listened into, "I already know that Cotroni is weak...I told him, Compare ["Godfather"], I am with you 100 percent, but only if you are sincere. Otherwise, I won't be 100 percent with you."

In another wiretapped phone conversation with Luppino, Violi berated Bill Bonanno, the son of Joseph Bonanno, as he stated, "I told you that if I was to know that Bonanno was coming up again, I would tell him what a dishonest man he is. I would have gone myself and shown him what I thought of him...I would have told him, 'I'm not with you nor with him. I'm by myself. I don't want to have anything to do with anyone, because you're all a bunch of bastards'. The way things stand today that the abboccatoes [regions] will split and everyone will be on their own. I'm telling you that, in Montreal, we will be alone by ourselves."

Violi's brash, cocky and arrogant approach and lack of respect for his elders did not make him friends in the underworld.

He became associated with Giacomo Luppino, boss of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton, but left for Montreal in 1963 on Luppino's orders to avoid clashes with another Hamilton mobster, Johnny Papalia.

On 10 July 1965, Violi married Grazia Luppino, the daughter of Giacomo, in Hamilton with Vincenzo Cotroni, boss of the Cotroni crime family, serving as the best man at the wedding.

Cotroni served as the godfather to one of Violi's children with Papalia and Paul Volpe both serving as godfathers to the other children.

Further expanding his reach was that the Commisso brothers married another of Luppino's daughters, thereby making an alliance with the Commisso 'ndrina.

In the late 1970s, boss Vincenzo Cotroni transferred the family's day-to-day activities to Violi, and a mob war soon broke out between the Calabrians and the Sicilian faction led by Nicolò Rizzuto.

In the early 1970s, Cotroni transferred the day-to-day activities of the family to his Calabrian compatriot Violi, a capodecina together with Nicolas Di Iorio, Frank Cotroni and Luigi Greco.

Cotroni's role became more that of an adviser to the younger Calabrian.

In December 1970, his bar was bugged with wiretaps by Robert Ménard, an undercover police officer who used the alias Robert Wilson, who rented an apartment above Violi's Reggio Bar for several years.

Ménard was supposed to go undercover for only three months, but instead served undercover for about five years.

The evidence he acquired was later used in subsequent cases.

Ménard under his Wilson identity hardly spoke at all to Violi during his first two years as his tenant and was most surprised when Violi wanted to speak over a meal of pizza and wine.

Ménard described Violi as a "better class of criminals" than the French-Canadian bank robbers who shot most of his leg.

Ménard stated that Violi's eyes had "intelligence, but ruthlessness. Total ruthlessness. Paolo would kill, but he'd do it in a much more intelligent way...You want to know the difference? They [French-Canadian bank robbers] will kill you indiscriminately, for no reason, while Paolo would kill you if he had to for power and for position and for advantage. That's the difference...They'll [French-Canadian bank robbers] kill because they don't like you having a toothpick in your mouth. That's the difference here. Goddamn animals. Nothing else...Paolo will use killing as a means to an end, a method. If you kill someone that you're trying to gather money from-unless you want to use him as an example-what the hell's the use use of killing a source of revenue?...That's not businesslike. Real smart guys don't kill until it absolutely has to be done."

Ménard usually talked with Violi every Saturday morning over numerous cups of coffee.

Greco led the Sicilian faction of the family until his death in 1972.

The war resulted in the murder of Violi on 22 January 1978, as well as his brothers, as the Sicilian Rizzuto crime family emerged as the preeminent crime family in Montreal by the early 1980s.

After Violi's death, his widow and two sons, Domenico and Giuseppe moved to Hamilton; the Violi brothers became affiliated with the Luppino crime family, later known as the Luppino-Violi crime family.