GANGSTER FILES SHOW CANADA'S LEADING ROLE

Book Reproduces U.S. Dossiers From 1960s

Last week's declaration by Italian police that one of the Mafia's
super clans is based in Montreal is only the latest reminder of the
place Canada has held in the world of transnational crime; newly
released files from U.S. government archives also place Montreal at
the epicentre of the world's drug trade. An intriguing 880-page book
to be published next month -- an exact reproduction of the United
States Bureau of Narcotics' original Mafia files from the early 1960s
- -- is clear on this point: "Head of the largest and most notorious
narcotic syndicate on the North American continent," it states in the
file on Montreal's Giuseppe "Pep" Cotroni.

That is an impressive and damning position, given the cast of
characters he shares space with -- tough men with the brooding faces,
colourful nicknames and bizarre physical deformities that fuel the
public's fascination with the Mafia.

Among the 843 men with nicknames such as Cockeyed Joe, Frank the
Spoon, Joe Batters, Solly One-Eye, Sal the Beak, Frankie the Bug and
Three-Finger Brown are gangsters who climbed to the top in America's
powerful underworld.

Mafia: The Government's Secret File on Organized Crime is an unusual
publication. It is not the work of authors culling information and
writing a narrative story or placing people and events in context.

In the early 1960s, the Bureau of Narcotics, a division of the U.S.
Treasury Department, pulled together a one-page dossier on the major
Mafia members or associates it had in its files. For each they
assembled a photograph and vital statistics.

Some 50 copies of the secret document were printed and distributed to
government officials in a three-ring binder with the green letters
"MAFIA" as its title, according to the book's publisher, HarperCollins.

It captured a golden age of mob activity and was apparently used by
Robert F. Kennedy, the former U.S. attorney-general, in his attack on
organized crime.

Mafia is a facsimile reproduction of that document -- but for the
modern hardcover binding. This is raw documentary data, the
bibliographic equivalent of reality television. The result is a book
that has the feel of a yearbook from a sinister prep school.

Canada is well-represented throughout the files, with many of the
gangsters from the United States and Italy having noted family and
criminal ties to Canada.

In addition, a separate section devoted to Canada features six
old-timers, including Montreal's Cotroni brothers.

Vincenzo "Vic" Cotroni, the file says, "supplies major Mafia
traffickers in U.S., with heroin obtained from French-Corsican
sources. A vicious hoodlum who engineers varied crimes."

For Giuseppe "Pep" Cotroni there is a more inflammatory description:
"Is a terrorist and vicious hoodlum."

The names of four of his Montreal "criminal associates" are blacked out.

Giuseppe's file documents his apartment on Ridgewood Street and some
of his favourite Montreal hangouts: the Metropole Club, Bonfire
Restaurant and Jacques Cartier Motel.

For Vincenzo, it notes his home as being on "Pie Neux Boulevard,"
presumably a linguistic malapropism of Boulevard Pie-IX, near the
Olympic Stadium. His "localities frequented" include Montreal's Chez
Paree nightclub, the Sea Gull Hotel in Miami and the Hotel Nacional in Cuba.

Also listed in the book is Burlington developer Dante "Danny" Gasbarrini.

The bureau, in the 1960s, considered Mr. Gasbarrini to be the
emerging Mafia leader in Ontario, according to the reproduced file.

Now 86, Mr. Gasbarrini has a criminal record dating back to 1939, the
file says, including charges for receiving stolen property, theft,
false pretenses and narcotic law violations. It also notes his
emerging interest in real estate and construction.

"Taking over gradually from Antonio Sylvestro [his father-in-law] the
Mafia leadership of Ontario, Canada. Large-scale narcotic smuggler
and distributor," the file alleges. The drug charge refers to his
conviction in Vancouver in 1949.

Mr. Gasbarrini has previously acknowledged his troubled past but
dismissed having ties to the Mafia. He has been a successful
businessman for decades.

Antonio Sylvestro, his father-in-law, has his own entry, featuring a
glowering face from an old mug shot with a deeply furrowed brow and
piercing eyes underneath a mop of black hair.

The file notes the underworld rumour that the death of Mr.
Sylvestro's brother, mobster Frank Sylvestro, was not the suicide it
was declared but rather a murder at Mr. Sylvestro's own hands.

"Mafia leader in Ontario, Canada. Large scale narcotic smuggler and
trafficker, closely allied with important Mafia racketeers in the
U.S., Canada and Italy," the file notes of Mr. Sylvestro.

Also included in the Canada section are brothers Saverio and Pasquale
Monachino, who moved to Ontario in 1959 from Auburn, N.Y. Both are
listed as having attended the Apalachin Mafia summit in 1957 that
ended with a police raid.