DRUG DEAL GONE WRONG SPARKED MURDEROUS HOSTILITIES IN 1973

It started with someone getting ripped off in a drug deal, and
threatened to turn into a war on the streets of Montreal between the
Cotroni organization and people loyal to the Dubois gang.

It ended after a group of Mafia leaders was summoned to a meeting at
the Windsor Hotel where Vincenzo Cotroni, the former "godfather" of
the Montreal Mafia, is believed to have ordered an end to hostilities.

Moreno Gallo is serving a life sentence because he and an accomplice
killed a 26-year-old drug dealer in that summer of 1973 on the orders
of Cotroni organization members. Gallo, who was 28 at the time,
pleaded guilty to murder and received a mandatory life sentence.

His accomplice, Tony Vanelli, managed to sidestep a life term by
pleading guilty to manslaughter.

The Cotroni organization was seeking revenge for a double killing. On
July 10, 1973, residents of high-rise apartment buildings on Cr?peau
St. in St. Laurent were startled by several gunshots late in the
night. When the police arrived, they found Salvatore Sergi, 21, dead.
Near him was 27-year-old Mario Ciambrone, a known drug dealer who
died en route to the Sacr? Coeur Hospital.

What would come out later, during a provincial inquiry into organized
crime, was that Ciambrone and Sergi were underlings in the Cotroni
organization. Their deaths did not sit well with Cotroni or Paolo
Violi, his hand-picked successor. At the time, the Montreal police
were already investigating the Cotroni organization and regularly
listening in on the conversations of its leaders.

"They take out two of our picciotti (soldiers) in that way," a
furious Violi was recorded telling Cotroni the day after the murders.
"We have to give them a thrashing," Cotroni said.

On Sept. 2, 1973, the "trashing" came while drug dealer Angelo
Facchino was sitting in his car, parked in front of a nightclub on
St. Denis St. He was shot five times.

Gallo and his accomplice Vanelli, both picciotti in the Cotroni
organization, were spotted by two military policemen as they ran from
the shooting, near St. Louis Square, toward a waiting car. The
military policemen had heard the shots and saw Vanelli holding a gun as he ran.

Gallo and Vanelli jumped into the Pontiac and sped off. The military
policemen followed in their own car and caught up when a Montreal
police officer pulled the Pontiac over for driving the wrong way down
a one-way street.

When the military policemen warned the Montreal officer that Vanelli
was armed, he and Gallo were arrested and the police found the
revolver used to kill Facchino inside the car.

Less than two weeks later, another associate of the Cotroni family
was gunned down while shooting pool in a restaurant. Violi considered
it to be a reply to the Facchino hit and wanted more bloodshed.

But near the end of September, a meeting of important Mafia figures
was held at the Windsor Hotel.

At least one person familiar with what was discussed told the
provincial inquiry that Cotroni acted as a sort of chairman of the
board while Violi acted as boss. Calmer heads prevailed and it was
agreed the conflict should end.