'DOZEN' MOBSTERS LIVING FREE IN YORK

Feds Slow To Act On Tips: Police Chief Calls Inaction 'Totally Inappropriate'

There are at least a dozen Mafia fugitives who either consider York
Region home or visit regularly, according to police Chief Armand La Barge.

Canadian immigration officials have known their whereabouts for about
18 months, and yet they have done nothing to round them up in order
to decide what's to be done with them, La Barge said yesterday.

"The information has definitely been passed on from York Region
police to immigration ... and we are reliant on them to move the
files forward and do whatever they have to do," La Barge said, noting
that 10 of the men live in York Region and two visit on a regular basis.

"It's not a case of them (federal government) not knowing who they
are here," La Barge said. "It's a case of somebody having the will to
take whatever action that needs to be taken ... (but) political will
at this point in time is either lacking or is caught up in some level
of bureaucracy that is totally inappropriate."

"There is an incredible frustration at the incredible delay here," La
Barge said.

Yesterday the Toronto Star identified six men wanted by Italian
prosecutors probing the Mafia, including Cosimo D'Agostino, 68, who
fled to Canada from Italy in the 1970s after being sentenced to 10
years in prison for cocaine trafficking. All are openly living in the
GTA -- five in York and one in Toronto.

"Let me tell you there are more than six," La Barge said. "We know
there is at least a dozen, 10 of whom live in our jurisdiction, the
other two who frequent our jurisdiction."

La Barge declined to identify the fugitives.

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg could not be reached for comment
and his spokesperson did not return calls.

Stockwell Day, the minister for Public Safety, responded to the Star
story by saying: "The safety of Canadians is a top priority for this
government. While I will not discuss the particulars of any case, I
can tell you that this government takes very seriously threats to our
security. The Canadian Border Services Agency works closely with our
law enforcement partners to ensure that inadmissible persons are
apprehended and removed as soon as possible."

La Barge said he expects that York Region residents who read the Star
story will be naturally concerned that Mafia refugees from Italy are
living amongst them.

"I know it would be unsettling for a number of people in our
community as it is for us too," he said, adding that the process of
dealing with extradition and illegal immigrants drags on far too long.

Officials for the Citizen and Immigration department and the Canada
Border Services Agency each said yesterday they can't proceed until
they have "strong evidence" put before them.

Meanwhile, York Region police Insp. Tom Carrique said, in some cases,
Canada is reliant on Italian authorities to make applications for extradition.

"In some cases we have reached out to Italian authorities and let
them know that they are here and let them know that we will do
anything we can to work with them to expedite and support that
process," Carrique said.

Carrique said he had a meeting with immigration officials yesterday
on another matter and "they are passionate about seeing that
something is done as well."

NDP justice critic MP Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh) said it's
unfortunate that efforts to confront organized crime in Canada have
taken a backseat to fighting terrorism.

"I have been saying for some time that we have concentrated so much
of our efforts on terrorism in the last five years that ... we have
slipped fairly significantly in terms of the attention that the RCMP
and our immigration officials are paying to organized crime,"
Comartin said. "So, when I hear this kind of story I am not surprised."

Antonio Nicaso, who has written several books on organized crime,
said police shouldn't call a Mafia group with members in York Region
"the Siderno Group," as this smears everyone with ties to the
southern Italian city.

"It's not a Mafia town," Nicaso said. "It's a town with some criminals."

Meanwhile, several international mobsters have been arrested in the
Greater Toronto Area over the past few years, including Spanish
national Juan Ramon Fernandez, who was sentenced to 12 years in
prison in June 2004 for a variety of gangland charges, and who was
described in court as a key associate of Vito Rizzuto of Montreal.

Rizzuto, who authorities say was Canada's most powerful mobster, was
deported this summer to New York to face murder conspiracy charges
for the slayings of three gangland members in New York in 1981.

Fernandez entered Canada illegally and lived in a Mississauga
condominium while using the names Joe Bravo, Johnny Bravo and James Shaddock.

Another recently deported Toronto-area resident was Antonio (a.k.a.
the Black One, The Lawyer) Commisso, 49, who was considered by police
as the "boss of bosses" of the Commisso crime family in Calabria.

He was extradited in July 2005 from his $330,000 home on Hollywood
Hills Circle in Woodbridge to Italy, where he had been convicted of
organizing a "hit team" for gangland slayings and of running what
Italian prosecutors called a "dangerous, bloodthirsty Mafia association."

He had been in Woodbridge illegally since May 2004, but had a home
and driver's licence under his real name.

He somehow managed to elude authorities after being sentenced to a
10-year prison term, then flew business class from Zurich to Canada.

Fugitive Sicilian mobster Michele Modica was deported to Italy -- for
the second time -- in the fall of 2004. He was the intended target of
a bungled gangland assassination attempt on April 26, 2004 in a North
York sandwich shop that left bystander Louise Russo paralyzed.

It was common knowledge in the underworld that Modica had been living
in a Vaughan hotel while muscling into local gambling and drug rackets.

Riccardo Gattuso, 35, formerly of Fonteselva Ave., Woodbridge, was
deported to Italy in December 2005, after being arrested by York
Regional police for parole violations on Mafia-related charges. He
had been a fugitive since 1998 and was a suspect in several Mafia
murders in Siderno.

Italian authorities hope Canada also extradites former Woodbridge
resident Alfonso Caruana after he finishes an 18-year cocaine smuggling term.

Caruana was convicted in 2003 in absentia in Italy for involvement in
a Mafia-type conspiracy centred on drug trafficking, as well as the
importing, possession and large-scale sale of drugs.