MONTREAL AMBUSH STIRS FEAR OF DRUG TURF WAR

Cotroni Family Member Shot

MONTREAL - The gunning down of a reputed member of the Cotroni crime family
has police on alert for a drug traffickers' turf war.

Paul Cotroni, 42, was shot three times Sunday night as he got out of his
Corvette in front of his large suburban home in Repentigny, east of
Montreal.

His wife, who was in the house, called police and an ambulance.

Controni was in critical condition in hospital yesterday with wounds to the
head and torso.

Witnesses saw two young men fleeing across a field, where police later
found two high-calibre revolvers.

``It's a settling of accounts, no question about it,'' said Sergeant
Detective Pietro Poletti, a Montreal police expert on organized crime.
``But is it the start of a mob war? That's a difficult question.''

Poletti said police sources have been reporting tensions in the
drug-trafficking alliance between the traditional organized crime families
and motorcyle gangs.

It seems bikers - the most powerful gangs in Quebec are the Hells Angels
and the Rock Machine - are intruding on turf normally controlled by Italian
crime families, Poletti said.

``We might see some more bloodshed,'' said Poletti, who co-ordinates
information on organized crime for the Criminal Intelligence Service, made
up of police forces from across the country.

The Hells Angels and the Rock Machine have been fighting over turf for four
years.

But the Cotroni shooting could also be the result of a personal vendetta,
Poletti stressed. After all, Cotroni is a minor player in what remains of
the crime family established by his uncle, Vincenzo Cotroni.

In a 1975 Quebec government inquiry, police named Vincenzo ``The Egg''
Cotroni as the top Mafia boss in the country. Police unveiled an
organizational chart of the Montreal-based family showing Vincenzo's
brother Frank - Paul Cotroni's father - as one of his lieutenants.

But the family lost much of its clout after Vincenzo Cotroni died of
natural causes in 1984 and his brother Frank was jailed for manslaughter
and drug smuggling. Frank Cotroni is now serving a seven-year sentence for
plotting to import 180 kilograms of cocaine. His son Francesco is serving
eight years for the same crime.