63 Facts About Frank Cotroni

Frank Cotroni's family, including his brother Vincenzo, had immigrated to Montreal in 1924, from Mammola, Calabria, Italy.

Frank Cotroni's brother founded and headed the Cotroni crime family.

Frank Cotroni had connections with the Bonanno crime family, and in 1975, was convicted in the United States of smuggling cocaine and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In prison, Cotroni met fellow inmate French-Canadian Real Simard, and Simard would become Frank's driver and eventual hitman upon their release in 1979.

The Calabrian faction continued to operate with Frank Cotroni as acting boss for his ill brother after the early 1980s.

In 1989, Frank Cotroni lost his court fight against extradition on narcotics charges in Connecticut that dated back to 1983, on the condition that he serve his time in Canada.

Frank Cotroni's oldest brother, Vincenzo, was 20 years older, born in 1911 in Mammola, Calabria, Italy, and immigrated to Montreal in 1924 with his two sisters, Marguerita and Palmina, and his brother Giuseppe; his other brother, Michel, was later born in Montreal like Frank.

Unlike his older brother Vic who always spoke his French with a strong Italian accent, Frank Cotroni spoke joual like a native speaker.

Frank Cotroni was described as being more comfortable speaking French than Italian.

Likewise, Frank Cotroni married into a French-Canadian family and regarded himself as a Quebecois.

Frank Cotroni grew up in a house at the junction of Ontario and St Timothee streets in Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, a poor neighbourhood that more affluent Italian immigrants avoided because of its high crime rate.

Frank Cotroni's father, Nicodemo, was a carpenter whose average weekly income was $35.

In 1950, Frank Cotroni was convicted of the possession of stolen goods, serving a short sentence on the account of his age.

Frank Cotroni was first arrested as an adult in September 1960 for the possession of a deadly weapon, being found carrying a handgun.

Frank Cotroni was heard to shout in French, "They will pay me, even if I have to wait until I die".

Shortly afterward, Frank Cotroni was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery under the grounds that he must had known that a tunnel was being dug from the house he rented to the vault of the Decarie Boulevard City and District Savings Bank.

However, Frank Cotroni's associates refused plea bargains offered by the Crown for lesser sentences in exchange for naming him as the mastermind behind the robbery attempt, leading to Frank Cotroni's acquittal at his trial in 1971.

Frank Cotroni had links with known drug traffickers in New York, Cali, Lima, and Miami.

Frank Cotroni imported hashish from Lebanon, and was so well connected in that country that in 1975 the police discovered that he had called President Suleiman Frangieh several times.

In 1969 and 1970, Frank Cotroni was seen by the police talking several times with Tommaso Buscetta of the Sicilian Mafia, which was believed to marked the beginning of his career smuggling heroin.

Besides for smuggling heroin, Frank Cotroni was involved in human trafficking, smuggling in illegal immigrants from the Mezzogiorno.

On 18 February 1971, with his lawyer Sidney Leithman at his side, Frank Cotroni called a press conference to discuss his arrest in Mexico the previous month.

Frank Cotroni made a point of stressing that his arrest in Acapulco for the possession of stolen jewelry was a case of mistaken identity.

Frank Cotroni did not mention that he was in Mexico to discuss setting up a pipeline for smuggling heroin into the United States and Canada.

On 8 November 1974, Frank Cotroni was arrested following an extradition request from the United States alleging that he had smuggled $3 million worth of cocaine imported from Mexico into the United States.

Frank Cotroni fought the extradition request right up to the Supreme Court of Canada, which declined his request, thus leading to this extradition.

On 7 January 1975, Thomas Puccio, the assistant US district attorney for New York, told a jury that Cotroni along with Frank D'Asti were "the middlemen" who brought the "buyers and sellers together".

In 1975, with connections to the Bonanno family of New York City, Frank Cotroni was convicted in the United States of smuggling $3 million worth of cocaine into New York City through Mexico and sentenced to 15 years in prison; he was paroled after four years on the condition he not return to the United States.

Frank Cotroni was more a product of Quebec society than a product of the traditional underworld [whose parents were from the Calabria region of southern Italy].

The Canadian criminologist Steven Schnedier called Frank Cotroni's proposed plea bargain a "scam" that he attempted to commit against the US Department of Justice.

One Bonanno family capo, Alphonse "Sonny Red" Indelicato, unaware of the fraudulent nature of Frank Cotroni's offer, ordered him killed as a "rat" who had violated omerta.

The US Department of Justice, knowing that Frank Cotroni was essentially attempting to buy his way out of prison with his "scam" offer to reveal the location of the counterfeit money and plates, declined his proposed plea bargain.

The Calabrian faction continued to operate with Frank Cotroni as acting boss for his ill brother after the early 1980s.

Frank Cotroni's hair was worn in a well groomed, cavalier style, flowering halfway over his ears.

Frank had been overshadowed by Vic Cotroni and Paolo Violi, but with Violi murdered and Vic dying of cancer, Frank became the Cotroni whom the media focused its attention on.

Frank Cotroni kept a high profile, attending boxing matches and hockey games, and cruising around Montreal in his Lincoln Continental driven by Simard.

Simard later wrote in his 1987 autobiography Le Neveu that Frank Cotroni was embittered by the rise of the Rizzuto family at the expense of his own, and he intended to take back the status of the premier Mafia family in Canada from the Rizzutos.

Frank Cotroni first ordered Simard to kill Michel "Fatso" Marion in January 1980, who was ripping off his rackets.

Pozza came from Trento in northern Italy and in 1976 had become a money launderer and the consigliere to the Frank Cotroni family, which was an unusual promotion for somebody not from southern Italy.

Midway through the dinner, Simard left early while Frank Cotroni gave Pozza a handshake at the end, saying they would always be friends.

Frank Cotroni continued his alliance with the Genovese family, being linked to 115.5 pounds of heroin seized by the US Customs on 27 January 1982 from a Genovese-owned warehouse in Brooklyn, which was believed to have been smuggled with Frank Cotroni's help.

The FBI found out that on 26 July 1982, Frank Cotroni wired US$93,000 from Montreal to a bank in Italy as a payment for a shipment of heroin that was due to arrive in New York on 26 July 1982.

In 1983, Frank Cotroni was indicted by a Connecticut grand jury on one count of conspiring to traffic in heroin with five other men in New York City, and three counts of illegally transporting more than $5,000 from Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Montreal.

In July 1983, Frank Cotroni sent Simard to Ontario where he met with Johnny Papalia in Hamilton on behalf of Frank Cotroni.

Frank Cotroni seized the Ontario market, with Simard bringing Quebec strippers to Toronto clubs, where he allowed Papalia to put his pinball machines in his clubs.

Frank Cotroni frequently visited Toronto in the company of the boxer Eddie Melo who served as his bodyguard where he usually met Simard and Rocco Zito.

Frank Cotroni always stayed at the Delta Chelsea Inn, where a young woman who worked there was his mistress.

Frank Cotroni was reported to have stated that Toronto was just as lucrative a market as Montreal, but unlike Montreal, the police in Toronto were not as corrupt, making Toronto a more difficult market to operate.

Frank Cotroni was closely linked to two Toronto boxers, Eddie Melo and Nicky Furlano, both of were trained by Travis Sugen, who in turn was another friend of Frank Cotroni's.

Bernier called Frank Cotroni "the guiding spirit" of boxing in Montreal.

The commission stated that Frank Cotroni was treated like royalty whenever he attended a boxing match anywhere in Canada.

The report stated that Frank Cotroni was paying the bills of the boxer Dave Hilton Sr.

Frank Cotroni was described as the only man who could control the alcoholic Hilton Sr.

The Bernier commission accused Frank Cotroni of exploiting the Hilton family, who were "victims of their youthful ignorance and their thirst for glory".

The lawyer for the Hiltons, Frank Shoofey, was mostly excluded from the talks, with the negotiations being conducted by the lawyers for Cotroni and King.

On 8 December 1987, Frank Cotroni pleaded guilty to manslaughter with regard to the murder charges he was facing due to Simard's testimony.

Frank Cotroni lost his court fight against extradition in June 1989 and agreed to face the charges in Connecticut on the condition that he serve his time in Canada.

Two of Frank Cotroni's sons followed him into the family business.

In 1996, Frank Cotroni was charged with conspiring to import 180 kilograms of cocaine into Canada; he was released from prison in 2002 after serving four years of a seven-year sentence.

Police initially investigated a theory that Paolo Frank Cotroni was killed over a $250,000 debt he owed to an Asian organized crime syndicate, but the Rock Machine motorcycle gang later became the prime suspects in the murder.

On 30 June 2002, Frank Cotroni was arrested for violating his parole conditions by meeting men with criminal records in an Italian restaurant, but was released in August 2002.

Frank Cotroni said nothing of his alleged Mafia ties but hinted at his criminal past in the preface.

On 17 August 2004, Frank Cotroni died of brain cancer, at the age of 72.