31 Facts About Paolo Violi

Paolo Violi married Grazia Luppino, the daughter of the boss of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton.

Paolo Violi later moved to Montreal where he became associated with the Calabrese Cotroni crime family, which controlled much of organized crime in Montreal.

Paolo Violi was born in Sinopoli, Calabria on 6 February 1931.

Paolo Violi was born into the mob; his father Domenico Violi was the head of the 'Ndrangheta Violi clan in Sinopoli.

Paolo Violi was charged with manslaughter in a Welland court, but was acquitted, claiming it was self-defense, showing the stab wound as evidence.

Paolo Violi testified at his trial that both he and Brigante were pimps and the dispute that led to the killing was about the control of a prostitute.

Paolo Violi gained Canadian citizenship in 1956, and by the early 1960s was running illegally manufactured liquor from Ontario to Quebec.

Paolo Violi became associated with Giacomo Luppino, boss of the Luppino family in Hamilton, but left for Montreal in 1963 on Luppino's orders to avoid clashes with another Hamilton mobster, Johnny Papalia.

On 10 July 1965, Paolo Violi married Grazia Luppino, the daughter of Giacomo, in Hamilton with Vincenzo "Vic" Cotroni, boss of the Cotroni family, serving as the best man at the wedding.

In Quebec, Paolo Violi opened the Reggio Bar in Saint-Leonard in the mid-1960s, which he used as a base for extortion.

Paolo Violi was closely associated with Frank Cotroni and became known as "The Don of St Leonard".

Paolo Violi saw himself as the future boss of the Cotroni family and in private he mocked Cotroni as a weak leader.

Paolo Violi would kill, but he'd do it in a much more intelligent way.

Several Italian Canadian school teachers who continued to teach in English received death threats, and Paolo Violi told Menard that he provided bodyguards to the teachers.

Paolo Violi was known for providing free ice cream to children at the Reggio Bar, and he would never permit anyone to swear in front of children.

In early July 1973, Paolo Violi paid an extended visit to Italy to see his first cousin and childhood friend, Domenico Barbino.

Paolo Violi went to New York to participate in the election for the new boss, and was overjoyed when the candidate he supported, Philip "Rusty" Rastelli, won.

Rastelli promised to send more men to Montreal to replace those in prison, and Paolo Violi felt confident of Rastelli's support.

Paolo Violi complained about the independent modus operandi of his Sicilian "underlings", Nicolo Rizzuto in particular.

Paolo Violi did it in a very calm way, without too much force.

Lino Simaglia, an Italian immigrant businessman, testified at CECO that Paolo Violi had visited him in 1971 and forced him to pay $1,000 per year in protection money.

Paolo Violi was sleeping and boom, boom, I shot him three times.

Paolo Violi was a braggart who claimed to Cotroni that he committed crimes done by others and the police knew that this particular attempted murder was the work of someone else.

The way that the police wiretaps revealed that Paolo Violi kept boasting with hubristic arrogance that it was not possible for the police to wiretap him made him appear to be a fool.

In 1977, Rizzuto and Paolo Violi met face-to-face in the home of a Montreal resident for a last-ditch effort to resolve their differences, according to a police report.

Shortly after Paolo Violi was released from the brief jail sentence with relation to the CECO inquiry, he sold his bar to brothers Vincenzo and Giuseppe Randisi; the name was changed to Bar Jean-Talon.

Just under a year after Francesco Violi's murder, on 22 January 1978, Paolo Violi was shot in the head at close range with a lupara in the Bar Jean-Talon after being invited to play cards by Vincenzo Randisi.

Paolo Violi's funeral was five days later at the Church of the Madonna della Difesa, and was buried at Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery in Montreal.

Vic Cotroni was not one to buck New York and any hit on Paolo Violi had to be sanctioned from the United States.

All this adult life, Paolo Violi worked to undermine respect for the law.

Domenico Paolo Violi subsequently became the underboss of the Buffalo crime family in 2017; the first Canadian to hold the second-highest position in the American Mafia.