William Obront, better known as "Obie", was a Canadian-American gangster and the principal money launderer for the Cotroni family of Montreal, often described as being the "Canadian Meyer Lansky".
41 Facts About William Obront
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Regular visitors to William Obront's businesses included the gangsters Vincenzo Cotroni and Nicola Di Iorio of Montreal along with Salvatore Giglio of New York's Bonanno family.
3.
William Obront's businesses were considered to be just fronts for money laundering for the Cotroni family.
4.
William Obront had allied himself to Cotroni once he saw the profits to be made from the French Connection heroin smuggling network-of which Cotroni played a key role in-and offered his services as a money launder.
5.
William Obront came to be known as "Canada's Meyer Lansky" as he played a role within the Cotroni family analogous to that played by Meyer Lansky within the American Mafia.
6.
Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star newspaper, wrote: "William Obront gave the Cotronis a conduit between the streets and mainstream business, and between the Italian gangs of St Leonard and Montreal's Jewish community, of which William Obront was a member in poor standing".
7.
One of William Obront's clients was Mitchell Bronfman of the famous Bronfman family.
8.
William Obront always described Cotroni and Violi as his business partners and never as his friends.
9.
In 1967, four different companies controlled by William Obront won the right to supply meat for the concession stands at Expo 67.
10.
In 1968, William Obront was questioned by the police in connection with two murders.
11.
One of the murder victims was a man who was behind in a loan to William Obront who was executed by a hooded hitman while paying cards.
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Elkind further noted that both Cotroni and William Obront felt absolutely no guilt about selling rancid meat that caused people to become sick and sometimes die, saying all that both men cared about was money.
13.
William Obront engaged in stock market fraud, manipulating the prices of shares and engaging in insider trading.
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William Obront ultimately faced 400 charges of financial misconduct for his "boiler room" stock market operations.
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In 1973, William Obront took charge of the bookmaking in the Ottawa-Hull area on behalf of the Cotroni family.
16.
The people who invested their wealth in William Obront-controlled brokerage firms almost always lost their money.
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Between 1950 and 1975, William Obront was involved in 38 different companies as either an owner, director or shareholder.
18.
When one businessman told Violi that he wanted to bring a shipment of sheep and lambs from Texas for his meat-packing factory, Violi told him: "The best thing is to call Willie William Obront and ask him to make a cheque for $5,000".
19.
Violi called William Obront who told him: "Send him over here and he will have it [a cheque for $5,000]".
20.
The vice-president testified that there was "an established credit line" to William Obront running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, which would only be possible with the approval of senior regional management as the management of the branch did not have that power.
21.
Gregoire testified that the line of credit to William Obront was used for loan-sharking as it allowed the Bank of Montreal via the proxy of William Obront to make loans to people whose poverty made them ineligible for loans from the bank while at the same time avoiding the disrepute that would have been occasioned by engaging in loan-sharking itself.
22.
William Obront: You, calling me on the phone, you, it's like the worse, worse possible thing, eh, Angie.
23.
William Obront: I'm telling you, it's murder, I want to meet you.
24.
From 1970 to 1975, William Obront had at least nine bank accounts at four different banks.
25.
William Obront ceded his Canadian citizenship in order to become an American national in November 1975.
26.
In 1975, William Obront was charged with tax evasion, with the government claiming that he had an undeclared income of $2,197,801 between 1965 and 1973.
27.
In May 1976, following an extradition request from Canada, William Obront fled to Costa Rica, but was ordered to return to Canada.
28.
The Banque Canadienne Nationale justified the loan under the grounds that William Obront was one of their best customers.
29.
Under handcuffs from the detectives from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, William Obront was flown back to Canada.
30.
On 27 May 1976, William Obront finally appeared before the CECO commission with his only words being: "I refuse to be sworn in".
31.
When William Obront still refused to testify, Dutil sentenced him to prison.
32.
For refusing to testify at the commission, William Obront served a year in prison.
33.
William Obront was convicted of defrauding investors in Obie's Meat Market of $51,991 and sentenced to four years in prison and fined $75,000 on 3 December 1976.
34.
William Obront spends 23.5 hours a day in his cell.
35.
William Obront has absolutely no contact with people and his meals are passed through a little slit in the door.
36.
In 1979, William Obront was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to 20 months in prison plus ordered to pay $683,3046 in back taxes.
37.
William Obront was convicted of immigration violations in Miami on 2 December 1980, causing US authorities to seek his deportation.
38.
William Obront had smuggled in 13.5 million Quaaludes into the United States since 1981.
39.
William Obront was convicted in an American court of twelve drug-related charges on 7 June 1984.
40.
William Obront was sentenced to serve a 20-year prison term and ordered to pay $50,000 in restitution.
41.
William Obront died at a retirement home in Miami on 12 October 2017, at the age of 93.