Pubdate: Sat, 28 Jul 2007
Source: Montreal Gazette (CN QU)
Copyright: 2007 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Paul Cherry

DRUG DEAL GONE WRONG SPARKED MURDEROUS HOSTILITIES IN 1973

It started with someone getting ripped off in a drug deal, and 
threatened to turn into a war on the streets of Montreal between the 
Cotroni organization and people loyal to the Dubois gang.

It ended after a group of Mafia leaders was summoned to a meeting at 
the Windsor Hotel where Vincenzo Cotroni, the former "godfather" of 
the Montreal Mafia, is believed to have ordered an end to hostilities.

Moreno Gallo is serving a life sentence because he and an accomplice 
killed a 26-year-old drug dealer in that summer of 1973 on the orders 
of Cotroni organization members. Gallo, who was 28 at the time, 
pleaded guilty to murder and received a mandatory life sentence.

His accomplice, Tony Vanelli, managed to sidestep a life term by 
pleading guilty to manslaughter.

The Cotroni organization was seeking revenge for a double killing. On 
July 10, 1973, residents of high-rise apartment buildings on Cr?peau 
St. in St. Laurent were startled by several gunshots late in the 
night. When the police arrived, they found Salvatore Sergi, 21, dead. 
Near him was 27-year-old Mario Ciambrone, a known drug dealer who 
died en route to the Sacr? Coeur Hospital.

What would come out later, during a provincial inquiry into organized 
crime, was that Ciambrone and Sergi were underlings in the Cotroni 
organization. Their deaths did not sit well with Cotroni or Paolo 
Violi, his hand-picked successor. At the time, the Montreal police 
were already investigating the Cotroni organization and regularly 
listening in on the conversations of its leaders.

"They take out two of our picciotti (soldiers) in that way," a 
furious Violi was recorded telling Cotroni the day after the murders. 
"We have to give them a thrashing," Cotroni said.

On Sept. 2, 1973, the "trashing" came while drug dealer Angelo 
Facchino was sitting in his car, parked in front of a nightclub on 
St. Denis St. He was shot five times.

Gallo and his accomplice Vanelli, both picciotti in the Cotroni 
organization, were spotted by two military policemen as they ran from 
the shooting, near St. Louis Square, toward a waiting car. The 
military policemen had heard the shots and saw Vanelli holding a gun as he ran.

Gallo and Vanelli jumped into the Pontiac and sped off. The military 
policemen followed in their own car and caught up when a Montreal 
police officer pulled the Pontiac over for driving the wrong way down 
a one-way street.

When the military policemen warned the Montreal officer that Vanelli 
was armed, he and Gallo were arrested and the police found the 
revolver used to kill Facchino inside the car.

Less than two weeks later, another associate of the Cotroni family 
was gunned down while shooting pool in a restaurant. Violi considered 
it to be a reply to the Facchino hit and wanted more bloodshed.

But near the end of September, a meeting of important Mafia figures 
was held at the Windsor Hotel.

At least one person familiar with what was discussed told the 
provincial inquiry that Cotroni acted as a sort of chairman of the 
board while Violi acted as boss. Calmer heads prevailed and it was 
agreed the conflict should end.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman