Defying the odds
Former mobster turned police informant dies peacefully of natural causes
Marvin Elkind died peacefully. Which is remarkable.
He was a beefy man weighted with gold chains, knobby rings, a cigar clenched in his teeth and the nickname The Weasel. He was a mafia insider turned police informant who defied the payback odds by passing away of natural causes at home in Toronto on Jan. 21. He was 89.
Elkind’s life sounds like Mob fiction. But he was the real deal. A driver. A goon. A confidant of the highest order.
He was Jimmy Hoffa’s chauffeur. He was Muhammad Ali’s pal. And he was a trusted lackey of Hamilton Mob boss Johnny (Pops) Papalia.
Except that he wasn’t. Elkind was, in fact, a paid Ontario Provincial Police informant whose job it was to get close to Papalia while wearing a wire.
Once Elkind flipped — he said he did it to be on the right side of things, but also for the money — he spent 25 years doing undercover work for the OPP, FBI, U.S. Customs, Scotland Yard and the RCMP.
His blockbuster life was chronicled in “The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob” by National Post reporter Adrian Humphreys. I was a guest at the book launch, held in a dim Toronto boxing club filled with an unlikely mix of cops, crooks, lawyers, journalists and boxers.
Elkind was born to a Jewish family in Toronto, then placed in an Italian foster home and raised among mobsters. Some were close to Papalia, and Elkind recalled being a little kid when he was smacked by “John” for playing too hard and disrupting a meeting.
“He did the world a favour by not being alive today,” The Weasel told me, years after Papalia was gunned down in a hit orchestrated by the rival Musitano family. “Johnny was a very bad person. Pure evil. Liked to hurt people. He didn’t like me, but he trusted me.”
So much so, that in 1984 Papalia said enough in front of Elkind (who was wearing a recording device) that a massive mortgage fraud with a plan to build a hotel in downtown Hamilton collapsed. But police never charged Papalia because doing so would expose Elkind as an informer.
That The Weasel lived on, even after boldly confessing his double life, is astounding.
Elkind became a sort of hero, his tall and true tales and gregarious personality befriending him to many. In the days since his death, many online tributes have referred to him as a “mensch” — Yiddish for a person who lives with integrity and honour.
“He was an exceptional person, kind and generous,” says Mark Secord, Elkind’s friend for 15 years.
The first time they met, through a mutual acquaintance, Elkind drove and Secord sat in the back seat of his car.
“He looked at me in the rearview mirror with those ice-blue eyes and said, ‘Kid … do you know the Golden Rule?’ ”
Secord had done his homework on The Weasel. He knew it was a reference to American Teamsters union boss Hoffa and what he expected from his drivers — including Elkind: what is said in the car, stays in the car.
“We were friends ever since,” says Secord.
“I spent many nights with him, playing cards, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey.
“Marvin would take over a room with his stories, the never-ending tales of his most unusual life. There was no one he didn’t know, or have a story about. The world will be a little less colourful without him.”
Elkind leaves behind his wife, Hennie, and their three children.