Hits and misses MOB of the
It had been pretty quiet ... until Angelo Musitano was gunned down
Shortly before 4 p.m. on May 2, 2017, a man ran up to the driveway of a suburban Waterdown home on Chesapeake Drive and opened fire.
The gunman, covered head-to-toe in dark clothing, fired into a white Ford F-150 pickup, killing the 39year-old man behind the wheel, before running away and fleeing in a stolen burgundy Ford Fusion. Angelo Musitano was dead.
This was the beginning of a Mob war in the Hamilton area that has included multiple shootings, murders and violence in the years since.
Back on that day, neighbours were stunned, they had no idea the man who lived at No. 14 with his wife and three young boys was from the Musitano crime family, one of Hamilton’s three original Mafia families, along with the Papalias and Luppino-Violis.
Hamilton has a long history of the Mob, dating back to the prohibition era. Over the years there have been times of violence and quiet. For about a decade, from the mid-2000s to the day of Angelo’s death, things had been pretty silent in Hamilton, but the Mob never went away.
Angelo and his big brother Pasquale (Pat) Musitano made a name for themselves in 1997 when they took out Mob boss Johnny (Pops) Papalia — a larger than life figure. Pat had recently taken over control of the Musitano crime family following the death of his father, Domenic, and Angelo was a babyfaced 21-year-old.
Ultimately, the Musitano brothers struck a deal and pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of conspiracy to commit murder in the shooting death of Papalia’s lieutenant, Carmen Barillaro. They were sentenced to 10 years in prison and both brothers were released from prison in 2006. The Musitano name was hardly raised again in Hamilton until Angelo’s murder.
Nearly a year and a half later, on Sept. 13, 2018, police were called to a suburban Ancaster home where Albert Iavarone was found dead. He had been shot in an incident that mirrored Angelo’s murder: the killer watching for their target to come home and then shooting them in the driveway with their family inside the house.
Just like Angelo was Pat’s baby brother, Albert was the younger brother of Tony Iavarone, a powerful figure. The Iavarones were once allies of the Musitanos, according to police intelligence, but that changed in recent years.
On Jan. 30, 2019 Cece Luppino, the son of Hamilton mobster, Rocco Luppino, was gunned down in the doorway of his Mountain Brow home. Cece was not known to police and many believe his death was intended to send a message to his family.
Three months later, on April 25, 2019, Pat Musitano was shot outside his lawyer’s office in Mississauga. He survives but later appears to be in hiding until he is shot dead in a Burlington parking lot on July 10, 2020.
Before Pat’s death, the violence was ramping up, including a home invasion and stabbing at the home of Nat Luppino, the murder of an old Musitano friend and a strange incident where one of Pat’s associates crashed his vehicle into a group that appeared to be watching Pat’s former St. Clair Boulevard home.
Just a week after Pat’s murder, police were called to the Miles Road home of Guiseppe (Pino) Avignone after two cars were set on fire and the word “rat” was spray-painted on his garage. Avignone grew up in the Musitano household and has been described as a cousin or brother to Pat and Angelo.
Two days later, an associate of Pat’s was found murdered in a wooded area in London, Ont.
Few of these cases have been solved by police and in the cases were charges were laid, it’s typically against those hired to carry out the violence, not whoever was behind ordering the crimes.
After Angelo’s murder, police linked the shooting to a similar one in Woodbridge less than two months before the Waterdown shooting. But in that case the gunman missed the true target and innocent bystander Mila Barberi was killed.
Project Scopa led to three people being charged in the murders, but none are behind bars. The alleged gunman Michael Cudmore and Daniel Tomassetti, accused of organizing the surveillance of the victims and helping to plan the shootings, fled to Mexico. Cudmore was found murdered there in June 2020.
The third accused man and only one to be held in jail was Jabril Abdalla. In June 2021, he pleaded guilty to participating in a criminal organization. In exchange, two charges of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder were withdrawn.
Abdalla admitted to helping a criminal organization by registering two cars in his name and driving people before those shootings, including to put trackers on vehicles, but said he had no knowledge of murder plots. He was sentenced to time served.
Other Mob cases have also ended in plea deals.
Four people were originally charged with attempted murder in connection with a home invasion at Nat Luppino’s home in April 2018, that saw his nephew stabbed. Nat Luppino was the intended target. Charges against two accused were later dropped and one pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. Charles Boucher-Savard was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated assault in February 2020.
Of all the cases, it was an investigation into organized crime and drug trafficking, led by the RCMP, that reached the farthest. Project Otremens, which also included Hamilton, Halton and other police services, saw a New York mobster turn on his Mafia family and become a paid police agent. He worked for police for years targeting Hamilton’s Violi brothers.
Domenico (Dom) and Guiseppe (Joey) Violi are the son of slain Montreal Mob boss Paolo Violi and the grandson of former Hamilton godfather Giacomo Luppino. Both brothers pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and were sentenced to eight and 16 years prison respectively.
Among the many things captured on hours of wiretap was the undercover agent being “made” — officially indoctrinated into the Mafia — and Dom Violi saying he had been made underboss of the Bonanno family, the Buffalo Mob. No Canadian has ever been made underboss — the second in command — of one of the traditional Five Families of New York; this revelation showed stronger ties between the Mob in Canada and the United States.