Giuseppe "Joe" Lopresti
    Giuseppe Lopresti was  born  in  the  late 1940s in Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily. Lopresti, a  reputed  member of  the  New York  based  Bonanno Family, was considered one of the biggest heroin traffickers in Canada.

     Lopresti  allegedly  acted  as the  intermediary between the  Montreal Mafia  and  the Bonanno Family and the other New York crime families. He was reportedly assigned this task in or  around the early 1980s, after the  Sicilian  faction  of  the  Montreal  Mafia  seized  control  from  the  Calabrians.

     He reportedly travelled regularly to New York, where police claim he met  with  celebrity gangster  John Gotti, head of  the  Gambino Family. Police  also  had  photographs  of  Lopresti  and  fellow  Montreal-based Bonanno  mobster Gerlando Sciascia  meeting with  Cesare Bonventre, a Bonanno Family  captain  and former  bodyguard of  mob boss Carmine Galante.
Bonanno Connection

     In Montreal, Lopresti was involved in the poker machine industry and owned a luxurious home on Antoine-Berthelet  Avenue, often  referred  to  as “Mafia Road,"  in  the  city’s  Saraguay district. The house was valued  at $500,000. His neighbours supposedly included Vito and Nick Rizzuto, as well as Paolo Renda.

     Lopresti  and Gerlando Sciascia were  among  many charged with heroin trafficking in the famous Pizza Connection case. Authorities  alleged that  Lopresti and Sciascia shipped 30 kilograms of  heroin to Gambino Family mobsters in 1982. 

     Lopresti, Sciascia, and a Gambino mobster were eventually acquitted. Turncoat mobster Salvatore “The Bull” Gravano would  later  testify in  court  that  a  juror  had  been  paid $10,000 to secure  an acquittal for the mobsters. Gerlando Sciascia was found shot to death in New York in March 1999.

     One day in April 1992, Lopresti left his home for a meeting in downtown Montreal. It was the last time his family would see him  alive. Shortly thereafter, his body was later found wrapped in plastic in the Riviere-des-Prairies district of Montreal. He had been shot once in the head.

     A large  amount of  money was reportedly found  in  Lopresti’s pockets, suggesting  that  robbery was not the motive for the murder. His 1988 red  Porsche was found  later near  a  Decarie Boulevard restaurant.

     The slaying remains unsolved, but police have said it  may have been ordered by  John Gotti, head of the Gambino Family, and carried out with the blessing of the Bonannos.