| Giuseppe "Joe" Morello |
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| Giuseppe Morello was born in Sicily in the mid 1940s but moved to Canada at a young age. He and his brother, Nicholas, alligned themselves with members of the Montreal Mafia. On Decemember 13, 1980, Morello's brother Nicholas was shot dead as he left a Saint-Léonard bar. Réal Simard, who worked as an enforcer for Frank Cotroni, would later turn rat and admit to the murder. By this time, according to authorities, Giuseppe Morello had already taken control of the heroin distribution in the north-eastern part of the city. At its height, police evaluate, the racket would generate $8.5 million in profits a year for the Morello crew. Morello was convicted of heroin trafficking in 1986 and sentenced to two ten year prison sentences and fined $80,000. He was paroled after serving less than four years and went back to running his drug network. |
Morello's criminal activities continued uninterrupted for the next few years, until, with the help of an informant, Montreal police were able to penetrate his crew. Posing as the owner of an escort service, an officer was able to arrange several deals for heroin and cocaine with the gang. Several transactions were completed, including one deal for 200 grams of heroin. On three different occassions, Morello himself sold the officer 10 grams of the drug, each time for the price of $2,000. A transaction of 500 grams of heroin for $80,000 was also discussed but police backed out of the arrangement. During their investigation, authorities closely watched Morello as he met regularly with Agostino "Dino" Cuntrera in a café on Robert street. Cuntrera, a cousin of Pasquale, Liborio, Gaspare, and Paolo Cuntrera, has been described as the "number-two man" in the Montreal Mafia and was sentenced to five years in prison for conspiracy in the murder of Mafia boss Paolo Violi. Police decided to end their investigation on June 30, 1998, after the Morello crew invited the officer to celebrate Canada Day with them the following night and told him to bring some of the most beautiful girls in his supposed escort service. That night, police arrested Morello and seven others. Four of Morello's nephews, Giuseppe Gervasi and Dennis, Nick, and Peter Morello were among them, as well as Giovanni Cianci, who allegedly supplied the Morellos with their drugs. Five others has been charged in the few months before the bust in connection with the investigation. 1.3 kilograms of heroin, 109 grams of cocaine, eight vehicles, over a dozen firearms, and $14,000 were seized by authorities. Morello and his four nephews were charged with drug trafficking and gangsterism. In return for prosecutor Jean-Claude Boyer dropping the gangsterism charge, Giuseppe Morello pleaded guilty to trafficking heroin and cocaine. He was sentenced to eight years. His nephews, Nick, Denis, and Peter Morello would receive four years, one year, and two months in prison, respectively. Giuseppe Gervasi, another of Morello's nephews, would later be acquitted. On May 24, 2001, Morello, while behind bars, was charged with participating with 22 others in a large scale cocaine, heroin, and hashish network. Once again, police managed to gather evidence on four organizations by infiltrating the underworld with an undercover officer posing as a drug trafficker. The gangs dealt directly with high-level members of the Los Millisos drug cartel in Bogota, Colombia. Morello and mobster Girolamo Sciortino were charged with organizing, with the help of underlings on the outside, the sale of 683 grams of heroin from prison. Among the 22 others arrested for allegedly participating in the large scale drug network were Serge Blais, Mario Di Iorio, Ronald Pickard, Carmine Boni, and Orlando Veri. |