Paolo Violi Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Age, Biography and Wiki

Paolo Violi was born on 6 February, 1931 in Sinopoli, Calabria, Italy. Discover Paolo Violi's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. Learn How rich is He in this year and how He spends money? Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 47 years old?

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Paolo Violi Height, Weight & Measurements

At 47 years old, Paolo Violi height not available right now. We will update Paolo Violi's Height, weight, Body Measurements, Eye Color, Hair Color, Shoe & Dress size soon as possible.

Who Is Paolo Violi's Wife?

His wife is Grazia Luppino (m. 1965)

Paolo Violi Net Worth

His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. So, how much is Paolo Violi worth at the age of 47 years old? Paolo Violi’s income source is mostly from being a successful . He is from Italy. We have estimated Paolo Violi's net worth , money, salary, income, and assets.

Paolo Violi Social Network

Timeline

After Paolo Violi's death, his widow and two sons, Domenico (Dom) and Giuseppe (Joe) moved to Hamilton, Ontario, an area controlled by the Buffalo crime family and 'Ndrangheta families.Both Domenico (Dom) Father of three and his brother Giuseppe (Joe) Father of one serving time for drug related charges in 2018. A 2002 Halton Police report suggested the Violi brothers were affiliated with the Luppino-Violi crime family in Hamilton started by their grandfather Giacomo Luppino. Domenico Violi subsequently became the underboss of the Buffalo crime family in 2017; the first Canadian to hold the second-highest position in the American Mafia.

Manno received a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to kill Violi. Rizzuto confidant Agostino Cuntrera was also prosecuted, receiving a five-year sentence in relation to Violi's murder. The war ended on 17 October 1980, when Rocco Violi, the last of Violi's brothers, was seated, for a family meal, at his kitchen table in his Montreal home when a single bullet from a sniper's rifle struck him dead. Cotroni died of cancer on 16 September 1984. By the mid 1980s, the Rizzuto crime family emerged as Montreal's pre-eminent crime family after the turf war.

Violi was born in Sinopoli, Calabria, Italy, in 1931; his father Domenico was the boss of the Violi clan in his hometown. Violi immigrated to Southern Ontario in 1951. He married Grazia Luppino, daughter of the boss of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton. He later moved to Montreal where he became associated with in the Calabrese compatriot Cotroni crime family, which had most of the control in Montreal. In the late 1970s, boss Vincenzo Cotroni transferred the day-to-day activities of the family to Violi, and a mob war soon broke out between the Calabrians and the Sicilian faction led by Nicolò Rizzuto. The war resulted in the murder of Violi on 22 January 1978, as well as his brothers, as the Sicilian Rizzuto crime family emerged as the preeminent crime family in Montreal by the early 1980s. After Violi's death, his widow and two sons, Domenico and Giuseppe moved to Hamilton; the Violi brothers became affiliated with the Luppino crime family, later also becoming known as the Luppino-Violi crime family.

In 1977, Rizzuto and Violi met face-to-face in the home of a Montreal resident for a last-ditch effort to resolve their differences, according to a police report. But the peace talks failed, and most of the Rizzuto family fled to Venezuela.

This led to a power struggle mob war in Montreal which began with the murder of Violi's consigliere Pietro Sciara on Valentine's Day in 1976; Sciara's body was left in the street after seeing an Italian-dubbed version of The Godfather Part II with his wife. Just under a year later, on 8 February 1977, Francesco Violi, the younger brother of Paolo, the family enforcer, was murdered by several shotgun wounds. Shortly after Violi was released from the brief jail sentence with relation to the CECO inquiry, he sold his bar to brothers Vincenzo and Giuseppe Randisi; the name was changed to Bar Jean-Talon. Just under a year after Francesco Violi’s murder, on 22 January 1978, Paolo Violi was shot in the head at close range with a lupara in the Bar Jean-Talon after being invited to play cards by Vincenzo Randisi. As Violi sat playing cards, two men wearing ski masks stormed in while one shouted "everybody to the floor!" while the other one raced up to Violi to shoot him dead from behind at very close range with his sawed-off .12 gauge shotgun. The first shot, which blasted off much of Violi's head, killed him instantly but the killer fired a second shot at his corpse just to complete his work of destroying his head in a symbolic show of disrespect.

In 1974, Violi and Cotroni were overheard on a police wiretap threatening to kill Hamilton mobster Johnny Papalia and demanding $150,000 after he used their names in a $300,000 extortion plot without notifying or cutting them in on the score. The three were convicted of extortion in 1975 and sentenced to six years in prison. Violi and Cotroni appealed and got their sentences reduced to six months, but Papalia's appeal was rejected. The following year, Violi was arrested to stand before the Quebec government's Commission d'enquête sur le crime organisé (CECO) inquiry into organized crime; he was sent to jail for one year for contempt.

In early July 1973, Violi paid an extended visit to Italy to see his first cousin and childhood friend, Domenico Barbino. Late on in the same month, John Paul Getty III, the so-called "golden hippie", was kidnapped. Getty was the grandson of the American oil tycoon John Paul Getty who was the world's richest man at the time. Getty finally paid his grandson's ransom after his right ear was cut off and mailed to his parents with the warning that more body parts would be severed if the ransom was not paid. As Barbino was one of the kidnappers of Getty and he was constantly on the phone with his cousin in Montreal, it is believed that Violi was in some-way involved in the kidnapping, After Getty finally paid the $17 million ransom for his grandson, Violi laundered the ransom money for Barbino via investments in Montreal.

On 10 July 1973, the Popeyes Motorcycle Club, the most violent of Quebec many outlaw biker clubs, killed Mario Ciambrone and Salvatore Sergi of the Cotroni family for selling them via a drug dealer named Angelo Faquino low quality heroin at a premium price. On 31 July 1973, Violi met with Frank Cotroni who called the Popeyes "crazy, crazy, crazy...They're killed something like ten guys already!" It was agreed that Frank should handle the bikers while Violi would handle Faquino. On 2 September 1973, Faquino was killed while walking down the street. Much to Violi's disgust, Frank spent too much time planning out an attack on the bikers as he was very concerned about the possibility of innocent by-standers being killed and never actually carried out the assignment. In a conversation recorded by a police wire-tap, Violi was heard to say: "He [Frank] should have gone into the club, clients or no clients, lined everybody up against the wall and rat-a-tat-tat". On 14 September 1973, a Cotroni family piciotto, Toni Di Genova, was killed by the Popeyes, which led to calls within the family to "take care of the Frenchmen once and for all". At a meeting at the Windsor Hotel attended by Violi, Vic Cotorni and Joe DiMaulo, it was decided to end the war with the Popeyes, which was felt to be adverse for business. Even through it was Violi who decided to end the war, he continued to lash out at Frank Cotroni, whom he felt should had massacred the Popeyes.

As tension then grew into a power struggle between the Calabrian and Sicilian factions of the family, a mob war began in 1973. During a time of power struggle between the Sicilian and Calabrian factions of the Cotroni crime family, Violi complained about the independent modus operandi of his Sicilian 'underlings', Nicolò Rizzuto in particular. "He is going from one side to the other, here and there, and he says nothing to nobody, he is doing business and nobody knows anything," Violi said about Rizzuto. Violi asked for more 'soldiers' from his Bonanno bosses, clearly preparing for war, and Violi's boss at the time, Vic Cotroni remarked: "Me, I'm capodecina. I got the right to expel." Violi requested permission from the New York bosses to kill Rizzuto, but the request was turned down.

One of Violi's "soldiers", Peter Bianco, who had turned Crown's evidence, testified against his former boss at the CECHO hearings. Bianco testified that his area of expertise was robbing wedding presents, saying: "We mostly did Italian weddings. We cleaned out the house while the people were at church". Bianco's testimony was supported by a wiretapped phone call where Violi called him and his partner, Tony Teoli, "a pair of no-goods" who had only stolen "nothing but cheap stuff". Another piece of evidence introduced during the CEHO hearings was a bugged phone call Violi had made to Vic Cotroni in 1973 where amid much laughter he cheerfully confessed to attempted murder as he told his boss: "I shot the asshole three times. The papers didn't say so, but I'm telling you it was me, with another solider, who went into the apartment. He was sleeping and boom, boom, I shot him three times". Violi's only regret was that he failed to kill the man, but he took consolation from the fact: "They say he's still got two [bullets in the head] and they can't get them out. But he'll remain crippled...It's worse than being dead". Violi then went on to complain at length that his 9-millimetre handgun was not large enough for his tastes and he wanted a .22-calibre handgun for the next time that he shot someone. Violi was a braggart who claimed to Cotroni that he committed crimes done by others and the police knew that this particular attempted murder was the work of someone else. The wire-tap put Violi into the dilemma of having to confess to attempted murder or having to confess that he lied to his boss (a serious offense under the Mafia code); Violi chose the former during his testimony as he maintained that he really did shoot the man.

A wire-recording made by Menard on 5 December 1973 showed that Violi was supremely confident that his office was not bugged and he mocked the CECO inquiry, saying in a contemptuous tone: "They're running around, butting in, and their balls are in an uproar because they don't know anything". As the recordings were played in the inquiry-room, Violi sat looking glum and stunned. During his own testimony, Violi portrayed himself as a victim and refused to answer any of the questions from the commissioners in a substantial manner. When convicted of contempt, Violi said: "I don't refuse to testify, but I have absolutely nothing to say to this court". The CEHO hearings destroyed Violi's reputation and paved the way for his murder.. The way that the police wiretaps revealed that Violi kept boasting with hubristic arrogance that it was not possible for the police to wiretap him made him appear to be a fool. Likewise, the way that the police wiretaps showed him making disparaging and insulting remarks about his superiors in Montreal and New York were gravely damaging to his reputation. Peter Edwards, the crime correspondent of The Toronto Star wrote: "The wiretap conversations had shown that Violi didn't measure up to the traditional Mafia standards of leadership. He was clearly a braggart and was indiscreet. Perhaps, worse of all, he showed himself to be a petty criminal who didn't balk at having his soldiers steal from Little Italy brides as he attended their weddings, a man whose actions deprived St. Leonard children of gifts at Christmas"..

In the early 1970s, Cotroni transferred the day-to-day activities of the family to his Calabrian compatriot Violi, a capodecina together with Nicolas Di Iorio, Frank Cotroni and Luigi Greco. Cotroni's role became more that of an adviser to the younger Calabrian. Greco led the Sicilian faction of the family until his death in 1972.

In December 1970, his bar was bugged with wiretaps by Robert Menard, an undercover police officer who rented an apartment above Violi's Reggio bar for several years, which were later used in subsequent cases. Menard who used the alias Robert Wilson was supposed to go undercover for three months, but instead served undercover for about five years and paid $125 dollars per month for a small apartment just above the Reggio Bar.

Menard usually talked with Violi every Saturday mornings over numerous cups of coffee. Menard learned that he was a staunch federalist who detested Quebec separatism. Riots had erupted in September 1969 when the St. Leonard school board changed the language of instruction for Italian-Canadian children from English to French. Several Italian-Canadian school teachers who continued to teach in English received death threats, and Violi told Menard that he provided bodyguards to the teachers. Menard recalled: "God, he hated the PQ party! I think he hated them more than the cops. He just hated them! He thought they were destroying Canada...He was very nationalistic. He spoke English a lot". Menard had once gone undercover to infiltrate a FLQ cell in the 1960s, and found himself being subjected to numerous political Marxist discussion meetings alongside readings of the poems by Charles Baudelaire, whose poetry the FLQ adored, but which Menard hated. Menard reported that Violi was an ill-tempered egoistical braggart, but that his company (along with his coffee) was far preferable to discussing turgid Marxist tracts and Baudelaire poems, which had been the case with the FLQ.

Violi gained Canadian citizenship in 1956 and by the early 1960s was running illegally manufactured liquor from Ontario to Quebec. He became associated with Giacomo Luppino, boss of the Luppino crime family in Hamilton, but left for Montreal in 1963 on Luppino's orders to avoid clashes with other Hamilton mobster, Johnny Papalia. On 10 July 1965, Violi married Grazia Luppino, the daugther of Giacomo, in Hamilton with Vic Cotroni serving as the best man at the wedding. Cotroni served as the godfather to one of Violi's children with Papalia and Paul Volpe both served as godfathers to the other children.. Further expanding his reach was that the Commisso brothers married another of Luppino's daughters, thereby making an alliance with the Commisso 'ndrina.

In Quebec, Violi opened the Reggio Bar in Saint-Leonard in the mid 1960s, which he used as a base for extortion. He developed connections with the Cotroni crime family, while maintaining ties with the Luppino family; he married Giacomo Luppino's daughter, Grazia in 1965. In the 1960s and 1970s, boss Vincenzo Cotroni used associate William "Obie" Obront to supervise a bookmaking network in the Ottawa-Hull area that handled around $50,000 in bets per day, with 25 percent going to Violi. Obie also served as Cotroni's chief banker and financial adviser, responsible for laundering money. For Montreal's Expo 67, Obront also helped the Cotronis land the meat and vending machine supply contract—most of which was tainted meat.

Paolo Violi (Italian: [ˈpaːolo ˈvjɔːli; viˈɔːli]; 6 February 1931 – 22 January 1978) was an Italian-Canadian mobster and capodecina in the Cotroni crime family of Montreal.

Violi was born in Sinopoli, Calabria on 6 February 1931. He was born into the mob; his father Domenico Violi was the head of the 'Ndrangheta Violi clan in Sinopoli. Violi later immigrated to Southern Ontario in 1951. On 24 May 1955, he fatally shot Natale Brigante in Toronto, sustaining a stab wound from Brigante. He was charged with manslaughter in a Welland court, but was acquitted claiming it was self-defense, showing the stab wound as evidence. Violi testified at his trial that both he and Brigante were pimps and the dispute that led to the killing was about the control of a prostitute. This claim is generally not believed and it is believed that Brigante was murdered as part of a bloodfeud with one policeman saying: "I'm sure [Violi] was told 'Take care of this problem for us'. Otherwise he never would have shot up [in status] the way he did"