Rocco Zito was a diminutive “nonno” living quietly with his family on a North York street.
But the 87-year-old father of five grown daughters who lived in a
non-descript bungalow on Playfair Ave. was also a powerful Toronto
mobster. He was a founding member of the La Camera de Controllo, the
governing board Toronto’s Calabrian underworld of ‘Ndrangheta clans.
He always kept a low profile and when he died Friday night, he was
still a man of great influence and respect among the current leaders of
the ‘Ndrangheta.
“For sure, absolutely,” Zito remained a man of influence among Mob bosses in the GTA, said a police source.
“In theory, in practice, it should work that way” as the old world
‘Ndrangheta ways of southern Italy operate here, the source said.
Zito was one of the elders “consulted” to arbitrate disputes among current leaders, the source said.
And Zito would have an interest in the disputes as many of the clans are linked by inter-marriage including his.
Zito was on the first board formed by Hamilton’s Giacomo Luppino in 1962. Police discovered the board’s existence in 1968.
Unlike other mobsters assassinated in the recent past, Zito appears
he’s the victim of an apparent deadly domestic dispute on Friday. His
son-in-law Domenico Scopelliti surrendered to police and is now charged
with first-degree murder.
But because of Zito’s history and Scopelliti’s lineage, questions of motive linger.
EARLY YEARS
Zito was born into a ‘Ndrangheta crime family in Fiumara, Calabria, in 1928.
Italian authorities knew his father Domenic as a member of the
Vincenzo Crupi clan, described to the Assizes Court of Reggio Calabria
as a band of criminals formed in 1930, involved in smuggling, rustling
and extortion.
Domenic had weapons convictions in an incident when he defended the
gang’s accountant from rebels. He was also convicted in Italy of
delinquent association to a criminal group, of which he served four
years.
Although later declared rehabilitated, Domenic’s criminal history
would be something Canadian authorities would use to later deny him
entry into Canada. Rocco’s uncle, also named Rocco, was the head of a
gang known as the Furci Cosca (family).
Rocco Zito, one of six sons to Domenic and wife Angela, tried twice
to immigrate to North America illegally, once as a stowaway on a ship
headed to New York City in 1947, and two years later trying to enter
Texas at Galveston through Mexico. Both times he was caught and
deported.
A murder charge against Rocco in Italy was dropped in 1952 before he
entered Canada legally through Montreal three years later. In 1961, he
lived on Brock Ave., in the Bloor and Dufferin Sts. area, when he got
involved in a Montreal mafia-bootlegging scheme.
Police found a still in Zito’s home during a raid and it led to his
first conviction with a fine of $108, including court costs. A year
later, he was spotted at a meeting at Luppino’s home.
Police also spotted him at the home of the Hamilton’s don members of the Stefano Magaddino La Cosa Nostra family of Buffalo.
He’d remain under surveillance by intelligence officers since that meeting.
MANSLAUGHTER AND JAIL
Zito managed to avoid jail until he was sentenced to 4.5 years jail
in 1986 for manslaughter in the vicious beating and shooting death of
Toronto photo studio owner Rosario Sciarrino, 60, for not being able to
pay back a business loan at crippling loan shark rates.
Sciarrino’s body was found frozen and wrapped in garbage bags in
January 1986 in the trunk of his car off Airport Rd. in Brampton.
An autopsy showed Sciarrino was shot in the head and chest, and
suffered a dozen facial fractures during a meeting in a Brampton meat
company on Jan. 13, 1986. He had apparently also insulted Zito as well
as fallen behind on his payments, which amounted to $9,000 a month in
interest on a $20,000 loan.
Zito vanished after the shooting but surrendered four days later to
Peel homicide detectives. He limped in from a gunshot wound to the leg,
telling police that “I, Rocco Zito, was shot on Monday, Jan. 13th, by
persons unknown.”
Police long suspected the wound was self-inflicted to instill legal
doubt in the initial second-degree murder charge in Sciarrino’s slaying.
Affidavits filed to the Supreme Court of Ontario in the 1980’s
described Zito as “a capo (leader/boss) of a Toronto ‘Ndrangheta group.
He is also believed to be a member of the ‘crimini’ and has been since
1962.”
Police officers in an unrelated case involving stolen construction
equipment were also targeting Zito.
That case, led by York Region’s
fraud detective Chris Barratt, merged with an ongoing
multi-jurisdictional investigation dubbed Project Otiz, Zito spelled
backwards.
He was sentenced to 2.5 years in 1987 for possessing stolen goods and proceeds of crime.
THE FINAL YEARS
Police knew in 1985 at least two dozen men kissed his hand at an
Eglinton Ave. W. party. He was, along with other crimini members, a
pallbearer at Toronto mob boss Michele Racco’s 1980 funeral.
Police
spotted him and a convicted heroin trafficker meeting New York mobster
Paolo Gambino, who was setting up a heroin pipeline to Toronto, at a
Toronto hotel on May 4, 1970.
Zito’s dealings with people within the Italian community were based
on old-world traditions, offering advice as well as loans. Police didn’t
try to fit Zito within boxes of boss or underboss, but as a person of
influence in organized crime circles and the general community.
Police spotted Zito often rambling through Toronto’s Little Italy
regularly in the 1980s, meeting with other Mafiosi like Montreal’s Frank
Controni. Police also knew Zito was aware of listening devices and used
a soft voice and hand motions to communicate.
A police source says Zito is believed to have been involved in five
or six murders dating back to the 1970s, either by his hand or by order.
“The myth is true,” the source said. “That most Mob leaders won’t die in bed.”
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