# Canada officers go undercover to nab mobsters



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

By Peter Edwards 
Toronto Star

TORONTO, Canada - One of them was inducted into the Mafia while on the government payroll.
A couple of others were so trusted by criminals that they were recruited to do murders.
Meanwhile, in jail cells around Greater Toronto, others are waiting to chat with the newly arrested.
They are all undercover police officers, who routinely pass themselves off as truckers, hitmen, drug dealers, gun traffickers, bankers, prisoners and crooked cops to ensnare real-life gangsters.
"It's dangerous," said Antonio Nicaso, a Greater Toronto author who has written several books and lectured police agencies on organized crime.
"Organized criminals may not be educated and they may not have gone to college, but they're smart," Nicaso said.
Stresses on such undercover police officers are enormous, since they're leading double lives, he said.
"Many of the most successful agents end up with divorces or with problems with the family."
Their stories are the stuff of movies.
One Toronto-area RCMP officer was able to get so close to Montreal mobster Frank (the Big Guy) Cotroni of Montreal that he was invited to a family wedding.
Undercover RCMP officer Const. Giovanni (John) Persichetti was actually inducted into the Calabrian Mafia, or 'ndrangheta, in the back of a greasy spoon restaurant in London, Ont.
Standard undercover operations are not as elaborate or choreographed as controversial "Mr. Big" stings, in which police pretend to be running major crime operations.
Retired Toronto police Staff-Sgt. Ron Sandelli once helped set up a nondescript trucking company at 28 Roytec Rd. in York Region. On the front door was a sign that read, "Grayson Transport Ltd., A Division of M.I.S."
No visitors seemed to wonder what "M.I.S." stood for. It was "Metro Intelligence Services," the name of the Toronto police intelligence unit. The knight's chess piece on the sign was the symbol of Sandelli's squad.
The M.I.S. operators pretended to be corrupt truckers, something always of use in criminal circles. Soon, local criminals felt comfortable there.
The mobsters loved to joke to M.I.S. staff about police bungling, and the undercover cops laughed along.
M.I.S. became enough of a local fixture that it sponsored an old-timers soccer team, and at least one Woodbridge mobster unwittingly wore the police knight's head logo on his team jersey.
One of the GTA's most notable underworld stings took place a quarter-century ago, when members of the 14-K Triad thought they had found a corrupt cop in downtown Chinatown.
They promised to considerably sweeten his salary. All he had to do was fix criminal charges, smooth things over with liquor inspectors, turn a blind eye to their prostitution and gambling establishments and crack down on their criminal competitors.
The police officer, a staff sergeant in 52 Division, stood to make upwards of $3,000 a month, and would also control a weekly payoff of $800 to "take care of" any other officers under his command. There was the promise of a percentage of overall revenues and another $1,000 if he could keep police from disrupting things at a Dundas St. W. hotel, where rooms were rented to prostitutes by the half-hour.
The officer was Julian Fantino, now commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police. The Triad-connected criminals went to jail.
In an interview, Fantino said it didn't bother him to play the part of a crooked cop while setting his trap.
"I felt very, very good about what we were ... making inroads into: People who think you could be corrupted," Fantino said.
"It was nice to prove that you could not be."








Wire Service


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