Vancouver Di Popolo’s & Italian Hells Angels

I’ve been doing some research on West Canadian underworld and it seems like many HA in the greater Vancouver area are of Italian descent, especially those associated with the Longshoremen and the ports. Rick Ciarniello, Gino Zumoano, Larry Amero, Vincent Brienza and Damiano Di Popolo just to name a few.

https://vancouversun.com/news/staff-blogs/organized-crime-and-the-port-part-one-of-my-series

Damiano Di Popolo pops up a lot and, along him, the non-biker De Cottiis.

https://www.gangsterismout.com/2015/10/hells-angel-damiano-di-popolo-and-de.html?m=1

According to internet spec and some indy blogger, the Di Popolo are quite “infamous” around Burnaby (“Little Italy”) and East Van.

Then I found these two Reality TV shows clips/pilots featuring Damiano and his twin brother Rocco:





They act like East coast guidos with West coast wigger-bro swag. Street trash I’d say but they’re clearly quite loaded.

(^ LOL the old Italian dude Mr. Tony Iuliano still speaking broken English after probably living in Canada for several decades...)

The Di Popolo used to/own many Italian-themed businesses, (some now appear to have permanently closed: Caffè Napoli, Roma Bar) and a few others.

Any local or knowledgeable poster know more about them and the whole Italian HAs thing?

Good stuff, in Italy they also have a dozen charters including the Nomads.

Damiano has relocated up to Kelowna but used to live in a huge house just above the highway, East of Cassiar and North of Hastings. Italian style house with high walls all the way around and cameras everywhere. Rocco still lives in the same neighbourhood a few blocks away. You can easily spot him driving around in his white Hummer. He's usually hanging around his tat parlour and gym at Commercial and 2nd. A friend of mine once saw Rocco drive up on the sidewalk to throw some hooker out of the neighbourhood. He rolled the window down and said "Not here, sister!"

They used to own Drive Coffee together on Commercial but sold it a while ago. Rocco is still a regular in another coffee shop three blocks away.

Damiano was pretty influential with the ILWA local and remains a pretty popular guy with a lot of their members. I have a sneaking suspicion he must have ran an awful lot of stuff through the Port of Vancouver.

Good info ! I heard of them before . I use to have a few friends who knew some people there who were connected and were loansharks . But the connected guy slipped on a cliff hiking out near naniamo b.c and passed away few years back . I always had a feeling it was the di popolo's he mentioned , either that or a Rizzuto connection.

There used to be a number of Rizzuto-connected guys in Vancouver right up into the late 2000s but time, disease and overall decimation of the family have taken their toll. The only big name still around that I am aware of who is Robert Papalia.

There were a lot of rumours in the city that the Ricardo Scarpino hit in Vancouver was related to his crossing the Rizzutos. Of course that was in 2008 and it's never been solved so perhaps we'll never know.

If you haven't heard of it, google it and check it out, by all witness accounts it went down like a movie and very similar to Paul Castellano's shooting. Scarpino pulled up in front of Gotham steakhouse and two shooters in all black stepped out in front of his vehicle firing at least six shots into the car before making their getaway. And yes, they even dropped their guns, in the parking lot of a church.