I don't think Pete Edwards can make his position any more clear either. And neither can the FBI. One of these people is a Canadian reporter, the other is a squad dedicated to eliminating organized crime in the city of Buffalo.
Originally Posted by Moscone65
Nicky, you said you believe that there is a mafia presence in Buffalo that isn't the original Buffalo LCN. In your opinion, what group do you think is in charge of things there, a group from somewhere else (Ontario, NYC) that has people running things for them in Buffalo, or a newly formed, independent group based out of Buffalo/Niagara area?
It could include the remnants of the Buffalo mob that were picked up by other organized crime outfits from Canada. It's been blatantly obvious that the Canadian Mafia has not suffered nearly as much as most U.S. families. Or it could be remnants of the Buffalo mob picked up by the NYC families. The Bonannos have been proven to have maintained longstanding ties to Canada as of 2017, and have historic ties to the city of Buffalo as well. But, by 2006, the only members left of the Todaro crime family, as documented by the FBI, were elderly men whose positions seemed to be little more than symbolic. It's very hard to believe that they could have come back from that to not only form a functioning family again, but to exert influence over seemingly powerful, thriving, and violent Canadian groups. It just doesn't make sense for that to be the case.
Nicky I just posted the 2006 FBI chart. The redacted empties are all still alive today-12 years later. They may have been older, but 12 years is a lot of time for a lot of activity to take place. Further, we don’t know for sure, but it is very likely and I have it on good authority that Sonny and Leonard and others were active till close to their recent deaths.
Not necessarily. The FBI seldom updates their dead list unless specifically given a proof of death. It's not like they have people hired to go out trawling obituaries. For instance, member Frank Billiteri, who died in 2010, is not on the list. Neither is Frank "Chicky" Grisante, Vincenzo "Gimi" Luppino, Donald "the Turtle" Panepinto, Frank Papalia, Joseph Pieri Jr., Richard Todaro, or other known members. Thanks to Wiseguy from BH for providing those names of deceased members in another post.
So that argument doesn't work because the FBI is generally very slow in updating their dead lists, and we can safely assume that the general attrition from "45" made members in 1989 down to 23 in 2006 continued, sharply and rapidly. That is, of course, unless those 23 elderly, geriatric old men decided to spontaneously induct a whole lot of young guys with the muscle to exert influence over the historically violent Canadian crews - the same guys that murdered John Papalia and his right hand man back in 1997 to effectively put the kibosh on Buffalo's Canada crew.
