This wasn't an OC hit.
None of the other NYC families would have done this. And the Gambinos are stable and making money, so highly unlikely it was internal.
As for Canada, Cali had good contacts in Toronto and Montreal and Canadian mobsters don't like messing around in the USA because of potential jail time. Cali has travelled to Canada many times. If they wanted to hit him, they would have lured him to Canada.
Regarding the drug seizure, the Latin Americans only give drugs "on credit" to Calabrians, so any drug shipment Cali would be involved with was paid in cash in advance. If he was "guaranteeing" passage for someone else's drugs, and the drugs were seized, he wouldn't have been hit a few days later. He would have been given time to pay or make a deal.
And in Sicily, Cali was respected and things are calm. The Mafia in Sicily is making money again and things are relatively peaceful. Plus, if they were going to do a hit, it would be much more professional than this.
As I said in earlier posts, I am still shocked Cali didn't have better protection. He was the boss of a pretty large organization. It's very sloppy not to have the proper security.
And if the Gambinos are proper OC, the shooter should be dead by the end of the month. If Vito Rizzuto was shot by some 24 year old nobody, and that nobody was caught, the nobody would be dead within a week. If the gov't put them in PC, it would just take longer, but they would be nothing but a zombie, a dead man walking.
I agree with what everything that you said except the security part. No American LCN boss, aside from maybe Al Capone, had around the clock security if there was no war going on. Frank Costello, Giancana, and Vito Genovese to name a few never traveled with a body guard let alone had one at their house 24-7. Tommy Billotti didn't live at Paul Castellano's house, the Chin walked around Greenwich Village alone with his daughter sometimes, and Vito Genovese spent a lot of time alone tending to his garden in Atlantic Highlands by himself. With there being fewer organized crime hits now there is less of a need than ever to have security around a boss, if anything it would draw attention to them that they don't want, the last thing that they want now is to be noticed.
As far as retaliation, it doubt that anything happens, and there is precedent for that. Carmine Sciandra, not a boss but Paul Castellano's nephew and a Gambino captain, was shot in the stomach in a domestic dispute in 2005 at one of his Top Tomato stores on SI. From what I know the guy who did the shooting didn't even leave Staten Island.
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/14/nyregion/from-our-family-to-yours-bang.htmlMurder and really violence of any kind are bad for business, and if something were to happen to this guy or the guy who shot Carmine Sciandra, LE would be on the Gambinos in a heart beat. This isn't Canada where you can get convicted for a murder and be out in 10 to 15 years or even sooner.
