Paul Volpe (mobster)

Paul "The Fox" Volpe (Italian: [ˈvolpe]; January 31, 1927 – November 13, 1983) was an Italian-Canadian Toronto mobster.

Paul Volpe
Born	January 31, 1927 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	November 13, 1983 (aged 56)
Cause of death	Gunshots
Other names	"The Fox"
Occupation	Mobster

Criminal activities

Volpe was born on January 31, 1927, in Toronto, to Italian immigrants.[1] He had a sister Laura, and four older brothers, Albert, Eugene, Frank and Joseph, who owned a car wash together, while also being involved in rackets.[1] In the late 1950s, Volpe begun operations in stock frauds, where he operated in Toronto and Hamilton, until he was run out by Hamilton mob figure Johnny Papalia.[2] He started making strong connections with the Buffalo crime family and other syndicates, and started running a casino in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1963 until returning to Toronto in 1965. The same year, Volpe extorted stock promoter Richard Angle, who was wearing wiretaps for police.[2] Three days after Volpe got married, he was sentenced to two years in jail on June 21, 1968 for extortion.[2] When he was released in 1969, he started forming a formal gang regardless of ethnicity, Nathan Klegerman who helped with jewelry theft, loansharking and stock frauds, Chuck Yanover who was the weapons expert, Murray Feldberg who was the loan shark, Ron Mooney who specialized in burglaries and crooked card games, and Ian Rosenberg as an enforcer.[3]

By the early 1970s, Volpe worked with Natale Luppino, son of mob boss Giacomo Luppino of the Luppino crime family, on schemes where they would be paid kickbacks from both the union and the developers for negotiating construction contracts.[4][3] Volpe was later sponsored as a made member of the Buffalo family by Giacomo Luppino, Jimmy and Harold Bordonaro in Hamilton.[2][5] Volpe maintained a close relationship with both the Luppino and Bordonaro families in Hamilton.[2] In 1974, a Royal Commission was brought together to investigate the building industry. On April 22, 1977, Rosenberg was murdered for suspected collaboration with the police.[6]

With Volpe living a more outlandish lifestyle and agreeing to appearing in an extensive CBC News documentary in 1977, he accidentally overexposed the Canadian mob.[7] Later that year, Volpe went south to Atlantic City, New Jersey where he began investing in real estate after "the okay" from Angelo Bruno of the Philadelphia crime family that operated the city. With the murder of Bruno in 1980 and the up rise of new power in the city, Volpe returned to Toronto, but without his previous gang as most were in jail or fled.[8]

Death

The Buffalo crime family also operated in Toronto and Hamilton, and in 1981, hired former Satan's Choice MC hitman Cecil Kirby to kill Volpe and his driver Pietro Scarcella in an arrangement with Rocco Remo Commisso of the Commisso family of Toronto to gain more control of the market. However, the plot was foiled when Kirby turned Royal Canadian Mounted Police informant.[4] However, on November 13, 1983, Volpe was murdered and found dead the next day in the trunk of his wife's BMW at Pearson International Airport; Scarcella is said to have been the last person to see Volpe alive before his unsolved murder.[4] Johnny Papalia has also been linked with Volpe's death, but no charges were laid.[9]

See also

• List of unsolved murders

References

1. "United States Government Memorandum" (PDF). The Black Vault. January 20, 1965.
2. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 318
3. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 319-20
4. "Mob war led to Russo shooting, sources say". theglobeandmail.com. 16 April 2005. Retrieved 25 May 2017.
5. Edwards, p.137
6. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 331
7. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 329
8. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 323
9. Schneider, Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada, pp. 537