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A fugitive mobster who hid out in Canada for seven years before his arrest March 10 was the cousin of a female slain at a Ontario cafe in 2015.
Tito Figliomeni, 48, was deported back to Italy. His involvement in numerous gambling disputes raises questions as to whether the cousin may have been directly targeted in the attack.
From the Montreal Gazette:
On June 24, 2015, a man wearing a mask and gloves drove a stolen car to the Moka café on Islington Ave. in Woodbridge, Ont., just north of Toronto. He walked inside and started shooting, police said.
Four people were shot, two of them fatally. The dead were identified as Maria Voci, 47, who worked at the café, and a customer, Christopher Desimone, 24, both residents of Vaughan.
What was not known at the time was that Voci is also known by the maiden name Maria Frascà. She is named as a cousin of Figliomeni by Italian authorities.
Italian authorities over the years monitored via wiretap a power struggle between factions of the ’Ndrangheta and mobsters based out of Ontario.
Transcripts of those phone calls suggest Figliomeni came to Canada in 2008 to help his mob clan push its claim to gambling territory in Toronto and York region.
Figliomeni learned in 2010 he was wanted for his role in the ’Ndrangheta and immediately fled to Canada.
“It was quite a challenge for us to locate him,” said RCMP Supt. Chris Leather, who is in charge of Serious Organized Crime and the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit for the Toronto area.
“By all appearances he kept a very low-profile, discreet presence in the area. He was not living in plain sight.”
Ultimately police traced him to a Toronto cafe once raided two years earlier by police for operating an illegal video gaming machine business.
Figliomeni did not fight to remain in Canada. He was placed on an Air Canada flight to Rome.
