Synopsis/blurb….
A groundbreaking, exclusive inside look at the North
American Mafia and the Rizzuto family
For the first time in Canadian history, a high-ranking
mafioso agreed to break the code of omertà by talking to journalists. From
October 2014 to October 2019, Félix Séguin and Eric Thibault held multiple
secret meetings with Andrew Scoppa, getting an exclusive inside look at the
inner workings of the North American Mafia. This book is the culmination of
their perilous investigation. It sheds light on the life — and death — of one
of the most influential organized crime figures in recent years.
At exactly 2 p.m., there was a knock at the door. It was
him: the source every journalist dreamed of having. The short man was armed and
placed his gun on a table.
“Are you impressed?” he asked with a broad grin.
“Yes. Very much.”
Before me was Andrew Scoppa, close confidant of the late
mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, international heroin trafficker and cold-blooded
killer.
An okay splash of true crime which I enjoyed, but perhaps
not as much as I had hoped to. Two journalists meet with a key Montreal Mafia
man over a period of about five years until he was gunned down. Andrew Scoppa
and his brother were leading players in Montreal’s criminal underworld. Both
died violently.
Scoppa unburdens himself to the journos, documenting feuds, vendettas,
and schisms in the organisation. Most of the book concerns the death of A, B, C
etc arranged by X, Y and Z on this date, that date, at such and such a place.
After a while the names become a blur and are indistinguishable from each other.
Scoppa never actually confesses to playing a role in any of the killings. It’s
more a kind of oral history of who did what to whom and when.
One thought struck me. Law enforcement could have diverted
resources away from Organised Crime surveillance and monitoring and just left
them alone to kill each other, until it was a case of last man standing. The organisation
was riven by rifts, and jealousy, and disputes and a constant jostling for
power. It seemed like they spent more time battling each other than they did
making any money.
There’s talk of the importance of control of ‘the book’
which was the major revenue source – illegal sports betting. The profit margin and
risk was a lot better and lesser than the danger and profit margins inherent in
dealing drugs. Some of the margins Scoppa reported on for kilos of cocaine seemed
really tight, even for a wholesaler. (Not that I've ever wholesaled drugs.)
I expected there to be some time spent discussing protection
schemes and prostitution, but these topics never came up. Scoppa tried to use
his journalistic contacts to try and glean police information and similarly the
police tried to see if the journalists were feeding back to Scoppa, by planting
false information to see if they were playing one off against the other. The
journalists kept a straight bat.
The most interesting part of the book for me was the
evolving relationships between various players in the underworld – the Hells
Angels, the Rock Machine Motorcycle Club and the Italian families. There was an
out and out war between the biker gangs for several years from the mid-90s to
the early 00s which resulted in about 160 deaths. Incredible really. At various
times the Hells Angels were in alliance with the families and worked for them,
other times it seems as if the Angels were the ones on top.
Scoppa often seemed discontented with his life of crime, but
never actually made the effort to give it up to try lead a normal life with his
family, probably far away from Canada. Eventually he becomes another victim of
the violence.
3 stars from 5
Read – (listened to) August, 2022
Published – 2022
Page count – 230 (7 hrs 39 mins)
Source – review copy from Net Galley
Format – Audible
It can be really interesting, Col, to read about what goes on behind the scenes with Mafia families. And it sounds as though there's some interesting information here (I didn't know about the involvement of the biker gangs, for instance, although it doesn't surprise me). All in all, it sounds like a stellar story.
ReplyDeleteOn balance Margot, more to like than dislike and at the end of the book I knew more on the subject than at the beginning!
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