Francesco Arcadi (born 1964) is a Canadian gangster.

""Compare Frank"

An nearly illiterate man, Arcadi served as one of the principle lieutenants of Vito Rizzuto.[1] Aracdi had a member of the Cotroni family, but defected over to the Rizzuto family in the 1970s.[2] As a Calabrian, Arcadi was an outside in the Rizzuto family whose leaders all from the villages of Cattolica Eraclea and Siculiana.[3] On 30 June 1995, he was one of the guests at the wedding of Nicolo Rizzuto Jr. to Elenora Ragusa, a marriage which united Canada's leading Mafia with one of the leading Mafia families of Sicily.[4] Arcadi seized control of Montreal Trudeau Airport, putting dozens of Canada Customs agents and baggage handlers on the Rizzuto family's payroll in order to smuggle in cocaine from South America.[5] In addition, Arcadi charged a "tax" of 3% on all drug profits on other gangs that wanted to smuggle in drugs via Trudeau airport.[5] Despite a Calabarian, Aracdi was very close to Rizzuto, whom normally on vacations to the Dominican Republic with every January.[6] Within the Rizzuto family, Aracdi was known as ""Compare Frank".[7] As part of the Rizzuto's family's expansion into Ontario, Aracdi had the key role as the "ambassador" who was supposed to bring the seven 'Ndrangheta families of Toronto under the control of the Rizzuto family.[8]

Aracdi served as the leader of the "Young Turk" faction of the Rizzuto family whose most important members were Francesco Del Balso and Lorenzo Giordano whose usual meeting place was the Bar Laennec in Laval.[9] Aracdi maintained close links with Gregory Woolley, the boss of both the Syndicate street gang and of a Hells Angel puppet gang, the Rockers Motorcycle Club.[9] The Canadian journalists André Cédilot and André Noël wrote of Aracdi: "He was a hardened criminal, but he had nothing of the charisma, finesse and leadership qualities that Vito displayed".[9]

In the spring of 2000, Aracdi met with Paolo Gervasi to ask him to stop selling cocaine to the Rock Machine which threatened the Rizzuto family's alliance with the Hells Angels.[10] On 20 April 2000, Salvatore Gervasi, the son of Paolo, was murdered with his corpse being found inside of the trunk of his Porsche, which was parked outside of his house.[11] Gervasi met with Aracdi, who denied being responsible for his son's murder, but again told him to stop selling cocaine to the Rock Machine.[11] On 14 August 2000, Gervasi was shot and badly wounded in a murder attempt.[11] On 16 August 2000, Aradi met with Rizzuto where a police wiretap recorded as saying: "There's only one way a bullet to the head".[11] Gervasi was wounded by a bomb planted in his Jeep Cherokee on 25 February 2002.[11] The third murder attempt on 19 January 2004 proved to more successful with Gervasi shot and killed inside of his car.[12]

On 13 July 2001, there was a failed attempt to kidnap Arcadi ordered by Christian Deschěnes, a French-Canadian associate of the Rizzuto family who wanted to recover the $800, 000 dollars in drug debts owned to him by Arcadi.[13] One of the men Deschěnes recruited, a cousin of his wife, Denis-Rolland Girouard, was a police informer who arrested the kidnappers as they driving on their way to the Consenza Social Club intent upon shooting their way into the club to seize Arcadi.[14] One Rizzuto family gangster, Giuseppe Torre, lied to Arcadi about the size of a cocaine shipment coming in from Haiti in January 2005, saying he was importing 120 kilograms in a bid to swindle Arcadi.[5] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police seized the 218 kilograms of cocaine that Torre had to import, leading to Aracdi to impose "fines" of $100, 000 on each member of Torre's crew.[5] Aracdi told Torre that he to hand over all of his profits from his next drug shipments as a punishment and warned him to never try to cheat him again about lying the size of his cocaine shipments.[15]

In January 2003 during one of their annual trips to the Dominican Republic, Rizzuto in a conversation in Italian with Aracdi described to him how he was the gunman responsible for the murder of three capos in the Bonnano family in 1981.[16] The conversation with Aracdi which was covertly recorded by the RCMP was key evidence at Rizzuto's trial for first degree murder in New York.[16] In January 2004, the United States requested Rizzuto's extradition on the basis of the evidence collected by the RCMP. After Rizzuto was arrested following the American extradition request, Arcadi was part of the acting leadership.[8] As a leader, Arcadi saw the breakdown in relations with the black Canadian street gangs such as the Crack Down Posse and the Bo-Gars whom Rizzuto had cultivated.[8] After Juan Ramon Fernandez was convicted in 2004, Arcadi replaced him as the Rizzuto's family agent in Ontario and he frequently visited Woodbridge to meet various Toronto area 'Ndrangheta leaders.[17]

Project Colisée

During Project Colisée, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police videotaped Arcadi visiting the Consenza Social Club 616 times to see Nicolo Rizzuto between 2004 and 2006.[2] On 9 March 2005, Thierry Beubrun, a member of Woolley's Crack Down Posse, shot dead a Rizzuto family soldier, Mike Lapolla, and in turn was shot dead by other Rizzuto family soldiers[18] The police bug recorded Aracdi as saying the Rizzuto family should not let the incident escalate into a war with Woolley's gang while Giuseppe Sollecito (the son of Rocco Sollecito in anger told Aracdi: "There will be blood. The blacks are not people you can sit down and reason with. They are animals".[19] On 11 August 2005, Giovanni "Johnny" Bertolo, a Rizzuto family soldier who tried to sell cocaine in his old territory after his release from prison that had taken over by Aracdi was killed.[20]

Aracdi took a particular interest in seizing control of the coffee market in Monteal as he attempted to force all restaurateurs to buy his coffee, leading to send out thugs to make death threats against restaurateurs who did not want to buy his coffee.[21] Aracdi was recorded as telling a Rizzuto family soldier Antonio Vaelli: "As soon as you see a different package of coffee, you tell them I'll break down the whole place".[22] Aracdi had three of his men trash a restaurant in Boucherville after the owner refused to buy Moka d'Oro, a line of Italian coffee whom Leonardo Vanelli and Nicodemo Cotroni (one of the sons of Frank Cotroni) had the exclusive rights to sell in Canada.[23] In January 2004, Aracdi ordered Del Balso, the "head bailiff" of the Rizzuto family to "talk" to the owner of a precise machine company in Rivière-des-Praires to pay $6, 000 dollars.[24] In an infamous phone call, Del Balso told the owner of the company "the guy that's going to make you eat out of a straw for six months if you don't pay him", followed up by the statement "you hear me? I know you have it on tape, don't worry about it. Just pay the bill, okay? And I'm not going to come and tell you again. The next time I break your head, okay?"[24]

Aracdi was visited at the Consensza Social Club by Lugi D'Amico who claimed that the Rizzuto family owned him $900, 000 dollars following a failed attempt to smuggle marijuana into the United States in alliance with the Hells Angels Sherbrooke chapter.[25] Aracdi had called D'Amico a "damn wanker", which escalated the dispute.[26] D'Amico threatened to behead Aracdi if he did not receive the money he claimed was owing to him.[27] Aracdi had one of D'Amico's cars burned in revenge for the threats.[27] On 31 October 2005, four men wearing masks posed as trick-or-treaters kidnaped Nicolò Varacalli, a close ally of Aracdi.[27] Left behind was a note demanding saying that Varacalli would be killed if Aracdi did not repay the $900, 000.[27] The RCMP bugs at the Consenza Social Club revealed that Aracdi was terrified and hysterical as he expressed much fear of "the Frenchmen" (his term for the Hells Angels) whom he believed were acting with D'Amico against him.[27] Aracdi admitted that he did not know what to do as he recorded as saying: "There's not money now. Just leftovers".[27] Luca D'Amico arrived at the Consenza Social Club with a letter addressed to Nicolo Rizzuto that blamed Aracdi for the kidnapping and promised to release Varacalli in exchange for him resolving the dispute in their favor.[27] To apply more pressure, Luca and Patrico D'Amico walked into the Consenza Social Club with their guns drawn.[28] After the D'Amico left, Aracdi was heard to say he was afraid of the "crazy guys" and did not want to leave the Consenza Social Club as he feared he would be shot down the moment he stepped out.[20] Aracdi refused to go outside without a gun while Nicolo Rizzuto tried to hire some hitmen from Venezuela to kill D'Amicos.[20] On 12 April 2006, Aracdi was videotaped counting wads of cash with Paolo Renda where he was recorded as saying: "This is compare Rocco's [Sollecito's] and Lorenzo's [Gioradano's]".[29] When Rizzuto was extradited to the United States on 17 August 2006, he disparaged Arcadi's leadership abilities to the two Mounties driving him to the airport as he predicated chaos in the Montreal underworld with Arcadi as leader.[30]

On 30 August 2006, Aracdi's nephew, Domenico Marci, was killed.[31] The police believe the murder was in revenge for Bertolo murder the previous year and that Aracdi might had been the actual target.[31] Aracdi drove a Cadillac very similar to Marci's and Marci had driving just behind his Cadillac when he was killed.[32] At a meeting at the Consenza Social Club, Del Balso and Gioradno pressed for vengeance while Sollecito told them to wait.[33] Aracdi was recorded as saying: "Me, I agree. Here we are, Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. I agree that it's things that we have to reason out; things have to be measured, things have to be evaluated. But when it gets to a certain point and we are touched by some stupidities, the discussions have to be short".[34] Aracdi who was clearly shaken by Marci's murder seemed very afraid for his life told the others that he was leaving for Italy immediately.[35] Renda told Aracdi: "See, what you gotta do now, find an island. Take your wife and leave".[35] Aracdi together with his wife fled Montreal for Italy, which removed him from the leadership of the Rizzuto family.[35]

Shortly after his return to Canada in October 2006, Aracdi was arrested by the Mounties at his cottage in Hemmingford.[36] Aracdi crashed his car into a ditch when he saw the Mounties drive up to his cottage.[37] Found inside of his cottage was an arsenal of illegal guns.[37] Arcadi was held at Bordeaux jail in the same wing with Giordano and Del Balso.[38] In a plea bargain with the Crown in September 2008, Arcadi pleaded guilty to various counts of gangsterism, extortion, running illegal gambling houses, cocaine trafficking, and bookmaking.[39] After the murder of Nicolo Rizzuto in 2010, Arcadi was described as being the "interim" leader of the Rizzuto family whom was involved in a feud with Raynald Desjardins who along with Joe Di Maulo had attempted to take over the Rizzuto family.[40]

Books

  • Cédilot, André; Noël, André (2011). Mafia Inc. The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada's Sicilian Clan. Toronto: Random House of Canada. ISBN 9780307360410.
  • Edwards, Peter; Nicaso, Antonio (2015). Business Or Blood Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War. Toronto: Random House of Canada. ISBN 978-0-345-81376-3.

References

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