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A
suspected Mafia hit man arrested in Montreal
this week came to Canada after his wife
allegedly gained access through a federal
immigrant entrepreneur program and enlisted
the help of a federal Cabinet minister's
riding office.
Gaetano Amodeo, who is on Interpol's list of
the 500 most dangerous fugitives and who
allegedly fled Italy after he was linked to
a police officer's murder, is in custody
while an immigration hearing determines
whether he will be deported. His wife, Maria
Sicurella di Amodeo, obtained permanent
resident status in Canada with their two
children last summer after saying she had
separated from her husband, only to
reconcile with him a few months later and
sponsor him as a visitor to Canada. Mr.
Amodeo, who is reportedly "a man of honour"
in the Cattolica Eraclea clan of the
Agrigento region of Sicily, has been in and
out of Canada several times since 1996. Some
of the world's most powerful drug lords have
come from the small agricultural village of
about 6,000 people. The controversy around
the case erupted in the House of Commons
yesterday, with opposition MPs demanding to
know how the alleged mobster gained entry to
Canada and questioning the involvement of
Alfonso Gagliano, the Minister of Public
Works and Government Services, whose riding
office wrote a letter to Citizenship and
Immigration Canada seeking information about
Ms. Sicurella di Amodeo's file. Mr. Gagliano
has denied any wrongdoing and says the
letter, which he did not sign, was simply a
normal administrative follow-up to a
constituent's request.
Réal Ménard, a Bloc Québécois
MP, suggested the Minister should step down
until an independent inquiry investigates
the matter. He said in the House of Commons
that the Minister should "not only be above
all suspicion, but that he undertake to have
no relationship of any kind with mobsters."
Diane Ablonczy, a Canadian Alliance MP, said
Mr. Gagliano should have known he was
indirectly aiding a fugitive and said the
Amodeo family's case raises questions about
the Liberal government's commitment to
protecting public safety: "Why on Earth
would the government give a safe haven in
Canada to someone who is known and wanted as
a criminal?" Mr. Amodeo had been living in a
modest duplex in a neighbourhood in
Montreal's east end with his wife and two
sons, aged seven and 12. His wife, who is
believed to have come to Canada in 1998, is
the administrator of a jewellery shop, Il
Barone Dell'Oro, and Mr. Amodeo is referred
to as a "gold merchant" in documents filed
at his immigration hearing this week. The
jewellery shop came to the attention of
authorities two years ago when a business
card for the store was found on the body of
Gerlando Sciascia, a 65-year-old mobster
considered to be a liaison between crime
families in Montreal and New York, when he
was murdered in the Bronx. According to
immigration records, Mr. Amodeo first came
to Canada in August, 1996, but went to the
United States after a few weeks. In
November, 1997, he returned again, this time
leaving the country to take up residence on
the resort island of St. Martin. He entered
the country again in May, 1998. His wife
obtained permanent resident status in July,
2000, under the federal government's
immigrant entrepreneur program, which aids
in the immigration process for anyone who
commits to starting a small business. She
excluded her husband from the application,
saying the couple were legally separated,
and so Mr. Amodeo did not come under any
scrutiny, said Robert Gervais, an
Immigration Canada spokesman. By September,
Ms. Sicurella di Amodeo indicated to
authorities that she had reconciled with her
husband and wanted to sponsor him, Mr.
Gervais said. He said authorities are
challenging Mr. Amodeo's status in Canada,
saying that because of the information now
known about him, "we believe he will be
declared inadmissible to Canada." The
immigration hearing is scheduled to resume
next week. An Italian warrant for his arrest
was issued in January, 1999, during a
preliminary hearing in Palermo into the 1992
murder of a prominent investigator with the
Carabinieri police in Agrigento, Sicily.
Giuliano Guazzelli,
who was shot in the face and the back after
his car was ambushed, was "a walking
database on all the activity of the Mafia in
Agrigento," said Antonio Nicaso, a Canadian
author and expert on the Italian underworld.
He said Mr. Amodeo is alleged to have played
a minor role in the Guazzelli murder, hiding
the murder weapons, but figured prominently
in the reports of two underworld figures who
came forward early in 1999 to inform
authorities about the activities of the Cosa
Nostra. Mr. Amodeo is also sought in the
1991 murder of Francesco Triassi and the
attempted murder of Salvatore Catania, in
Siculiana, a small village in Agrigento, in
what was believed to be a clash of rival
underworld clans, Mr. Nicaso said. German
authorities also issued a warrant for Mr.
Amodeo's arrest last November for his
alleged involvement in the 1981 murder of a
German underworld figure. The Cattolica
Eraclea clan is reported to be a branch of
the much larger Cuntrera-Caruana crime
family, once dubbed The Rothschilds of the
Mafia, which has deep ties in Canada. |
