Siderno is home to one of the 'Ndrangheta's biggest and most important clans, the Commisso 'ndrina, involved in the global cocaine business and money laundering.
They had contacts in Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Chile and Peru, and had permanent representation in Colombia for drugs and in Costa Rica and Panama for money laundering.
According to investigators in Italy, by 2010, Toronto's 'Ndrangheta had climbed "to the top of the criminal world" with "an unbreakable umbilical cord" to Calabria.
[12][13] The Toronto-area Siderno group has included the Coluccio, Tavernese, DeMaria, Figliomeni, Ruso, and Commisso crime families;[14] Leaders are based both in Calabria and Ontario.
[20] Tony Musitano befriended inmate Billy Rankin at Millhaven Institution in Kingston who was due to be released in December that year.
On December 10, 1983, Racco got into a car in front of his Mississauga apartment with Rankin, Domenic Musitano and Peter Majeste, thinking it was to discuss a potential drug trade, but was taken to a railway track and killed.
[20] The Siderno mob in Southern Ontario was at the centre of a criminal business such as drug trafficking, cigarette smuggling, extortion, and gambling.
The organisation managed to gain high levels of income from these activities in Canada, but the affiliated persons used to maintain tight links with the small and poor town of Siderno.
He had been hiding in Canada for nearly three years under a false identity and was wanted for drug related offences, charges of Mafia association and extortion.
[30] The National Post reported that Cosimo Ernesto Commisso, while not a known criminal, "shares a name and family ties with a man who has for decades been reputed to be a Mafia leader in the Toronto area".
Nine of the 15 arrests in Canada included major crime figures: Angelo Figliomeni, Vito Sili, Nick Martino, Emilio Zannuti, Erica Quintal, Salvatore Oliveti, Giuseppe Ciurleo, Rafael Lepore and Francesco Vitucci.
[35] The charges laid included tax evasion, money laundering, defrauding the government and participating in a criminal organization.
[41] According to Italian police reports, the two men were picked up from Pearson International Airport by Luigi Vescio, a funeral home director in the Greater Toronto Area, where they were taken to Angel's Bakery, a family business of DeMaria's.
In January 2021, the charges against the remaining six were also stayed, including that of Angelo Figliomeni, "the head of the 'Ndrangheta in Toronto" according to York Regional Police.