Paolo Violi

Paolo Violi (1931 – January 22, 1978) was an Italian-Canadian mobster and underboss of the Bonanno crime family's faction in Montreal, the Cotroni crime family. The Violi and Cotroni families were from Calabria while the Rizzuto crime family, like the Bonannos, were from Sicily. This led to tension between Nicolo Rizzuto, an associate of Cotroni in Montreal, and the Violis, who were vying for control of the city's Mafia controlled drug market.

Violi mistakenly allowed his house to be bugged by the Quebec Provincial Police. In retaliation, the Bonanno family sanctioned his assassination in Montreal.

A mob war in Montreal began with the murder of Pietro Sciara on Valentine's Day in 1976. Sciara was considered to be then mob boss Paolo Violi's consigliere and his body was left in the street after seeing the movie The Godfather II with his wife. On Feb. 8, 1977, two men murdered Francesco Violi, the younger brother of Paolo, in the family business. The family enforcer, his body was mutilated by several shotgun and pistol wounds. Paolo Violi was shot in the head at close range with a shotgun on January 22, 1978, in his cafe. The war ended on Oct. 17, 1980, when Rocco Violi, the last of the Violi brothers, was seated, for a family meal, at his kitchen table in his Montreal home when a single bullet from a sniper's rifle struck him dead. The Rizzuto organization subsequently took over Montreal.