Montreal Mafia figure, Moreno Gallo to appeal deportation

By Paul Cherry, Montreal Gazette May 27, 2010 4:26 PM

Moreno Gallo, reputed Montreal Mafia figure convicted of murder, leaves an Immigration and refugee hearing in Montreal, Thursday May 27, 2010. At the hearing it was determined that he is to be deported to Italy. The Gazette
Photograph by: Phil Carpenter, Montreal Gazette

A Laval man with alleged mafia ties finds himself running out of options as an immigration tribunal has declared he can be deported to his native Italy despite having lived in Canada for more than five decades.

Moreno Gallo, 64, who is out on day parole, showed up for a hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) at Complexe Guy Favreau Thursday morning for what essentially turned out to be a formality.

Because of a series of admissions agreed to in the case, IRB member Dianne Tordorf ruled that Gallo can be deported, as Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has been seeking to do since February 2008.

According to a document filed in Gallo’s case, CBSA realized only in 2008 that he was a permanent resident and never became a Canadian citizen, despite having arrived in this country at age 8, on May 6, 1954, with his mother and sister. His father had been residing in Canada for two years at that point.

Gallo left school with a Grade 9 education and, at the age of 16, started working at the same flooring company where his father worked. He also worked for Kraft Foods before opening a bakery 35 years ago in Little Italy with his father-in-law. The popular bakery, Mottas, on Mozart St. E. is still run by Gallo’s wife.

But it was what Gallo did as a sideline to the bakery that now finds him closer to being deported to Italy, where, he claims, he has no close relatives. In 1973, Gallo and an accomplice were arrested in the murder of a drug dealer who was considered to be a rival of the Cotroni organization. Gallo, who now insists he killed the dealer because he sold drugs at his sister’s school, received a life sentence after pleading guilty to the murder in 1974. He was paroled in 1983 and was warned at least once about associating with known criminals while he was living under the conditions of his release.

He was returned to a penitentiary in 2007 after he was secretly filmed bringing large wads of cash to the Consenza Social Club in St. Léonard, where he handed it to people like Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. It was during his return behind bars that federal officials noticed Gallo was not a citizen of this country. Correctional Service of Canada mistakenly had him listed as a Canadian citizen, but the error was noticed as he was being transferred from the Leclerc Institution in Laval to the Cowansville Institution in the Eastern Townships.

Through his lawyer, Stephen Fineberg, Gallo admitted to the IRB that he is not a Canadian citizen and that he was convicted of a criminal offence punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 10 years. People who meet both criteria, under the “serious criminality” section of the Immigration and Refugee Act, can automatically be deported. And because Gallo received a sentence of more than two years, he is ineligible to seek an appeal through the Immigration Appeal Division. He can however appeal certain aspects of the decision through the Federal Court of Canada. Gallo already filed for an appeal of CBSA’s removal order earlier this year.

pcherry@thegazette.canwest.com
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