Murder victim a mobster or collateral damage?
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Was murdered restaurateur Paolo Caputo a hardcore gangster who flew under the radar?
Or was he collateral damage paying for the sins of his mobster brother?
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Caputo, 64, was gunned down last Friday afternoon in front of his Roncesvalles Ave. restaurant in a brazen daytime hit that had all the earmarks of an underworld settling of accounts.
So far, cops have been tight-lipped about Caputo and his potential involvement in gangland.
But sources told the Toronto Sun that not every gangster feels the need to parade ala John Gotti in front of the media and the public.
Caputo may have been an old-school underworld operator where discretion was prized almost above everything else.
Longtime underworld watcher James Dubro told the Sun that Caputo may have been one of those guys.
“There are several ‘Ndrangheta Mafia bosses around who fly under the radar,” Dubro said.
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Initially, Caputo was seen as the beloved owner of the Domani, a cozy Italian restaurant in Roncy Village.
But one person told Dubro there was another side to the seemingly gregarious restaurant owner.
“A woman who worked with him said he was distant, a chronic complainer. She didn’t like him,” Dubro said.
And Caputo did have more than a passing familiarity with the underworld.
His brother, Martino Caputo, went down for the 2012 hit on John “Johnny Maserati” Raposo on the patio of a Sicilian Sidewalk Cafe in Little Italy.
Martino Caputo was reportedly connected to the powerful Rizzuto crime family of Montreal at the time of the slaying.
The rubout was reportedly the result of a cocaine ripoff gone awry. Martino and three confederates are now serving life sentences for the murder.
And recently, mobsters have been hitting the soft underbellies of their rivals. Family members who aren’t in the life and fringe players have been the casualties.
In addition, Hamilton underworld chieftain Pat Musitano was the target of a hit in April outside his lawyer’s Mississauga office.
The rotund crime lord survived. And according to Dubro, the Musitanos have also been longtime allies of the Rizzuto clan so it’s unlikely Pat is behind the Caputo hit.
“He [Caputo] may have been that sleeper boss after all but why was he killed? There’s no connection to my knowledge to Pat but who knows?” Dubro added.
The veteran underworld observer also noted that Caputo’s other younger brother is on the lam. Caputo himself had several brushes with the law over gambling and bookmaking.
But Dubro doubts one published report that claimed Caputo was whacked at the behest of Mexican crime lords over the botched coke ripoff. He called it “viable but convoluted”.
“Revenge is a dish best served cold, but killing Paolo Caputo in 2019 doesn’t get the money back for the Mexican cartel but it does send a potent belated message,” Dubro said, adding that even the mob’s hardest killers are afraid of the cartels.
“And ‘Ndrangheta cells here now are considerably weakened by internal feuds and recent murders. The mob world is just so fascinating but Byzantine and treacherous.”
He added: “And this story is more bizarre and twisted than a lot of Hollywood scripts. Tarantino or the Coen brothers would have a darkly comic field day with it.”
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