Comfortably settled north of Toronto in a five-bedroom, six-bathroom family home on a sprawling estate with a movie theatre and space for nine cars in the garage, Carlo Bruzzese doesn’t appear at first like a man on the run.
A married father of four, public records show he lives at the same address as his mother and owns a business in the construction industry.
But in his native Italy, prosecutors consider Bruzzese a high-ranking criminal operative — a fugitive wanted for 16 years — in the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta, a powerful syndicate known for drug trafficking, bid-rigging and extortion.
The son and son-in-law of purported mob bosses both expelled from Canada, the 41-year-old was himself convicted more than a decade ago for his alleged ties to the mafia.
Now, CBC News has learned Italian authorities are pressing to extradite Bruzzese to enforce the six-year prison sentence he received but never served.
According to an Ontario court filing, the Italian government’s evidence includes multiple wiretaps and a 2008 conversation secretly recorded in a Range Rover, where two senior mafiosos discuss “Franco” holding a “high” rank in Carmelo Bruzzese’s ‘ndrangheta unit.
Italian authorities allege “Franco” is in fact Carmelo’s son, Carlo.
Toronto police spokesperson Nadine Ramadan said the agency’s fugitive squad arrested Carlo Bruzzese on April 22 in nearby Vaughan “on the strength of an arrest warrant issued under the Canadian Extradition Act as he is wanted by Italian authorities.”
Court records show Carlo, a dual Italian-Canadian citizen, was granted bail nine days later.
