Mobster linked to Montreal mafia deported back to Italy
Moreno Gallo, a 66-year-old Montreal mobster who did time for a gangland murder, was on his way out of Canada Wednesday, his lawyer confirmed, after giving up his fight against deportation.
Gallo was on his way to Italy of his own accord but under escort of the Canada Border Services Agency, said his lawyer Stephen Fineberg.
“He’s being deported to Italy and from there he’s able to move freely,” Fineberg said, declining to note which city in his birth country Gallo was destined for, not where Gallo untimately plans to settle. “He’s a free man for the first time since 1974.”
That’s the year Gallo was arrested for shooting a man in a parked car in the head. He called it self-defence but the police portrayed as a settling of scores in the Mafia.
He was handed a life sentence and gradually gained full parole starting in 1983.
Though Gallo was never charged with another crime, his parole was revoked in 2007 after he was recorded delivering stacks of cash to the leaders of the Rizzuto crime family in the back-room of the Mob’s Montreal headquarters during Project Colisee, a police probe targeting the city’s Mafia.
When he was back behind bars, it came to the attention of corrections officials that Gallo was not a Canadian citizen and his file was mislabelled for years. The federal government then began attempts to expel him on the grounds he had committed a serious crime: murder.
Gallo, who came to Canada in 1954 at age 9, fought the removal tooth and nail.
But Fineberg said Gallo had a change of heart after realizing he would always have authorities breathing down his neck and would have no restrictions on him if he departed Canada where he lives under the shadow of his life sentence.
“He realized that for the rest of his life he was going to be vulnerable to suspension,” said Fineberg.
Gallo was on his way to Italy of his own accord but under escort of the Canada Border Services Agency, said his lawyer Stephen Fineberg.
“He’s being deported to Italy and from there he’s able to move freely,” Fineberg said, declining to note which city in his birth country Gallo was destined for, not where Gallo untimately plans to settle. “He’s a free man for the first time since 1974.”
That’s the year Gallo was arrested for shooting a man in a parked car in the head. He called it self-defence but the police portrayed as a settling of scores in the Mafia.
He was handed a life sentence and gradually gained full parole starting in 1983.
Though Gallo was never charged with another crime, his parole was revoked in 2007 after he was recorded delivering stacks of cash to the leaders of the Rizzuto crime family in the back-room of the Mob’s Montreal headquarters during Project Colisee, a police probe targeting the city’s Mafia.
When he was back behind bars, it came to the attention of corrections officials that Gallo was not a Canadian citizen and his file was mislabelled for years. The federal government then began attempts to expel him on the grounds he had committed a serious crime: murder.
Gallo, who came to Canada in 1954 at age 9, fought the removal tooth and nail.
But Fineberg said Gallo had a change of heart after realizing he would always have authorities breathing down his neck and would have no restrictions on him if he departed Canada where he lives under the shadow of his life sentence.
“He realized that for the rest of his life he was going to be vulnerable to suspension,” said Fineberg.
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