His ex was murdered in Westmount and then he burned to death: Montreal capo Louis Greco

  Longtime Montreal mob boss Luigi Greco, aka Louis Greco went down in a blaze of glory at age 59, literally becoming a human torch while using gasoline as a solve to lay tiles at his brother's pizza place late at night on Dec. 3, 1972.
  This happened two decades after his ex-wife was shot dead in a murder suicide in front of his son.
   Neither helped in his quest to keep a low profile.
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  Louis Greco reigned as king of the Montreal underworld from about 1946 to 1972, taking the helm with Frank Petrula after his boss Harry Davis was shot dead on Stanley Street.
  Greco's biggest innovation was helping forge the French Connection, a massive heroin importation system that supplied the injectable opiate to junkies all across North America and later inspired a Gene Hackman action blockbuster.
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   Greco started in crime after being forced to quit school at the age of 10. He was forced to earn for his family after his dad died while working for the Canadian Pacific Railway, in 1923 as Jerry Prager notes in a useful article.
   Aged 17 in 1930 Greco, was sentenced to 68 days for assault, while his brother Antonio had already been working the world of violent crime for at least six years by then.
   In 1932 a newspaper described Greco in a blaring headline as a "dangerous criminal," although he was just 18. Greco, along with someone named Max Fishman, was nabbed at Papineau and Beaubien late one night and fined $40 for being out without explanation but Greco resisted arrest and faced harsher punishment.
   One young woman said that Greco had hit her after she turned down his invitation to work as a prostitute in Toronto. Another young man said Greco beat him for refusing to steal a gun. Greco was given six months hard labour.
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  Greco was arrested a year later after his crew knocked over a Canadian National Bank at St. Viateur and Park on February 28, 1933. They nabbed $86,000 and police recovered all but $4,000 of it when the group was found in Toronto two weeks later. It was his sixth arrest and he was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He served over 10.
  Local mob kingpin Harry Davis, serving a seven year bid, befriended Greco in prison. The two would later become close associates upon release along with the Ukrainian-Italian Frank Petrula.
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    Greco made the news again when Clarence John Ford shot at him on Mountain Street on 15 Nov. 1945. Newspapers made a note to mention that Ford was Afro-Canadian, so this might have been a conflict with a dubious character from the places near St. Antoine.
   Ford, who was variously reported as being 19 years old and 32 years old, was charged with attempted murder. Ford couldn't afford a lawyer so Greco offered him one.
   After Davis was shot dead by Louis Bercowitz on Stanley in 1946, Greco's fortunes rose steadily.
   He partnered with Frank Petrula, a tall half-Ukrainian, half-Italian Gary Cooper lookalike, who could switch from charming to violent on a dime, leaving many terrified of him. Petrula lived in a suburban home in Beaconsfield and drove a Cadillac and played the ladies men in clubs around town.
  Greco, meanwhile was far more discreet, living a low-profile life in Westmount.
   RCMP files note that Greco traveled to met international Mafia boss Lucky Luciano in 1951 so his ascent up the ladder was evident.
    Greco frequented the Bonfire Restaurant, a former FDR restaurant, just outside of the Blue Bonnets racetrack on Decarie. The restaurant, of which he was part owner, was described as Mafia headquarters.
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Greco's ex-wife Berthe was gunned down in Westmount

Maid and murder witness Hainault

   Greco married Berthe Bernard, who was half-Cree and half French Canadian and he fathered Louis Greco Jr. with her. But the two split in early 1951.
   She remarried Raymond Cardis on March 1, 1952, who worked as a toolmaker at Canadian Vickers.
   Cardis had immigrated from France in 1951.
   The two lived at the northeast corner of Dorchester and Clandeboye, second building over, likely the same home that she lived in with Greco previously.
   Cardis got jealous when he heard his wife sweet talking to Greco on the phone.
   Cardis ordered her to phone Greco in front of him to tell him that she'd never return to him. She refused.
   So he shot her dead with a high powered rifle at their apartment at 4069 Dorchester W. in front of the maid Yvonne Hainault, 17, and their two year old child on February 12, 1953.
   She was aged 32.
   (Another high-profiled murder suicide occurred just a few doors down one month earlier, as Bertrand Dussault targeted his clandestine lover Reine Johnson at 4041 Dorchester W. She survived. He didn't. Johnson's husband and two sons all later became Quebec premiers. The buildings were demolished in the early sixties )
   The irony, of course is that Berthe and her family appear to have rejected Greco on the grounds of Greco's intense involvement in crime. Indeed the normal guy she ended up marrying, Cardis, proved more lethal.
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  Greco got custody of his son, who remained estranged from his mother's relatives.
  Louis Jr. later turned to a life of crime.
  Louis Greco remarried to Doris Gibson and lived with her in the West Island with daughters Camilla and Gina.
   The three were not mentioned as heirs in a lawsuit laid after his death. By that time he lived at 7659 Millet in St. Leonard and spent his days at his brother's restaurant.
 So it's possible that Greco became estranged from his second wife and kids and excluded them all from his will.
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   A 1955 incident led to Greco's ascension to the top of the local mob chain.

Frank Petrula with lawyer

   Greco's partner Petrula, who was a well-dressed, big tipper and man about town, and known for running protection and prostitution rackets, disliked a rival named Harry Smith.
   So he dropped by to visit him at the El Morocco, which was still downtown at the time.
   Petrula smacked doorman Ned Roberts, in his fifties, in the head with a gun and got to Smith.
   Petrula and Smith scuffled without conclusion and were separated.
   But Petrula returned the same night with a small army of local boxers, working as muscle for him. They were mostly local African-Canadians, in the form of William "Carfare" Bowman 32, Joseph Chambers, 30, Charlie Chase, 24, Lionel Deare, 34, George Desmond, 29, Ronald Jones 27, and bankrobber Vincent McIntyre 27.
    The gang ransacked the El Morocco and several other places, which led to major headlines and much unwanted police attention.

Greco and Pretula 1950s

   Police raided Petrula's home and his wife offered them a tour, even opening the safe hidden in the bathroom, which revealed a treasure-trove of details of bribery. Much mob cash had been given to Jean Drapeau's mayoralty rivals, it was revealed.
   Louis Greco's name was also found in the documents, so they raided his home and found guns but Greco was only given three days in jail.
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    Petrula was clearly a headache for Greco and when the federal government came after Petrula for $200,000 in back taxes in October 1956, Greco feared that he might make a deal and rat others out.
   So Petrula disappeared forever on 24 June 1958, with some suspecting that he was drowned in cement in a lake in the Laurentians, while others claimed he was shot dead in the bathroom of a downtown Montreal restaurant.
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Louis Greco

   Later that year someone shot at Greco's station wagon and Greco's wife reported it to police.
   Greco launched a waiters union in 1960 and gave himself a salary for his efforts.
   He was given eight days in jail for being caught inside at gambling house at 1451 Metcalfe in 1961.
   And guns and drugs were discovered in the dryer in the laundromat of his building at the southwest corner of St. Catherine and Sanguinet around that time.
   The next year he was arrested for stolen goods found at his home. He was known to be close to Carmine Galante, who headed the Bonanno clan of New York City.
   Greco was exposed again on Nov. 26, 1966 when he was nabbed outside a north end cabaret with the who's who of the top mafia who were in town for a meeting involving Cotroni, Violi, Luppino, Sal Bonnano and others.

Vic Cotroni

   Bonanno, from one of the five families of New York, said he was in town to look into his father interests in the Saputo company of which he owned 20 percent according to Joe's memoirs published in 2002.
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  Around this time Greco agreed to share power with Vic Cotroni, likely due to his reluctance to get involved in a major gang war.
   Greco left the west island to live in St. Leonard, next door to his henchman and top heroin dealer Conrad Bouchard. Bouchard had been an opera singer performing in Vic Cotroni's club when he was cultivated for a life of crime.
   Greco lent his brother Antonio, who was two years his junior, $5,000 to open Gina's Pizzeria at 3212 Jarry East. "My brother lent me $5,000 and he spent his days at my business. I didn't want to kick him out, he was doing god things there," Antonio would later say.
    Antonio hired O.B. Tiles to replace the floors and Orlando Cocco, 48, (9110 Clark) and his brother Bruno (6880 Clark) got to work.
   But Louis Greco burst in and started taking over and
   Orlando Cocco was not impressed with Louis's decision to do his work.
   "Luigi is a good guy but he wanted to do it all by himself because the work done by others was never to his standards. The night of the accident, we were preparing to put down the new tiles when Greco took a spreader from my hand and started doing my job," Orlando later told the fire commissioner during an investigation
    Greco supposedly replaced the varsol they were using with gasoline and the place exploded, causing injuries to all present.
   Greco, who was closest to the explosion, died of burns three days later.
  The Cocco brothers later sued Greco's estate and other owners of Gina's for $232,000 in damages, saying they had suffered serious injuries in the fire. It's unknown what, if anything, they ultimately were awarded. Orlando Cocco died in Chicoutimi in June 1989 aged 68.
   The local Mafia was taken over by Vic Cotroni, who mentored the Ontario-born Calabrian Paolo Violi to become boss. Violi was later wiped out by the Rizzutos, who later suffered a similar fate.