I recall that Andrea Cortellazzi had some corrupt pennystock and money laundering links to an old Montreal/Italy mobster named Frank Peroff who got flipped by the Feds in the '70s and put in witness protection in South Florida and then went back to his old stock scams working out of South Florida working with Montreal-based and Rome-based crooks.
The Feds didn't know what to do with the guy, as they had used him for a bunch of stings with the DEA and to get intelligence on the Mafia and if they kicked him out of witness protection and prosecuted him it would blow a lot of their cases and unveil a bunch of illegal activities that the Feds were themselves involved in as part of the stings and deep cover investigations to gather intel. They were using his skills to set up their covers and when he did a bunch of scam independently at the same time they would blow themselves up if they blew him up. So he basically wound up in a position where he could operate illegally and had leverage to protect himself from the Feds.
It was like American Hustle but Peroff was a lot more sophisticated than that movie. Rumours are that he was also used by the CIA to set up front companies and launder money for their Latin American/Caribbean operations.
You kinda gotta respect or even like a guy who gets flipped by the Feds and then finds a way to turn it all around on them so he can conduct his own criminal activities more-or-less in plain sight and know that he can't be touched.
Butt he did supposedly make a bunch of enemies in the Mafia - guys he burned initially and a few he burned as sacrificial lambs later on. Smart guy though. Very clever.
I don't know much about Cortellazzi except that he was somehow, I don't recall how, linked with a couple of Peroff's later pennyscams/offshore deals.
Sometimes it seems like there's more Mafiosi in Quebec than in New York state and New Jersey combined.
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