Fraudulent telemarketers from Montreal face sentencing in California

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A man with ties to the Montreal Mafia is to be sentenced this month in California for his role in a fraudulent telemarketing ring that bilked elderly people of their savings through false promises of lottery winnings.

Alberino (Rino) Magi, 50, entered a plea agreement last month is expected to learn early next week how long of a prison sentence a U.S. prosecutor will request.

Magi agreed to plead guilty to one conspiracy charge in a case that began in 2006 when the RCMP broke up a telemarketing ring based in Montreal and arrested 39 people. 

At the time, the RCMP alleged the ring made between $8 million and $13 million over a three-year period.

Police said the telemarketers called 500 people a week, urging elderly and vulnerable people to send significant sums of money to collect their lottery winnings. In some cases, victims sent tens of thousands of dollars through wire transfers. 

According to court documents, police had firm evidence that 165 victims in Canada and the U.S. lost more than $2 million in the scheme.

In 2011, Montreal resident John Bellini, 53, was sentenced to an 87-month prison term as the ringleader. He was returned to Canada in 2015. 

Magi is described in court documents as a longtime friend of Salvatore Scoppa, 47, the brother of Andrea Scoppa, 53, the alleged leader of a Calabrian clan within the Montreal Mafia.

Magi was among six men who lost a lengthy court battle last year in their efforts to avoid being extradited to the U.S. to face charges in the same U.S. District Court in California where Bellini was sentenced in 2011.

Based on Magi’s plea agreement, the prosecution appears prepared to request a sentence of between 12 and 24 months. Sentencing is set for Jan. 16.

Magi is the brother of real-estate developer Tony Magi, 58, the one-time partner of Nick Rizzuto in a land-development project. Rizzuto, the eldest son of late Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto, was killed in 2009 near Magi’s former offices on Upper Lachine Rd. in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce.

Kevin Power, another Montreal-area man who was extradited to the U.S. as part of the same case, is to have a sentencing hearing on Friday.

In a letter to Judge James Otero, Power wrote he became involved in the telemarketing ring because he owed Bellini money. The two had attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings but, Power wrote, he continued drinking to numb himself as he went about defrauding the elderly. 

“I was ashamed of what I was doing and I kept doing it,” Power wrote. “I drank in order to make calls, and drank more to forget them.

“I was glad in December 2006, when it all came to an end,” he added, referring to the arrests. “It was a relief not to have to make those calls anymore.”  

Paul Ifejeh, another of the six men extradited last year, is to be sentenced in March.

The remaining three — Van Wade Bedford, Mark Dash and Vijayakumar Ramakrishnan — have been sentenced to prison terms ranging between 12 months and three years. 

Ramakrishnan, 39, a resident of Dorval, ran a Western Union counter on Upper Lachine Rd. where victims would send their money. The counter was based out of a convenience store one block from where Tony Magi’s former company, FTM Construction, was based.

According to court documents, police had evidence Ramakrishnan and Bellini did business together from October to December 2006 and “was fully aware of his illegal activities and received commissions ranging from 25 per cent to 40 per cent.” 

pcherry@postmedia.com