Canada’s immigration board again rejects bid to deport Toronto’s alleged mafia leader

After four decades of attempts, the Immigration and Refugee Board’s appeal division again ruled against the government’s bid to remove Vincenzo “Jimmy” DeMaria, identified by police as the leading figure of the ’Ndrangheta in Toronto. The board found the minister’s case failed to prove DeMaria’s affiliation with the mafia or involvement in activities such as money laundering, despite a hearing that generated over 20,000 pages of material and caused technical failures in the board’s computer system.

Wiretap recordings of alleged mobsters visiting Canada in 2019 were introduced, but DeMaria’s lawyers challenged their legality and reliability, prompting the agency to abandon reliance on them. DeMaria testified that any interactions with suspected mob figures were limited to social events and denied any wrongdoing by his family’s cash-service business. The board characterized the government’s evidence as speculative and upheld DeMaria’s admissibility, allowing him to remain in Canada while he continues to serve lifetime parole for a 1982 murder conviction.