Family of 1920s mobster and bootlegger searches for lost real estate fortune

Rocco Perri’s family has been trying to track down the late mobster’s real estate fortune for years and accuses the Canadian government of keeping it from them.

The 1920s mobster and bootlegger who ferried booze to Al Capone in Chicago was based out of the Canadian town of Hamilton until, as his living relatives believe, he fled Canada in the 1940s to build a legitimate real estate empire in the U.S. and Mexico, as reported by the Toronto Star. Perri is thought to have died in Massena, New York in 1953 while living under the name “Giuseppe Portolesi.”

But tracking down the family fortune Perri left for them has proven difficult. The family, who now lives between Australia and Hamilton, told the Star they have been fighting with the Canadian government to obtain the estate money for years and have taken their struggle all the way to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Office.

The Canadian tax agency denies any knowledge of Perri’s affairs to the family, however an informant from inside the agency allegedly told them the late mobster’s post-tax estate money was shipped back to Italy in 2008. [Toronto Star]—Erin Hudson