thatrapsfan
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While the drama was unfolding at East General, another civic project sponsored by Mr. Papathanasakis was rolling out across the city.
An OMG garbage bin, on Toronto’s Front Street, in 2003. TIBOR KOLLEY/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
In 1999, Toronto contracted a start-up advertising company, OMG Media, to erect large metal waste-and-recycling bins across the city. OMG supplied the bins for free, with a catch: They had to bear ads sold by OMG – which would keep 90 per cent of the revenue generated; the city would get the other 10 per cent, plus $15 a year per bin.
By mid-2000, there were nearly 1,200 such bins on city streets. And they got there, it seems, with support from Mr. Papathanasakis’s network.
He also let some associates in on a little secret: On paper, OMG’s owners were businessmen in nearby Vaughan ; but he told two people, who spoke to The Globe, that OMG was partly owned by people associated with the Montreal Mafia.
And in fact, in February, 2003, a year after Mr. Papathanasakis’s associates were forced out of East General, Quebec’s La Presse newspaper reported that a Montreal police officer had pulled over a Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to one OMG Media – and whose driver was none other than Vito Rizzuto, the leader of Canada’s Sicilian Mafia.
Because OMG had ad-bin contracts not only with Toronto but with Ottawa and Montreal, it suddenly appeared that three of Canada’s four largest cities had signed contracts with a company partially owned by the Mafia.
OMG – and Mr. Rizzuto himself – vehemently denied that the mobster had anything to do with the company. Neither was entirely forthcoming: Years later it would emerge in a court dispute between Revenue Canada and the Rizzuto family that Mr. Rizzuto’s wife, Giovanna, and their three children owned shares in OMG that they had sold for $1.6-million.
An OMG garbage bin, on Toronto’s Front Street, in 2003. TIBOR KOLLEY/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
In 1999, Toronto contracted a start-up advertising company, OMG Media, to erect large metal waste-and-recycling bins across the city. OMG supplied the bins for free, with a catch: They had to bear ads sold by OMG – which would keep 90 per cent of the revenue generated; the city would get the other 10 per cent, plus $15 a year per bin.
By mid-2000, there were nearly 1,200 such bins on city streets. And they got there, it seems, with support from Mr. Papathanasakis’s network.
He also let some associates in on a little secret: On paper, OMG’s owners were businessmen in nearby Vaughan ; but he told two people, who spoke to The Globe, that OMG was partly owned by people associated with the Montreal Mafia.
And in fact, in February, 2003, a year after Mr. Papathanasakis’s associates were forced out of East General, Quebec’s La Presse newspaper reported that a Montreal police officer had pulled over a Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to one OMG Media – and whose driver was none other than Vito Rizzuto, the leader of Canada’s Sicilian Mafia.
Because OMG had ad-bin contracts not only with Toronto but with Ottawa and Montreal, it suddenly appeared that three of Canada’s four largest cities had signed contracts with a company partially owned by the Mafia.
OMG – and Mr. Rizzuto himself – vehemently denied that the mobster had anything to do with the company. Neither was entirely forthcoming: Years later it would emerge in a court dispute between Revenue Canada and the Rizzuto family that Mr. Rizzuto’s wife, Giovanna, and their three children owned shares in OMG that they had sold for $1.6-million.
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refunded all the buyers 
.