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Someone has to watch a whole lot of video from Cafe Consenza |
Quebecers are known to be some of the biggest TV viewers on the planet, but I don't know if anybody has the time to go through that much viewing. Simple math will tell you that it's going to cost well over half a million dollars just to transcribe it all.
The tapes have already been used against mafia bigwigs and revealed how the late Nick Rizzuto would sneak out with cash stuck in his socks.
It's now potential fodder for investigations against construction-related mafia scams.
The massive amount of tapes were made on hidden cameras at the Rizzuto-controlled Cafe Consenza in a strip mall in St. Leonard, where it was recently revealed that several well-known developers were known to frequent, including builders Frank Cattania and Tony Magi.
The cafe, in a strip mall on Jarry just east of Viau, consisted of a small entrance room with a larger, sparsely-furnished room in the back with a couch and cheap pictures of horses on the wall.

It later switched to an even more Italian-sounding, Bill 101-defying name Associazione Cattolica Eraclea. It's now a clothing boutique.
The secret tapes were made over four years, so there are some basic arithmetical issues at hand: if one tape was rolling, 28,000 hours represents over six years -- not four -- at 12 hours a day.
So there were clearly more than one camera rolling at the time but I'd imagine the conversations at the front were pretty non-controversial because that was a public area.
I am surely in a couple of those tapes myself. And yes I am not entirely unconnected to the construction industry being a long-time proprietor of an apartment building or two here and there over the years.
My quest was for coffee though. The first time I went, I was served politely and had an expresso and left, but not before noticing a man sitting leaning forward talking to another guy on the couch in the back. The wiry grey haired man leaned forward nervously and was clearly pleading his cause to another guy on the adjacent couch, it was clearly an intense business discussion.
On my second visit - and keep in mind neither visit took place in the winter, so it was clear to staff that I wearing any possible weapon or device - I ordered a coffee and a couple of kindly elderly Italians in suits offered me a piece of a cake that was sitting there as part of a celebration. I asked what the occasion or celebration was but I don't think the two I addressed spoke much English.
So the task of viewing the videotape and making transcripts is a massive job and would be a big money contract to somebody who runs a transcription company, although the job could probably done far cheaper through some outsourcing, even the mechanical turk site, where people do such things for a buck an hour or so. Expenses be further recouped by a TV show, so let's get a plan going.
Isn't it Cosenza !!!
ReplyDeleteIt is not "expresso" - Man, it is like spelling Italian "eyetalian"...it is espresso! eXpresso is a hosted Microsoft workspace thingy...lastly, one hope you were out there for journalistic pursuits and not having to pay protection! Ha!
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