Independent inquiry by the Subcommittee established that the Peroffs total airfare was $1,634.50. Subcommittee investigators found that while Customs made the initial payment for the tickets that the federal agency which ultimately paid the airfare was Secret Service. This payment was Peroff's reward from the Secret Service for his work on the Solarick-Silverman counterfeit case.

Cozzi and Molittieri closed their wire with a word of warning. They said:

when dealing with this C.I. we have found he may assume that when he advises agents of some action he takes that USG [United States Government] will pay all expenses ...C.I. was put on notice prior to departure on Friday March 16, 1973 by J. J. Molittieri, M. Cozzi and George Corcoran that he should not expect payments for any expenses not specifically authorized in advance.

PEROFFS ARRIVE IN NEW YORK

Peroff said his flight landed at the Kennedy Airport in New York. He said he was met by Customs Agent Richard Dos Santos and five other Customs personnel. Peroff said he and his family were taken to the nearby Ramada Inn Motel. They stayed there three days (p. 23). During this time, Peroff said, he called Conrad Bouchard in Montreal several times (p. 29).

Peroff said he taped the conversations with Bouchard on a cassette recorder. He said he recorded these calls at the direction of Customs Agent Douglas McCombs of Washington and the Customs Agent in Montreal, Sidney Bowers. Peroff said he kept possession of the cassettes until the last week in March when he turned them over to Custom Agent Richard Dos Santos (p. 29).

The Peroffs were next moved into the New York Hilton Hotel in Manhattan, Peroff said. How it came about that the Peroffs were taken to the Hilton was explained by Dos Santos in a March 14, 1974 prehearing interview with Subcommittee Investigators Philip Manuel and William Gallinaro. With Dos Santos' concurrence, the interview was taped but it was not sworn.

Dos Santos described the arrival in New York of Frank Peroff this way:

. he arrived with his wife and five kids and about 18 pieces of luggage and his father... and his brother were at the airport to meet him. The first thing he says, "Can I talk to you a minute." I says, "Yeah, what do you want to talk to me about?" [Peroff says], "My father's here and he thinks I am a government agent so don't say anything..

And he met with his father and his brother and the meeting ended and I got another vehicle and we packed everybody in two cars with their luggage and took them over to the motel.

Dos Santos said the Peroffs stayed at the Ramada Inn for the weekend. Monday morning he took them to Brooklyn and showed them the hotel where he had arranged for them to stay. The Peroffs looked at their new quarters and Peroff said to Dos Santos, "Listen, I can't leave my wife here. They're not used to this . . . the surroundings."

Dos Santos told the Subcommittee investigators that the hotel wasn't that bad. "The Waldorf Astoria it was not," Dos Santos said, "but clean, no cockroaches, cooking facilities, parking, walking distance for the kids, and shopping areas in the immediate area. Very little chance of getting mugged."

Dos Santos said Peroff replied:

We're used to staying in places like the Hilton. Let's go to the New York Hilton.

"So," Dos Santos said, "we went to the New York Hilton."

Dos Santos said it was his understanding that the Peroffs were paying their own bills anyway so "I didn't give a damn" where they stayed.

Dos Santos added that when they arrived at the Hilton, Peroff turned to him and said he didn't have any credit cards and that the hotel required some credit identification. Dos Santos said he then went ahead and registered the Peroff family under his own name. Over the next month, the Peroffs ran up a bill of about $3,000—and all of it, Richard Dos Santos said, was charged to the name of Richard Dos Santos.

PEROFF GOES TO WASHINGTON, THEN MONTREAL

Peroff testified that once his wife and children settled into their suite at the Hilton, Customs Agent Dos Santos and another Customs agent he remembered only as Tony took him to the LaGuardia Airport in New York. Following the instructions of Dos Santos, Peroff boarded an Eastern Airlines shuttle flight for Washington, D.C. Peroff said the date of the trip was approximately March 20, 1973 (p. 23).

At Washington National Airport, Peroff said, he was met by Customs Agent Douglas McCombs. McCombs and he went from the main terminal at National to the adjacent General Aviation Terminal where private aircraft are serviced. There they talked for about 15 minutes with another Customs man whose name Peroff had forgotten (p. 24). Peroff said he and the two Customs agents were joined by two other men. They had just flown in from West Palm Beach, Florida in a Lear jet. The pilot, Peroff said, was named Bob. He was not a Customs officer. Bob's passenger was a Customs agent from the Homestead Air Force Base in Dade County, Florida. The five men talked some more. It was agreed that the following morning Bob would fly Peroff to Montreal in the Lear jet. The Customs agent from Homestead would go along as copilot (p. 24).

Peroff said that a firm instruction Customs Agent McCombs gave him was that in dealing with the Canadian mobsters he was never to agree to smuggle foreign heroin into Canada, Peroff said:

... McCombs told me that one way or another this bust must come down in the States rather than Canada (p. 25). Peroff said he was taken to a hotel in Washington near the Customs Service headquarters at 2100 K Street. The next morning the three men-Peroff, Bob and the Customs agent copilot-flew to Montreal. In Montreal, Royal Canadian Mounted Police had reserved rooms for them at the Martinique Hotel. Peroff said his room was electronically bugged by the RCMP (p. 24).

43-085-753

PEROFF MEETS PEPE COTRONI

On this his second U.S. Customs-sponsored trip to Montreal, Frank Peroff began to deal with a key Bouchard associate, Giuseppe (Pepe) Cotroni. Independent inquiry by the Investigations Subcommittee staff identified Cotroni as a leading figure in the Canadian underworld. Investigation revealed that Cotroni, born February 20, 1920 in Reggio, Calabria, Italy, claimed to be a restauranteur but he, in fact, was a leader of the largest and most notorious narcotics syndicate on the North American Continent. A supplier of major Mafia drug traffickers in the U.S., Cotroni had direct French-Corsican sources of supply.

Subcommittee inquiry established that the Cotroni organization has included Giuseppe's brothers, Vincenso (Vic) and Frank Cotroni as well as Rene Robert, Joe Coccolichio, Lucien Rivard and Peter Stepanof, all of Montreal; and Carmine Galante, Salvatore Giglio, Angelo Tuminaro, Anthony Dipasqua, Frank Moccardi and Frank Mari, all of New York City.

Peroff's contact with Giuseppe Cotroni was through Bouchard. Peroff said Bouchard and a Bouchard underling, Claude Lemoyne, picked him up at the Martinque Hotel and they drove to the airport where Peroff showed them the interior of the Lear jet. Peroff testified that inside the plane he:

started showing Bouchard the different places that heroin could be hidden . . . including an electronics hold in the rear of the aircraft. Bouchard was extremely impressed and excited and immediately proceeded to set up a meeting with Pepe Cotroni... (p. 25).

They-Peroff, Bouchard, Claude Lemoyne, Cotroni and Cotroni's bodyguard-met for lunch the next day at Moishe's Steak House located at 3961 St. Laurent in Montreal. Cotroni questioned him "at great depth", Peroff said. Cotroni wanted to know precise details about his Lear jet, about his smuggling methods and how he expected to bring the heroin into the United States. Following Customs Agent Douglas McCombs' directions, Peroff was careful to insist that he fly the heroin into the U.S.-rather than into Canada. Peroff, who speaks some Italian, said Cotroni addressed him only in Italian at the lunch. Peroff said Cotroni spoke Italian to him because he did not want the others-Bouchard and Lemoyne-to know what he was saying (pp. 25,26).

After lunch, Peroff returned to the Martinique. He reported to Customs agent Sidney Bowers on what had happened. Bowers then presented Peroff with photographs of Cotroni, Bouchard, Lemoyne and the bodyguard. Bowers asked Peroff to identify them. Peroff said the pictures had been taken when the luncheon participants had conversed in front of the Moishe's Steak House Restaurant before leaving. Peroff said that besides the still photographs law enforcement officers had also shot about 15 minutes of video tape of the men outside Moishe's Restaurant (p. 25).

OFFICIAL REPORTS ON WHAT HAPPENED AT MOISHE'S

Sidney C. Bowers, the U.S. Customs agent in Montreal, wrote a report on Peroff's activities in Montreal March 20 and 21, 1973. The

Subcommittee obtained a copy of this document and it is included in the hearing record. In the report, dated March 26 and sent to Customs offices in New York, Detroit and Washington, Bowers said Peroff arrived at Montreal International Airport in his Lear jet March 20.

Bowers said that on the evening of the 20th Peroff met for about two hours with Bouchard and Claude Lemoyne. The three men drove to the airport and inspected the executive jet. Bouchard and Lemoyne "were much impressed," Bowers said, and they explained to Peroff that they were in a deal with Giuseppe Cotroni to bring in a large shipment of heroin from France.

On March 21, Bowers said, Peroff went to lunch with Cotroni, a Cotroni operative named Dominic Torrente, and Bouchard and Lemoyne. They dined at Moishe's Restaurant on St. Laurent Street in Montreal, Bowers said.

Bowers reported that Cotroni told Peroff it would take 10 to 14 days to assemble enough heroin to make the trip worthwhile. In the meantime, Cotroni wanted Peroff to take the Lear jet to Windsor, Ontario. Cotroni wanted to arrange some business there with Americans, Bowers said. "Cotroni declined to make the trip himself stating that he didn't want to 'burn' the aircraft," Bowers reported.

When he returned to New York, Peroff described the luncheon to Richard Dos Santos who made a report of this luncheon. Dos Santos' report of the luncheon was essentially the same as Bowers'. Dos Santos noted that Cotroni, speaking in Italian, put Peroff through "a rigorous third degree," asking many questions such as "Who do you know in Miami? Who do you know in New York? Who do you know in Italy?" Dos Santos said when the meal ended, the men stood out front of the restaurant and talked for about 10 minutes. Then, Dos Santos reported, Pepe Cotroni walked over to Peroff and told him he liked him.

BOUCHARD USES U.S. CUSTOMS LEAR JET

When Frank Peroff first began dealing in crime with Conrad Bouchard in 1970, Bouchard was by underworld standards, a man of some independence, a man of means. But since his arrest for narcotics violations in early 1972, his luck had changed, and so had his circumstances. It is true that the 42-year-old former nightclub singer was out of jail while his trial progressed. But the cost of his legal defense was draining Bouchard of his financial reserves and, with Canadian law enforcement officers watching him, his ability to execute criminal acts to raise money was limited.

Peroff's presence in Montreal, particularly his ready access to a Lear jet, proved helpful to the troubled Conrad Bouchard. In turn, it was to the advantage of Peroff the informant to do anything he could to deepen the trusting relationship between himself and Bouchard. So when Bouchard asked him for a favor, Peroff readily agreed. The first favor Bouchard asked of Peroff was that he fly him to Quebec City to pick up or examine photographs and documents which Bouchard hoped would lend support to his charge that he had been framed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Bob, the Lear jet pilot, and his copilot, the Customs agent, flew the aircraft over to

Quebec City, Peroff said, noting that he, Bouchard and Claude Lemoyne were the passengers.

Peroff said he advised RCMP and U.S. Customs agents about the trip and certain photographs and documents which Bouchard hoped would help his case. Peroff said the agents were "very interested at that point in time in obtaining these documents and photographs." Peroff said the RCMP was "most anxious" to see Bouchard behind bars because the racketeer had launched a public campaign claiming the Mounties had been guilty of entrapment in his arrest and that one of their agents, Staff Sergeant Giles Poissant, was corrupt. Poissant directed the RCMP drug unit in Montreal (pp. 26, 27).

OFFICIAL REPORTS ON THE QUEBEC TRIP

Customs Agent Richard Dos Santos, after debriefing Peroff, reported on the flight Conrad Bouchard made to Quebec in Peroff's Customs-sponsored Lear jet. Dos Santos said that following the March 21 luncheon at Moishe's Steak House Bouchard, Claude Lemoyne and Peroff drove in Bouchard's car to an auto repair shop run by Lemoyne.

The men stayed at the garage for about one hour. Then Bouchard drove home. Later Peroff and Lemoyne went over to Bouchard's house. Dos Santos said Bouchard was on the phone when Peroff and Lemoyne arrived. Bouchard was arguing with a man identified as Roger, "the stock thief." Finishing his call to Roger, Bouchard told Peroff he wanted to fly to Quebec City.

Dos Santos said Bouchard, Lemoyne and Peroff went to a restaurant where Bouchard got into another argument on the phone with Roger. This dispute was more heated than the previous one. From there, the three men went to the airport where the two Lear jet pilots were standing by. At 6:20 p.m. they flew to Quebec City in the executive jet.

In Quebec City, Dos Santos said, the threesome drove to the Boulevard Restaurant. Bouchard was greeted warmly by the owner, Roger DuLoude, and Peroff was made to understand that the purpose of this trip was the meeting with DuLoude. Dos Santos said Peroff could not speak French and, therefore, could not say what Bouchard and DuLoude were talking about.

Dos Santos said Bouchard, Lemoyne and Peroff returned to Montreal at about 9:30 or 10 p.m. and that Bouchard made several calls from the airport. Peroff was dropped off at his hotel, the Martinique.

BOUCHARD FLIES TO WINDSOR IN CUSTOMS LEAR JET

The next occasion Bouchard used the Customs Lear jet, Peroff said, was shortly after the Quebec City flight. Peroff said Bouchard told him that Giuseppe (Pepe) Cotroni wanted him, Bouchard, to go to Detroit and sell a shipment of heroin to a buyer there. Bouchard asked Peroff to fly him in the Lear jet. Peroff agreed to do it (p. 27).

Peroff said Bouchard boarded the private aircraft carrying a brown leather briefcase. Bouchard brought two men along, Claude Lemoyne and Louis Cote. Peroff testified that before takeoff he instructed Bob, the pilot, to change their destination from Detroit to Windsor. Arriving in Windsor and driving across the Detroit River into Detroit