In the early 1970s, Cotroni transferred the day-to-day activities of the family to his Calabrian compatriot Violi, a "capodecina" together with Nicolas Di Iorio, Frank Cotroni and Luigi Greco. Cotroni's role became more that of an adviser to the younger Calabrian. Greco led the Sicilian faction of the family until his death in 1972. Soon after, in 1973, a violent internal power struggle broke out between Sicilian and Calabrian factions in the family, notably aspiring Sicilian mob boss Nicolo Rizzuto. During the violent Mafia war in Montreal, Violi and his brothers were murdered along with others through the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, when the war ceased. By the mid 1980s, the Rizzuto crime family emerged as Montreal's pre-eminent crime family after the turf war. The Calabrian faction continued to operate with Frank Cotroni, who had been imprisoned from 1975 to 1979, as acting boss for his ill brother after the early 1980s. When Vic Cotroni died of cancer in 1984, Frank was left as boss. Frank Cotroni developed connections with French-Canadian Réal Simard, who became his driver and hitman. In 1986, Simard turned informant after his arrest, confessing to five murders and involvement with Cotroni. Cotroni was sentenced to eight years in prison for manslaughter in 1987. Frank Cotroni died, of cancer, in August 2004, leaving the Rizzuto Sicilian faction as the most powerful crime family in Canada. On November 4, 2012, Joe Di Maulo, a longtime ally of the Cotroni family, was murdered outside his Montreal home. Police believe his murder is part of an ongoing power struggle between the Sicilians and their rivals.