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Interpreting exactly what court was seeing and hearing, and decoding the street lingo and mob terminology for a jury, was Carmine Guido, 47, a former mob enforcer who emerged as the inside man for an anti-Mafia police task force that led to sweeping arrests in 2015. He was paid more than $2 million for his co-operation.

At the time, police announced they had penetrated the inner sanctum of a Toronto-based cell of the ’Ndrangheta, the proper name of the Mafia formed in southern Italy’s Calabria region. The secretive and powerful ’Ndrangheta is considered the top of the crime food chain in Ontario and among the most powerful around the world.

On trial are only two of the men arrested in that probe, code-named Project OPhoenix by the RCMP: Giuseppe Ursino, 64, of Bradford, Ont., known as Pino, who court heard was considered an alleged boss of a clan of the ’Ndrangheta; and Cosmin Dracea, 41, of Toronto, known as Chris.

Both men face charges of cocaine trafficking, commission of an offence for the benefit of a criminal organization, and other charges.

Photo by File

The middleman between Ursino and Dracea in the alleged arrangements was Guido, who, unbeknownst to those around him, had signed on as an informant in May 2013.

His testimony, if accepted as truth, offers an unprecedented glimpse into how the ’Ndrangheta works in the Toronto area.

Back at the coffee shop meeting — and several others like it at Tim Hortons, Starbucks, Country Style donuts, Italian cafés and in Guido’s BMW SUV, bought for him by police — the cocaine plot was hammered out, court heard.