The murdered, former street boss of New York’s Bonanno crime family was remembered today at a funeral service in Canada — and law-enforcement officers outside busily snapped photos of those attending.
Mourners filed into the Montreal church to pay their final respects to Salvatore “Sal the Iron Worker” Montagna, a native of Canada who was murdered Thursday after he left a house there.
The service was sparsely attended — with an estimated 70 mourners — contrasting sharply with recent funerals for other Canadian mobsters with deep roots in Quebec’s Italian community, The Montreal Gazette said.
Montagna was deported to Canada from the US in 2009. Although born in Canada, he had lived most of his life in Italy and New York, officials said.
Over the weekend, several cars bearing New York state license plates were spotted at a Montreal funeral home, but few were seen at the church.
Before his death, Montagna had been reportedly engaged in discussions over the future leadership of Montreal’s mob, which has been weakened in recent years by arrests and assassinations.
On Thursday, witnesses heard gunshots as Montagna left a house in a working-class suburb outside Montreal. Police believe he then jumped into a frigid river and swam to the opposite bank before dying in a bed of snow.
Investigators are still searching for the killer and believe a confrontation took place at the house.
“We think something happened – a struggle, a fight – something happened there,” Sgt. Benoit Richard of the Sûreté du Québec, the provincial police agency, told The Post.
mmaddux@nypost.com