Vito Rizzuto

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Vito Rizzuto (born February 21, 1946 in Cattolica Eraclea , † December 23, 2013 in Montreal ; also known as "Montreal's Teflon Don" based on the original "Teflon Don" John Gotti ) was the leading head of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada . He ran the infamous Rizzuto family in Montreal, Quebec , also known as the "Sixth Family" because of their size and power. In the opinion of many experts, Vito Rizzuto is probably the most powerful and influential Mafioso of all time. He had more than 50,000 foot soldiers at his disposal, he enjoyed great respect among Mafiosi in Italy as well as among the five Mafia families in New York City and had contacts that extended to several dozen countries. Rizzuto is also seen as a key figure in ending the biker war between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine in Montréal . Under his leadership, the biker gangs, the Irish gangs and all of the street gangs in Montreal began to work together.

biography

Vito Rizzuto was born on February 21, 1946 to an Italian family in the Sicilian city ​​of Cattolica Eraclea. His parents were Nicolo Rizzuto and Libertina Manno. Vito was the first child in the family and was named after his grandfather. A daughter, Maria, was born in the Rizzuto family in 1954. In the same year, the Rizzuto family emigrated to Canada by ship and landed in Halifax , Nova Scotia . Then they moved to Montreal, where most of the immigrants from the Italian diaspora lived.

Vito married Giovanna Cammalleri in 1966 and had three children. His eldest son, Nicolo Rizzuto (Nick Jr.) was named after his grandfather. He was shot dead in Montreal in December 2009. Vito's second son is Leonardo Rizzuto, his daughter is called Libertina "Bettina" and was named after her grandmother. Maria, Vito's sister, was married to Paolo Renda, the respected consigliere of the Rizzuto family, who went missing in May 2010. Vito's son Leonardo and Rocco Sollecito's son Stefano are considered to be the heads of the mafia in Montreal. They were arrested in November 2015 and charged with drug trafficking and crime. In February 2018, they were acquitted and released from prison.

Criminal career

Father Vito Rizzuto began his career in the Canadian Mafia as a member of the Cotroni family, which controlled much of the drug trade in Montreal in the 1970s . In the 1980s, Rizzuto became the city's dominant mafioso after the war between the Sicilian and Calabrian groups in Montreal.

According to police, Rizzuto controlled a criminal empire that imported and distributed tons of heroin , cocaine and hashish in Canada , laundered hundreds of millions of dollars, and profited from illegal gambling , fraud and contract killings. In October 1987, a ship carrying 16 tons of hashish off the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Rizzuto, Rainald Dezhardin, and four of their accomplices were also arrested there, but Rizzuto was released on bail in March 1988.

The trial of Rizzuto began in October 1990 at the St. John's Courthouse . But the police had no authority to start a conversation between Rizzuto and his lawyer in a restaurant, and the Newfoundland Supreme Court dismissed the case. That same year, Rizzuto was arrested again for planning to import the hashish into Canada. The drug dealer Normand Dupuis was ready to testify against him when he was promised a reduction in prison sentence and bail, as well as a new identity. However, he later reached out to Rizzuto's attorney, Jean Salois, to ensure that he would not testify against Rizzuto if he received $ 1 million. Salois took up this conversation and had Dupuis charged with obstruction of justice. After the witness was unable to testify, Rizzuto was acquitted in 1989. In the early 1990s, the RCMP secretly carried out a counterfeit currency exchange in Montreal as part of a complex operation called “Project Compote”. That action resulted in 46 arrests, including Rizzuto's attorney Joseph Lagana, who was convicted of $ 47 million in money laundering. Rizzuto was also classified as a conspirator, but there wasn't enough evidence to convince him.

Rizzuto worked closely with the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana clan , the main illegal drug traffickers, led by Alfonso Caruana in Canada. The Canadian mafia journalists Lee Lamothe and Adrian Humphreys consider the strength of the Rizzuto clan to be comparable to the five leading families of the Cosa Nostra in New York and therefore called them the "Sixth Family". In their book "The Sixth Family" they write:

"Until 2003, the Rizzuto clan was identified differently in the FBI and DEA documents as 'Canadian member of the Bonanno family' or 'Montreal group of Bonannos'. Under their control was a vast territory - more than a million square kilometers Quebec and Ontario fell directly under his influence, an area more than a quarter the size of the entire United States, including large cities, the most-visited border points between the United States and Canada, and many established Mafia clans, the operated under the banner of the Sixth Family Mafia Where American Mafia bosses controlled criminal activity in parts of a city or New York borough, or criminal activity in an industrial or commercial sector - like construction or the New York clothing district - that was Sixth Family a company with a global reach The Sixth Family had j Every team in the Bonanno family overtook, and indeed, man for man, dollar for dollar, had dwarfed the family as a whole ...
The core of the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal belonged to hundreds of soldiers and like-minded people, according to a 2004 Canadian police report, excluding those who only do business with the Sixth Family or work with them on short-term endeavors. As a rule, it is also not the business people who have carried out non-criminal services for the organization "

Indictment, arrest and trial for the murder of three capos

In early 2004, Vito Rizzuto was charged by the Grand Jury in Brooklyn with brawl, conspiracy, loan damage and murder on May 5, 1981 in connection with the gang murders of the three rival capos of the Bonanno crime family ( Philip Giaccone , Dominick Trinchera and Alphonse Indelicato ) . These events were also processed in the Hollywood film Donnie Brasco . Rizzuto was one of four people hired by former captain of the Bonanno family, Joseph Massino , to kill the other three capos. Massino believed that after the appointment of new boss Philip Rastelli , they wanted to take power.

Rizzuto was arrested on January 20, 2004 in Montreal. On August 17, 2006, after a 31-month trial, he was extradited to the United States and appeared before a district court judge in the eastern borough of New York in Brooklyn. Massino, who was serving a life sentence for a triple homicide, was due to testify against Rizzuto about his role in the murder of the three capos. However, on May 4, 2007, Rizzuto pleaded guilty to three murders in 1981 before a trial could begin. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison followed by three years of custody. He testified that he was involved in the case and did not shoot anyone himself. According to Li Lamot, author of the book “The Sixth Family”, this outcome of the proceedings was still a comparatively mild outcome for Rizzuto.

Prison time and release

Rizzuto was incarcerated in ADX Florence, the federal high security prison for the most dangerous male prisoners in the United States. He was released on October 5, 2012 and immediately deported to Toronto. Journalists expected that when Rizzuto arrived in Canada, he would meet with the chiefs of the New York mafia families and settle in Toronto for a while before returning to Montreal. In fact, he was soon living in Montreal again and reportedly bought an armored car out of fear for his life and stayed in a well-guarded apartment.

Smashing the Rizzuto clan

After Vito's imprisonment there were several deaths among the members of the "sixth family":

  • His companion Federico del Peschio was born on 21 August 2009 at the Restaurant La Cantina in Ahuntsic killed
  • His eldest son, Nicolo Rizzuto Jr., was shot dead in the Notre-Dame de Gras neighborhood of Montreal on December 28, 2009
  • His brother-in-law and concealer Paolo Renda also disappeared in Montreal on May 20, 2010 and is believed to be dead
  • His companion, Agostino Cuntrera, was executed on June 29, 2010 in the Saint-Léonard district of Montreal in broad daylight
  • His father, Nicolo Rizzuto, was killed by a sniper through the window of his kitchen in November 2010 at the age of 86

After Vito Rizzuto's release, several people were killed in retaliation for the murders in his family. For example, drug traffickers Emilio Cordileone, Tony Gensale and Mohamed Awad were killed in response to the 2012 killings for their alleged involvement in the 2008 kidnapping of Rizzuto's allies. Also in November, Joe Di Maulo was executed in the north of Montreal, who, along with Raynald Desjardins and Salvatore Montagna, was suspected of organizing attacks on the Rizzuto clan. Few people attended her funeral, and the funeral differed from the usual Mafia standards. Shortly before Christmas 2012, Dominic Facchini was killed in the café of Giuseppe de Vito, a rival of Rizzuto, and another person was seriously injured.

Those who had a conflict with Rizzuto were also killed. Calautti was shot in the head in his car in July 2013 on suspicion of the unsolved murder of Rizzuto's father. Gallo, a former influential member of Rizzuto's organization, was shot dead near an Acapulco restaurant in November 2013, despite having been deported for two years for his own safety to protect him from acts of revenge. All of these and 21 other cases related to organized crime in the city have not yet been resolved. In April 2014, Carmine Verduci was shot dead near the cafe. It is believed that after Rizzuto's death, he wanted the territory.

Search in Italy

On February 11, 2005, the Italian judiciary issued an arrest warrant against Rizzuto in connection with Mafioso Giuseppe Zappia's involvement in the construction of a bridge over the Strait of Messina , which was to connect mainland Italy with Sicily. It was one of the largest construction projects in Italy, designed as a 3690-meter-long suspension bridge, costing 5 billion euros and the completion of which was scheduled for 2011.

In popular culture

In 2015, mafia experts Antonio Nicaso and Peter Edwards published a book about the last phase of Vito Rizzuto's life: “Business or Blood. Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War »The material was later used in the TV series Bad Blood , which was first broadcast in autumn 2017. The series starred Anthony LaPaglia as Vito Rizzuto, Paul Sorvino as Nicolo Rizzuto and Kim Coates as Declan Gardiner , among others .

The death

On December 23, 2013, Rizzuto died of lung cancer at the age of 67 at the Sacré-Cœur Hospital in Montreal. Although a natural cause of death has been officially established, there has been speculation that he may have been poisoned as his body was never subjected to an autopsy . Rizzuto's funeral took place on December 30th at the Church of Madonna della Difesa in Montreal's Petite Italie ("Little Italy"); around 800 people attended the event. He was buried in the Saint-François d'Assise cemetery in St. Leonard.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Montreal mafia leader Vito Rizzuto laid to rest on YouTube , accessed May 24, 2018.
  2. ↑ Canadian crime boss Vito Rizzuto to get early release from US jail . theglobeandmail.com. September 25, 2012.
  3. ↑ The Rizzuto family by Corinne Smith (January 6, 2011) CBC News Montreal
  4. ↑ Patrick White: Police brace for return of alleged mob boss Vito Rizzuto The Globe and Mail 5 October 2012
  5. ↑ Nick Rizzuto Jr killed in Montreal on YouTube , accessed May 24, 2018.
  6. ^ The man they call the Canadian Godfather , National Post , February 26, 2001
  7. ^ Montreal Mafia: Judge denies bail for Leonardo Rizzuto, grants it for Sollecito ( en ) montrealgazette.com. June 15, 2016. Retrieved May 24, 2018.
  8. ^ Mob-linked Leonardo Rizzuto to answer to weapons, drug charges in March . montrealgazette. February 23, 2018.
  9. ^ Organized Crime in Canada . Retrieved June 6, 2005.
  10. ↑ The Fifth Estate - Crime Pays (Montreal's Rizzuto Clan) on YouTube , accessed May 25, 2018.
  11. ↑ Quoted from The Sixth Family Chapter 33 ( en , PDF) Retrieved May 25, 2018.
  12. ↑ 27 Charged After 4-Year Inquiry on Mob Family . Retrieved June 6, 2005.
  13. ↑ Alleged Montreal mob boss Vito Rizzuto released from US prison . Retrieved June 6, 2005.
  14. ↑ The Bloody Return of Vito Rizzuto: Canada's Mob Boss ( en ) In: https://www.vice.com/ . February 15, 2013. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
  15. ↑ Ex-mob boss back in Montreal and well protected: Sources ( en ) In: http://torontosun.com/ . October 27, 2012. Retrieved June 6, 2005.
  16. ↑ Vito Rizzuto seen in Montreal: sources ( en ) In: http://montrealgazette.com/ . November 1, 2013. Retrieved April 30, 2005.
  17. ↑ Probe explores possible Mob links to gangland-style shootings . 2012.22.12. Retrieved April 30, 2005.
  18. ↑ Carmine Verduci - the man who exposed Mafia's 'Canadian cell' - which gunned down near Toronto yesterday . April 25, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2005.
  19. ↑ Umberto Santino: The Bridge and the Mafias: An Outline of Real Capitalism . Retrieved June 6, 2005.
  20. ↑ Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War in the Google Book Search
  21. ↑ Business or Blood - my take on Montreal Mafia crime book on YouTube , accessed June 6, 2018.
  22. ↑ Bad Blood . Retrieved April 30, 2005.
  23. ↑ FEATURETTE 1: Bad Blood on YouTube , accessed May 26, 2018.
  24. ↑ BAD BLOOD on YouTube , accessed May 26, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Rizzuto, Vito
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian mafioso
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Cattolica Eraclea
DATE OF DEATH December 23, 2013
Place of death Montreal