The Rizzuto family is a crime syndicate based in Montreal, Quebec. The family
territory covers most of southern Quebec and Ontario. The FBI considers the
family to be connected to the Bonanno crime family, but Canadian law
enforcement considers it to be a separate crime family. The Rizzuto
family was part of the powerful Montreal Cotroni decina until an internal war
broke out and the Rizzutos formed their own organization.
History In the 1970s an internal war broke out
in the Cotroni crime family between the Sicilian and Calabrian factions. The
Sicilian faction was led by Nicolo Rizzuto and the Calabrian faction was
led by family boss Vic Cotroni through his right-hand man Paolo Violi. This led
to a violent Mafia war in Montreal leading to the deaths of Paolo Violi and
others in the late 1970s. The war ended when the Sicilian faction took control
over the Montreal underworld with the blessing of the Bonanno crime family.
Until recently, the family was considered the strongest crime family in
Canada. Their leader was Vito Rizzuto, the son of Nicolo Rizzuto.
Vito Rizzuto's leadership Vito Rizzuto's style of business was a
striking contrast to flamboyant American mobsters like John Gotti. He remained at
the top of Canada's criminal underworld by keeping a low profile, working only
with trusted people close to the family, and spreading the wealth around. He is
credited with playing a major role in bringing a truce in the deadly war
between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine in Quebec. The Rizzutos worked
with both Sicilian Mafia and Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta families, the
Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan, Colombian drug cartels, and the five Mafia
families of New York, in particular the Bonannos and Gambinos. Rizzuto was the
mediator who oversaw the peace with the Hells Angels, the Mafia, street gangs,
Colombian cartels and the Irish mobs such as the West End Gang when the order
of the day was co-operation. Current status
After consolidation of their power in the 1990s, the Rizzutos became
over-exposed and over-extended. Vito Rizzuto was arrested in January 2004 for
his involvement in the 1981 gangland killings of three rival Bonanno crime
family captains and was sentenced to ten years in May 2007. In November 2006 the
senior leadership of the criminal organization was hit by a police
operation, dubbed Project Colisee. Among the 90 people arrested were Nicolo
Rizzuto, father of Vito Rizzuto, Paolo Renda, Vito Rizzuto's brother-in-law,
and Francesco Arcadi. On December 28, 2009, Nick Rizzuto, Jr.,
son of Vito Rizzuto, was shot and killed near his car in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, a
borough in Montreal. The killing of Nick, Jr. – the face of the organization
on the street – illustrated the power vacuum within the upper ranks of
Montreal organized crime. Since the slaying of Vito Rizzuto's son, the
organisation suffered other major setbacks. Paolo Renda, Vito's
brother-in-law disappeared on May 20, 2010. A month later Agostino Cuntrera,
the presumed acting boss who is believed to have taken control of the family, was
killed together with his bodyguard on June 30, 2010. After three decades of
relative stability, the face of the city's Mafia hierarchy is subject to a
major management shuffle. On November 10, 2010, Nicolo Rizzuto was killed at
his residence in the Cartierville borough of Montreal with a single bullet
from a sniper's rifle punched through two layers of glass in the rear patio
doors of his Montreal mansion. Calabrese mobsters led by the old
Cotroni family are among the suspects for the murders of Rizzuto crime family
members. The Rizzutos have dominated organized crime activities in Montreal
since its inception and now their weakened organization is being
challenged for control of rackets in the area, most notably the drug trade. It is
unknown if the New York City families, historically aligned with the Rizzutos,
are supporting or against the new leadership. Salvatore Montagna, the
acting boss of the Bonanno family until his deportation to Canada in 2009, was
believed to be attempting to reorganize both families under his control. If so,
he was unsuccessful and was murdered in November 2011. Vito Rizzuto was released
on October 6, 2012. On November 4, 2012 Rizzuto family associate Joseph Di Maulo
was executed outside his Montreal home. Di Maulo's brother-in-law Raynald
Desjardins is currently awaiting trial for the murder of Salvatore Montagna.
On November 11, 2013, Moreno Gallo, a once-influential member of the crime
family, was killed by a gunman inside an Italian restaurant in the Mexican city
of Acapulco, Guerrero. Though he was not as well known as other mobsters of the
Rizzuto crime family, Gallo was nonetheless influential among the
Montreal mafia rings. He had lived in Canada throughout the 1950s but was
deported in January 2013 after the Canadian government formally accused him
of murder and organized crime charges. Vito Rizzuto died on of natural causes
on December 23, 2013. Since his release from prison, Rizzuto was on a revenge
campaign that the Rizzuto crime family continued after his death. Several
members and associates of the Cotroni family have been murdered as a result.
References Lamothe, Lee and Adrian Humphreys. The
Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto,
Toronto: John Wiley & Sons Canada Ltd., ISBN 0-470-15445-4
Rizzuto, l'ascension et la chute d'un parrain