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MONTREAL
- Lino was devastated. He could not talk
sense into his son.That is when he paid a
visit to Vito Rizzuto. "I told him how my
boy was ruining his life. He said: 'There is
nothing more important than family,' " Lino
says. Lino does not know what -- if anything
-- Vito did. "But I know my son dropped this
nonsense and never sees that woman again,"
Lino says. "For me and for my family, he
made night into day." Why would Lino go to
Vito Rizzuto, a 55-year-old Montreal man,
with such a personal problem? "He is le
Parrain; il Compare," he says, calling Vito,
first in French and then in Italian, the
Godfather. He is not the only one who calls
Vito Rizzuto the Godfather. Police officers,
Mafia turncoats, law enforcement reports
from several countries, organized crime
specialists and underworld sources all point
to Vito as the new boss of the Mafia in
Canada. "He is definitely a leader. The
family has a lot of clout; people do listen
to them," says Detective-Sergeant Pietro
Poletti, a Montreal police officer who has
probed organized crime. "Vito is allegedly
the boss of the Mafia in Canada," says
Antonio Nicaso, an international authority
on organized crime. "He is at the very top,
the most capable and respected alleged boss
in all of Canada." Even Revenue Canada
describes Vito as "the Godfather of the
Italian Mafia in Montreal." Being perceived
as a boss and being convicted of criminal
activity clearly do not equate. Despite his
notoriety, Vito has not been convicted of
any criminal offence since 1972, although he
has twice faced serious drug charges and
repeatedly been named in police
investigations and court proceedings. It is
a charmed life that has earned him a
reputation as Canada's Teflon Don -- a
mafioso against whom charges never stick.
Vito Rizzuto stands six feet tall, with a
medium build, and is always elegantly
dressed. His hair is greying, well trimmed
and brushed back over his head. He speaks
fluent Spanish, Italian, French and English,
and has close associates in British
Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and
Atlantic Canada. He lives in an immense
house in a posh Montreal neighbourhood, yet
Revenue Canada says he claimed no income for
several years in the 1980s. And recently,
police sources say, the disparate strands of
his colourful life have wound together to
make him the most important man in Canadian
crime.
Vito Rizzuto was born on Feb. 21, 1946, in
Cattolica Eraclea, an agrarian community of
some 6,000 people surrounded by high, chalky
mountains in the Sicilian province of
Agrigento. The region is known mainly for
its vineyards and bountiful olive, almond
and pistachio groves. Vito was the first
child of Nicolo "Nick" Rizzuto and his wife,
Libertina Manno. He was named after Nick's
father, who died in Sicily when Nick was
only four. On Vito's eighth birthday, in
1954, the Rizzuto family, which by then
included a daughter, Maria, arrived in
Canada by ship, landing in Halifax and
moving on to Montreal, where thousands of
Italian immigrants thrived in a
long-established community. "The family
probably thought of Canada as a haven.
Somewhere they could come and work and
succeed," Det.-Sgt. Poletti says. Most of
the immigrants were honest and hard-working,
but there were a few men who were steeped in
the tradition of the Mafia, a secret society
of criminals that emerged in Italy more than
a century ago. While Vito was attending high
school in Montreal, his father was
associating with people known in the
underworld as "men of respect." When
powerful mobsters fled police investigations
in other countries, some chose Canada as
their new base. Among them were leaders of
the Caruana-Cuntrera clan, a group of drug
lords who built one of the world's richest
drug-smuggling and money-laundering empires,
according to police. "When the Caruanas and
Cuntreras moved to Montreal in the mid-1960s
they became affiliated with Nicolo Rizzuto
and his son, Vito Rizzuto. They began to
work together in drug trafficking
activities," notes a 1991 report, jointly
prepared by the U.S. Department of Justice
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(Several calls made over two days to Vito's
lawyer and a social club he frequents in
Montreal, seeking an interview for this
story, were not returned.) At the age of 19,
Vito moved from the ranks of suspicious
character to convicted man; in 1965, he was
found guilty of disturbing the peace and
fined $25. After his
marriage to Giovanna Cammalleni, a Sicilian
woman two years his junior, Vito started a
family of his own. His first son, Nicolo,
named after the family patriarch, was born
in 1967. A second son, Leonardo, arrived in
1969, and Libertina, a daughter named for
Vito's mother, followed in 1973. The family
remains extremely close. Several members and
their associates own substantial houses on
the same short street on the north side of
Montreal Island, at the edge of a nature
preserve. Vito's house is a
4,507-square-foot beauty set on 14,018
square feet property on Antoine-Berthelet
Avenue. It boasts a cut-stone façade
surrounding a three-port garage and
Tudor-style leaded windows on the second
floor. Built in 1982, the residence is
valued by the city at $551,200. Vito's wife
bought the property for $50,249 from a
Montreal company, according to city records.
The same company cut Vito's father a similar
deal. Nick's 9,349-square-foot lot was sold
to him in 1981, for $33,654. After building
his 4,146-square-foot home, he sold it all
to his wife for that same amount -- in two
installments, half in 1983, the remainder
three years later, according to city
records. The value of the home and property
is assessed by the city at $393,000. On the
same street, Vito's sister lives with her
husband, Paolo Renda, the son of a close and
trusted associate of Nick's. Their home and
property is valued by the city at $535,100.
Vito became close to Mr. Renda in other
ways. In 1972, both men were convicted of
conspiracy to commit arson. Vito was
sentenced to two years in jail, Mr. Renda to
four years. Montreal has long been plagued
by intriguing crooks with a flair for
organization and exploitation. It is a city
where many of the country's most infamous
criminal leaders made their fortune -- and
met their messy end. Part
of the blame must lie with civic leaders
who, in the 1920s, decided the key to a
successful city lay in its being vibrant and
lively. The city's centre spilled over with
some 200 nightclubs and bustling brothels.
Hoodlums and racketeers flocked to the city
and Montreal gangsters became early leaders
in organized gambling, prostitution, robbery
and the drug trade. The city's potential for
crime was obvious: major international
shipping along the St. Lawrence Seaway; a
fast-moving, 620-kilometre highway to New
York City; relaxed Canadian borders; and
some politicians and police on the
underworld's payroll. As years passed,
Joseph "Joe Bananas" Bonanno, head of the
powerful New York City crime family that
bore his name, was attracted to Montreal's
potential and sent Carmine "Mister Lillo"
Galante, underboss of his family, to
organize the city and ensure appropriate
kickbacks travelled south. Galante was a
frightening man who police linked to some 80
gangland murders. His presence, not
surprisingly, drew intense scrutiny, and he
was deported in 1955. The same fate met
subsequent New York bosses sent to mind the
city before the Bonanno family turned to two
Montreal residents to run things on their
behalf: Vincenzo "The Egg" Cotroni and Luigi
Greco. Appointing the Sicilian-born Greco
and the Calabrian-born Cotroni as joint
heads of the Montreal branch of the family
was an astute move, launching a Calabrian-Sicilian
alliance that kept relative peace between
the factions for years. Mobsters from Sicily
and Calabria, two southern provinces of
Italy, often rubbed each other the wrong
way. In Italy, they tended to work
separately in their own provinces; in North
America, they were forced to exist within
the same milieu. The Montreal Mafia thrived,
wrenching control over the city's underworld
and turning it into the most important
heroin smuggling centre in North America. By
1956, an estimated 60% of America's heroin
touched down in Montreal. In the 1970s,
after Greco died in a fire and Cotroni was
ravaged by cancer, power shifted to
Cotroni's right-hand man, Paolo Violi, a
fellow Calabrian. Nick, an ambitious
Sicilian who was rapidly growing in
influence, was upset by the succession plan.
Nick distanced himself from the Calabrians,
ignoring their calls and taking care of his
own business. The power struggle became
obvious to mafiosi in New York City and
Italy, and mob negotiators travelled to
Montreal for a series of peace summits
throughout the 1970s. Their efforts seemed
in vain. Tension eased, however, when Nick,
leaving his son behind, began to spend
significant portions of the year in
Venezuela, where several important drug
traffickers were gathering to organize their
affairs, several police reports say. In
Venezuela, life was good for Nick Rizzuto.
He spent his time with other relocated
Sicilian colleagues, from Montreal and
elsewhere. "While in Venezuela, Nicolo
Rizzuto and the Caruana-Cuntrera
organization became partners in many
different businesses that ranged from cattle
and chicken ranches to furniture factories,"
notes the 1991 FBI report. Back in Montreal,
things were not going so well for Nick's
rivals. In 1974, Cotroni's brother, Frank,
was extradited to the United States and
sentenced to 15 years in prison for
drug-running. In 1975, Vic Cotroni was
jailed for a year for contempt of court
after refusing to co-operate with the Quebec
Commission on Organized Crime. A year later,
Violi followed him to jail for the same
offence.The commission also wanted to hear
from Nick, but, immune from extradition from
Venezuela, he was not compelled to appear.
Nick was described as an aspiring Mafia
chieftain. In the underworld, weakness can
be deadly, and the weakness in the
Cotroni-Violi organization was becoming
increasingly obvious. On Valentine's Day,
1976, Pietro Sciara, a close advisor to
Violi who had sided against Nick in the
mediation attempts, was shot and killed as
he left a Montreal movie theatre where he
had been watching the Italian-language
version of The Godfather. Tensions between
the Rizzuto and Cotroni-Violi organizations
again flared. Cotroni was heard on police
wiretaps suggesting Nick should be kicked
out of the city: "Me, I'm capo decina [boss
of the group]. I got the right to expel."
The Calabrians then suggested going one step
further -- killing Nick. To kill a mafioso
as powerful as the Rizzuto patriarch
requires permission, and Violi tried to
clear the hit with his New York masters. His
request was turned down. In 1977, Nick and
Violi met face-to-face in the home of a
Montreal resident for a last-ditch effort to
resolve their differences, according to a
police report. But the peace talks failed,
and most of the Rizzuto family fled to
Venezuela. Tomasso Buscetta, a powerful
Mafia boss who agreed to co-operate with
Italian and American authorities, testified
that Nick confided to him in Venezuela that
he had left Montreal because of Violi's
assassination plot. A year later, Violi's
brother, Francesco, was shot dead. On Jan.
22, 1978, Violi, 46, was invited to a card
game at his old café in the north end of
Montreal. He is said to have been given a
traditional bacio della morte, the kiss of
death, by one of the men at the table just
before someone gently pushed a shotgun
behind his ear and squeezed the trigger. The
war stretched until 1981, bringing a body
count of more than 20 mobsters in Montreal
and Italy, including Violi and all three of
his brothers. When Cotroni died of cancer in
1984, the Cotroni-Violi hold on the Montreal
Mafia was severed. Fingers in the underworld
and law enforcement pointed to the Rizzuto
organization as the architects of the Violi
decimation. "Nick Rizzuto is suspected of
conspiracy in all three murders, acting out
of revenge ... for his expulsion to
Venezuela," a 1985 FBI report says. No
charges in any of the killings were ever
laid against Nick or Vito, and both were
outside Canada at the time they occurred.
The FBI also claims that, in May, 1981 -- on
the same day three mafiosi from the Bonanno
family were killed in New York City -- Vito
and an associate, Gerlando Sciascia, were
seen leaving a motel in that city. Three
people were convicted in connection with
Paolo Violi's murder, all of them with ties
to the Rizzutos. Domenico Manno, who is
Nick's brother-in-law, and Giovanni DiMora,
an associate of the Caruana-Cuntreras, were
each sentenced to seven years in prison;
Agostino Cuntrera, a cousin of the leaders
of the Caruana-Cuntreras, was sentenced to
five years. Paolo Renda, Nick's son-in-law,
was originally named in an arrest warrant
relating to the murder. Mr. Renda was in
Venezuela and after the three other men were
convicted the arrest warrant was cancelled,
according to a police report. The Rizzutos
then resettled, more comfortably, in
Montreal, although Nick retained a residence
in Venezuela, which he time-shared. He
travelled frequently between Caracas, New
York, Milan and Montreal, according to
police reports. While in Caracas in
February, 1988, Nick was arrested when
Venezuelan police raided his home and seized
cocaine. He was acquitted at his first
trial, but prosecutors appealed and obtained
a conviction for cocaine possession. He was
sentenced to eight years in prison, setting
in motion a long push by friends to buy his
release. Domenic Tozzi, a jet-setting
Montrealer and convicted money-launderer,
told an undercover RCMP officer he
personally took $800,000 to Venezuela in
1993 to buy Nick's release, according to an
internal RCMP report and a sworn affidavit
police used to obtain permission for
wiretaps. Jean Salois, a lawyer who has
represented the Rizzutos, has previously
denied the payment. After almost five years
in a Venezuelan jail, Nick flew back to
Montreal on May 23, 1993, and was greeted at
the airport by Vito and more than two dozen
friends and relatives. At the age of 69, he
settled into an easy routine as an advisor
and confidant. In the mid-1990s, Nick and
Libertina celebrated their 50th wedding
anniversary in a downtown Montreal hotel.
Last November, police say, an Italian
organization in Montreal honoured Nick for
being an outstanding member of the
community. When it came to business,
however, Nick let Vito handle the family's
affairs. "Vito gets up in the morning,
usually around 11 a.m., and he goes to the
Cosenza bar. It's kind of the headquarters,"
Det.-Sgt. Poletti says. The Cosenza social
club is a retail space the family runs on
Jarry Street East, about 30 kilometres from
the Rizzutos' homes. Inside the harshly lit
strip-mall space are plain tables, a couch
and an espresso machine. Men lounge and
chat; visitors are discouraged. "His father
is there a lot, and other associates," Det.-Sgt.
Poletti says. "He has a favourite restaurant
he often goes to for lunch. He loves his
grapa."
The restaurant used to be owned by Mr.
Sciascia, the Rizzutos' main link to New
York City, who was killed in October, 1999,
police say. An avid golfer, Vito is often
seen on prestigious courses around Quebec.
"He likes the high profile, the good life,"
Det.-Sgt. Poletti says. "He is very well
mannered and a very good dresser. He likes
the glamour of his position. His father,
Nick, I've got to admit, could be a bit
harsh when dealing with the authorities, but
Vito has always been a class act." Vito also
has an interest in luxury cars. He maintains
a Lincoln, a Mercedes-Benz, a Jaguar and
three Corvettes, one of them a vintage 1959
model, according to documents filed in the
Tax Court of Canada. He is said to own
resort property in Mexico, where he
entertains family and friends. Vito is also
making regular trips to Ontario, says a
Toronto officer who investigates organized
crime. There, he visits several businesses,
some of them owned by men police have been
gathering information on for years. "He is
not a huge guy, but he walks with authority.
He looks very distinguished. He dresses very
businesslike. Most of the time I've seen him
he is wearing a suit and tie," says an
officer. "Not only does he play the part, he
looks the part." Unlike in Montreal, where
he usually travels alone, in Toronto he is
accompanied by at least two male companions.
When he attended the funeral of murdered
Toronto mafioso Gaetano Panepinto in
October, he was never far from five men who
arrived with him, police say. Mr. Nicaso,
who is about to publish his tenth book on
organized crime, describes Vito as the new
face of the Mafia; a modern man who
maintains respect for the old ways. "If he
had not been a mafioso, he could have been a
successful businessman," he says. "He is
more modern-thinking than most mafiosi in
North America. He doesn't have anything of
the image of the celluloid stereotype of the
mobster. He is not like Anthony Soprano or
characters portrayed on TV or in Hollywood.
"He is very clever." In Montreal, even
powerful bosses of the motorcycle gangs bow
to Vito. "In Montreal, everyone respects
Rizzuto," Mr. Nicaso says. "When Salvatore
Cazzetta was in charge of the Rock Machine
and Maurice 'Mom' Boucher was in charge of
the Hells Angels, they fought one with
another, but in common they had a sense of
great respect for Vito Rizzuto." In 1995,
when Mr. Boucher faced criminal charges, he
was ordered not to associate with Vito as
one of his bail conditions. The
Rizzuto clan can make peace as well as war,
police say. Vito is credited with playing a
major role in bringing a truce in the deadly
war in Quebec between the Hells Angels and
the Rock Machine. "Public opinion was going
against organized crime because of the
violence and it was not just the bikers who
were going to suffer from anti-gang
legislation," Det.-Sgt. Poletti says. "I'm
sure he had a word with them and said,
'Listen guys, cut it out.' " Police say
Vito's regular presence in Ontario suggests
he is expanding his influence into the
province, filling the void left after the
1997 murders of Johnny "Pops" Papalia,
Ontario's Mafia boss, and his Niagara
lieutenant, Carmen Barillaro. Vito has long
had close associates in Vancouver and in
1998 he was seen with suspected organized
crime members in Calgary, police say. That
profile and reach places Vito as the
country's most powerful chieftain, police
say. The name Vito Rizzuto is so notorious
that when a Quebec politician suggested
Pietro Rizzuto, the now-deceased Liberal
senator, was related to Vito, the senator
sued and was awarded $170,000 in damages.
That so many drug lords -- from the powerful
Caruanas to the deadly motorcycle gangs --
moved with the Rizzuto clan did not escape
the notice of police. Drugs and drug dealers
have been close to the family for years. In
1980, Vito was seen in New York City at the
wedding of Giuseppe "Pippo" Bono, described
by the FBI as "one of the most knowledgeable
men operating abroad in international drug
trafficking." The wedding attracted
prominent members of the New York Mafia.Two
years later, Italian police reported seeing
Nick in constant contact with Bono while in
Milan. Officers were concerned over three
large furniture shipments he sent from Italy
to Canada, according to an FBI report. Bono,
along with 159 others, were named in a large
investigation in Italy in 1983 that listed a
who's who of the Mafia and sparked that
country's first maxi-trial. Listed in that
investigation, but never indicted, were Vito
and Nick Rizzuto.
On Nov. 30, 1987, Vito was charged with
conspiring to traffic in 16 tonnes of
hashish that were smuggled ashore in a
remote cove on the coast of Newfoundland.
Police estimates put the haul's worth at
more than $225-million. On Nov. 18, 1988,
while out on $150,000 bail, Vito was again
arrested for conspiracy after another cache
of hash twice the size of the first was
scheduled to land in Sept-Îles, Que. No
drugs were found. His involvement with the
justice system was surprisingly brief. In
1989, the Crown's star witness in the Sept-Îles
case tried to persuade Vito's lawyer, Mr.
Salois, to pay him a lifetime pension if he
agreed to disappear without testifying. The
witness approached Mr. Salois with the
proposition and was caught on tape and on
film. He pleaded guilty to obstruction of
justice and never testified at Vito's trial.
Vito was acquitted. Less than a year later,
the Newfoundland Supreme Court ruled that
evidence against Vito in the other drug case
could not be entered in court because it was
obtained by illegal wiretap. Again he was
freed. Usually a man of few words, after
hearing the second decision Vito said: "One
word can mean so much -- especially when
that word is acquittal." Vito has not been
convicted of any drug offence. When police
wrapped up Operation Contract, a massive
money-laundering sting, in 1994, Vito again
made the news. His name appeared on one of
the formal accusations filed by the
prosecution, as well as on a search warrant
executed at the Montreal law firm Barza &
Lagano, although he was not charged. "We
know that he is part of the conspiracy but
because of legal principles we cannot file
this evidence against Mr. Rizzuto," said
Danielle Côté, a prosecutor in the case.
Joseph Lagano, described as Vito's former
personal lawyer and right-hand man, pleaded
guilty to laundering drug money. Two days
after the arrests in that case, Vito's
mother was arrested in Switzerland when she
tried to deposit $3-million at different
banks. But police could find no evidence of
wrongdoing, and she was later released. Vito
himself made trips to Switzerland, which
police alleged were part of a scheme earlier
that year to get his hands on gold ingots
from the fortune of Ferdinand Marcos, the
deposed (and deceased) president of the
Philippines. Vito claimed to have a mandate
from the family of a Filipino general and
close associate of Mr. Marcos to retrieve
money from the Marcos estate on their
behalf, which was believed to be hidden in
Swiss and Hong Kong banks, the RCMP said. It
is unknown if his attempt to act as an
intermediary was successful. It has been
almost 30 years since a charge has stuck to
the Teflon Don, but Vito has to face another
mighty and implacable foe: Revenue Canada,
which claims he did not declare income for
three years in the 1980s. Vito disagrees.
The tax trouble dates back to an apparent
investment swindle in a penny mining stock
listed on the Alberta Stock Exchange. Arthur
F. Sherman, a Toronto stockbroker,
disappeared in 1988 after questionable
trading of millions of dollars worth of
Penway Explorers Ltd. stock.
In an Ontario civil case, Mr. Sherman's
clients claimed $1.4-million from the
broker's employer for shares that appeared
to vanish along with Mr. Sherman. The judge
dismissed the claim, ruling the clients
never really owned the shares. Mr. Justice
George Adams found the man behind the
various share purchases of the unreasonably
inflated stock was Vito. "I find the
only person acting as a true owner ... was
Vito Rizzuto," the judge wrote in his
decision, released in November, 1993. Some
of the shares were purchased by the delivery
of between $40,000 and $50,000 in $10 and
$20 bills, and there were undocumented loans
of $100,000 made by Vito through others, the
court heard. While the plaintiffs suggested
Mr. Sherman's disappearance was evidence of
guilt, the judge said his absence might
equally be explained by fear of "the wrath
of Mr. Rizzuto." (The courts have since
declared Mr. Sherman dead.) Revenue Canada
examined the evidence from the 45-day trial
and deemed the stock unclaimed income of
Vito's, who did not declare income for three
years during the stock transactions. The tax
agency is claiming its share of the alleged
$1.4-million in revenue. Vito is challenging
the allegations, and a hearing will be
scheduled this year. The proverbial tax man
is the bane of most people who deal with
large cash transactions. It was a tax
evasion case, police officers in Montreal
point out, that finally toppled Al Capone,
the legendary American mob boss, after years
of dodging authorities. |
