Now cops in Italy want Rizzuto
Rome warrant issued for alleged mob boss also sought in U.S.

By PAUL CHERRY / Montreal Gazette

Vito Rizzuto's legal woes keep piling up.
The man described by the federal government as being the godfather of the Italian Mafia in Montreal is now wanted in Italy.
Rizzuto is alleged to have played a role in a shady billion-dollar construction bid said also to involve Giuseppe (Joseph) Zappia, a major figure in a scandal involving the construction of Montreal's Olympic Village in the 1970s.
Zappia was arrested in Rome, where he now lives. Italian officials issued arrest warrants for Rizzuto, Zappia and three others suspected of trying to invest laundered money in Italy's vast project to build a bridge from Sicily to the mainland, anti-Mafia police said yesterday.
Colonel Paolo La Forgia told a press conference in Rome the group was attempting to win a contract to build the bridge across the Strait of Messina.
He alleged the accused took part in a preliminary tender in October with a front company.
The group had invested up to $6.4 million in the bid thus far, La Forgia said.
Italian police said one of the arrest warrants was for an unnamed Montrealer. According to an Italian police source, the man is a Montreal-based broker.
The two remaining suspects sought on Italian warrants are based in London and Paris.
Rizzuto is fighting an extradition order to the United States that would see him tried on racketeering charges involving the 1981 murders of three Bonnano crime-family captains in Brooklyn, N.Y.
That case against Rizzuto got potentially stronger last week, when it was revealed Bonnano family head Joseph Massino has become a police informant.
Massino, facing a trial with a potential death penalty involving the murder of former Montrealer Gerlando Sciascia, is reported to have started co-operating with police in September.
According to reports, Massino helped the FBI unearth the remains of two of the three men Rizzuto is alleged to have helped kill.
Evidence heard during a trial last summer alleged Massino enlisted Rizzuto and two unidentified Montrealers to eliminate the disloyal capos.
In Rome, meanwhile, Italian police allege the Rizzuto group financed its bridge bid with proceeds from crime.
There's a lot of money to be made. The 3,690-metre-long suspension bridge is projected to cost more than $7 billion.
"Generally speaking, if this allegation is proved in court, it would show the international ramifications of Vito Rizzuto," said Antonio Nicaso, a Canadian author of several books on the Mafia and organized crime.
"I always thought Vito Rizzuto was not just a local boss but one who is well known in North America and Europe. This (warrant) alleges Rizzuto tried to get involved in the most important public contract in Italy.
"Consider how many people want to be involved with this project," Nicaso said. "It suggests he has very important connections."
Zappia, a former Montrealer, is no stranger to controversy.
In 1976, he was charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection with the construction of Montreal's Olympic Village, the buildings that served as the athletes' residence that year during the summer Games.
Zappia was accused of defrauding the Olympic organizing committee by falsifying construction costs. The criminal case against him dragged on for years, with Zappia finally being acquitted of eight charges in March 1988.
A few months before he was charged in the Olympic scandal, Zappia was blocked from becoming a candidate in the 1976 federal Progressive Conservative leadership race, amid allegations of forged signatures on his nomination papers.
According to Italian business records, Zappia registered a company called Zappia International Construction on Aug. 28, 2002. The company was interested in pursuing contracts to build highways, bridges and ports.
In 2001, Zappia told The Gazette since moving to an exclusive neighbourhood in Rome, he had developed "a certain friendship" with Silvio Berlusconi, a media tycoon and Italy's current prime minister.
A spokesperson for the federal Justice Department said he could not comment yet on whether Italy has requested the extradition of Rizzuto or the unnamed Montreal suspect.
Rizzuto defence lawyer Loris Cavaliere said he believes his client is aware of the Italian allegations. Rizzuto is being held at a provincial detention centre while his lawyers await a hearing before the Quebec Court of Appeal on his extradition to the United States.
"But so far, he isn't charged with anything here in Canada," Cavaliere said. "To our knowledge, nothing has happened on an official level."
February 12, 2005