Vito Rizzuto, also known as “Montreal’s Teflon Don”, was an Italian-Canadian crime boss who was reportedly the leader of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada. He headed the notorious Rizzuto crime family, based in Montreal, Quebec.
Rizzuto was born in 1946 in Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily, Italy and emigrated with his parents to Montreal in 1954. His father Nicolo married into the Mafia and later formed his own crime syndicate in Montreal after overtaking the Cotroni crime family in the late 1970s. He had several run-ins with the law but avoided conviction for major crimes until 2004.
In 1981, Rizzuto participated in the murders of three rival capos in New York City, on the orders of Joe Massino of the Bonanno crime family, and in 2004 was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn in connection with the killings. He was extradited to the United States in 2006, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering in 2007. He was sentenced to ten years in prison, but was released in late 2012. The Rizzuto crime family was in the midst of a power struggle while Rizzuto was incarcerated; his son Nicolo Jr. was murdered in 2009 and his father in 2010. Rizzuto died shortly thereafter, on December 23, 2013, of complications from pneumonia, which may have been caused by lung cancer.
Early life and family
Vito Rizzuto was born in Cattolica Eraclea, in the Province of Agrigento, Sicily on February 21, 1946. In 1954, on Vito’s eighth birthday, he and his family emigrated to Canada, docking at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia before moving to Montreal, Quebec. Vito was the first child of Nicolo Rizzuto and his wife Libertina Manno. His mother was the daughter of Antonio Manno, a local mafia leader in their hometown. Vito was named after his grandfather, who was assassinated on August 12, 1933 in Patterson, New York. Nicolo would also be assassinated later, killed by a single sniper bullet at his residence in the Cartierville neighborhood of Montreal on November 10, 2010.
Vito married Giovanna Cammalleri, daughter of fellow countryman Leonardo Cammalleri, on November 26, 1966, and had three children. His eldest son, Nicolo Rizzuto (Nick Jr.) – named after his grandfather – was born on December 4, 1967. He was shot six times and killed near his car in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal on December 28, 2009. His other son is Leonardo Rizzuto, and the third child is his daughter, Libertina “Bettina” – named after her grandmother. His sister Maria was married to Paolo Renda, a well-known consigliere of the Rizzuto crime family, who went missing on May 20, 2010. Vito’s son, Leonardo, and Rocco Sollecito’s son, Stefano, are believed to be the heads of the Montreal mafia, both of whom were arrested in November 2015 and charged with drug trafficking and gangsterism. On February 19, 2018, they were released from prison and acquitted of charges of gangsterism and conspiracy to traffic cocaine.
In the 1970s, his father Nicolo was a subordinate of the Sicilian faction, led by Luigi Greco until his death in 1972, of the Calabrian Cotroni crime family. When tensions subsequently escalated into a power struggle between the Calabrian and Sicilian factions of the family, a turf war began in 1973. This led to a violent Mafia war in Montreal, resulting in the deaths of Violi and his brothers, along with others, from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, until the war ended. In the mid-1980s, the Rizzuto crime family emerged as the most prominent crime family in Montreal after the turf war.
According to law enforcement officials, Rizzuto oversaw a criminal empire that imported and distributed tons of heroin, cocaine and hashish into Canada, laundered hundreds of millions of dollars, lent millions more in loan sharkings, and profited handsomely from illegal gambling, fraud and contract killings. In 1972, Rizzuto was sentenced to two years for conspiracy to commit arson at Renda’s Hair Salon in Boucherville in 1968 with the intent to defraud insurance companies; he served 18 months of the sentence. In October 1987, a ship was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) off the coast of northeastern Newfoundland and Labrador.
The RCMP found 16 tons of hashish in the area and arrested Rizzuto, Raynald Desjardins and four associates; Rizzuto was released on bail in March 1988. Rizzuto’s trial began in October 1990 in a St. John’s courthouse, but when the RCMP overstepped Rizzuto’s warrant by wiretapping restaurant conversations between Rizzuto and his lawyer, the Newfoundland Supreme Court dropped the case. Later that year, Rizzuto was arrested again for conspiracy to import hashish into Canada. Drug dealer Normand Dupuis agreed to testify against him in exchange for a reduced sentence, monetary compensation and a new identity. Before the trial, however, Dupuis contacted Rizzuto’s lawyer Jean Salois with an offer to not testify in exchange for $1 million. Salois recorded the conversation and had Dupuis charged with obstruction of justice. Because the witness was unable to testify, Rizzuto was acquitted in 1989. In the early 1990s, the RCMP secretly operated a fake currency exchange in Montreal as part of a sprawling sting operation called Project Compote that ended with 46 arrests and a Rizzuto lawyer, Joseph Lagana, convicted of laundering $47 million. Rizzuto was named as a co-conspirator, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him.
Although Rizzuto was considered only a soldier in the New York Bonanno crime family by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Canadian officials considered Rizzuto to be the most powerful mob boss in the country. Organized crime authors Lee Lamothe and Adrian Humphreys consider the strength of the Rizzuto clan to be that of one of New York’s Five Families, calling it the “Sixth Family.” Rizzuto worked closely with the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan—major illegal drug traffickers—which was led in Canada by Alfonso Caruana.
Indictment, Arrest, and Trial for the Murders of the Three Capos
In early 2004, Rizzuto was indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn on charges of racketeering conspiracy, including loansharking and murder, in connection with the May 5, 1981, murders of three rival Bonanno crime family capos, Philip Giaccone, Dominick Trinchera, and Alphonse Indelicato, in New York City, made famous in the film Donnie Brasco. Rizzuto was one of four men hired by former Bonanno crime family captain Joe Massino to kill the three other capos. Massino had believed they were plotting a power grab following the incarceration of then-boss Philip Rastelli.
Rizzuto was arrested in Montreal on January 20, 2004. On August 17, 2006, after a 31-month legal battle, he was extradited to the United States and appeared before a U.S. magistrate judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn. Massino, who was serving a life sentence for murder after submitting state’s evidence in 2004, was also expected to testify against Rizzuto about his role in the killings of the three capos, but Rizzuto accepted a plea agreement in May 2007 before the case went to trial.
On May 4, 2007, Rizzuto pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering charges, admitting that he was present at the 1981 triple homicide but stated that he had merely shouted “it’s a robbery” while others did the shooting; he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release as part of the plea agreement. However, Rizzuto’s statement contradicted earlier testimony from Bonanno family informant Salvatore Vitale, who stated, “Rizzuto was the first mobster to come out of a hideout during the ambush and the first to start shooting.” Nicaso and Lee.
On May 4, 2007, Rizzuto pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering charges, admitting that he was present at the 1981 triple murder but stated that he had merely shouted “it’s a robbery” while others did the shooting; he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, followed by three years of supervised release as part of the plea agreement. However, Rizzuto’s statement contradicted earlier testimony from Bonanno family informant Salvatore Vitale, who had stated, “Rizzuto was the first gangster to come out of the hideout during the ambush and the first to start shooting.” Organized crime writers Antonio Nicaso and Lee Lamothe respectively stated of the sentencing, “It’s a great deal. He couldn’t have expected anything better,” and “I think the system has been defeated again.”
Incarceration and Release
Rizzuto, who was incarcerated at FCI Florence, was released from prison on October 5, 2012 and immediately deported to Toronto, Ontario. Reports suggested that upon arriving in Canada, Rizzuto met with representatives of the New York Mafia families and stayed in Toronto for a time before returning to Montreal. Sources indicated that he had purchased an armored vehicle and was living in a well-guarded apartment, suggesting that Rizzuto knew his life was in danger but still wanted to send a message that he was back and would not be an easy target.
Wanted in Italy
On February 11, 2005, an arrest warrant was issued in Rome for Rizzuto in connection with alleged Mafia involvement in schemes to launder money through Giuseppe Zappia for the construction of the multibillion-dollar Strait of Messina Bridge spanning the Strait of Messina and bridging Italy’s mainland border with Sicily. The 3,690-meter-long suspension bridge, initially scheduled to open in 2011, was expected to cost around €5 billion ($7.3 billion CAD).
War Murders
Several family members and associates of Vito Rizzuto died or disappeared while he was in prison:
- His colleague Federico del Peschio was murdered on August 21, 2009 behind the La Cantina restaurant in Ahuntsic.
- His eldest son, Nicolo Rizzuto Jr., was gunned down in Montreal’s Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood on December 28, 2009.
- His brother-in-law and consigliere Paolo Renda disappeared on May 20, 2010, also in Montreal, and is presumed dead
- His associate Agostino Cuntrera was executed in broad daylight on June 29, 2010 in the Saint-Leonard district of Montreal.
- His father, notorious crime boss Nicolo Rizzuto, was killed by a sniper through his kitchen window on November 10, 2010 at the age of 86.
- Shortly after Vito Rizzuto’s release, several men were killed in retaliation for the attacks on his family:
Drug dealers Emilio Cordileone, Tony Gensale and Mohamed Awada were killed in successive killings in November 2012 for their alleged involvement in the 2008 kidnapping of a Rizzuto ally. Also in November 2012, Joe Di Maulo, a powerful mobster and ally of the Cotroni family, was executed in the driveway of his home north of Montreal. His funeral was sparsely attended by Mafia standards, a sign that he had fallen from grace. Three days before Christmas 2012, a gunman entered the coffee shop of jailed Rizzuto rival Giuseppe De Vito, killing one man, Dominic Facchini, and seriously wounding another. In January 2013, Raynald Desjardins’ brother-in-law, Gaétan Gosselin, was murdered outside his home, as was Vincenzo Scuderi, an alleged associate of Giuseppe De Vito. De Vito would later be killed in prison in July 2013 by cyanide poisoning. On April 9, 2013, Rizzuto’s former Toronto agent turned Palermo agent, Juan Ramon Fernandez, was murdered outside Palermo. Fernandez had tried to remain neutral in the Mafia war, leading Rizzuto to order his murder.
Salvatore Calautti and Moreno Gallo, both of whom had feuded with Rizzuto, were killed. Calautti was shot in the head and killed in July 2013 while sitting in his car; he was suspected in the unsolved murder of Rizzuto’s father. Gallo, a former influential member of Rizzuto’s organization, was shot to death outside a restaurant in Acapulco, Mexico, in November 2013. Gallo had been deported two years earlier, when he was also believed to have been targeted for execution.
Death
On December 23, 2013, Rizzuto died of complications from pneumonia, possibly caused by lung cancer, at Sacré-Cœur Hospital in Montreal; he was 67. Although his official cause of death was given as natural causes, there is speculation that he may have been poisoned, as an autopsy was never performed on his body. Rizzuto’s funeral was held on December 30 at the Church of the Madonna della Difesa in Montreal’s Little Italy, attended by approximately 800 people. He was buried at Saint-François d’Assise Cemetery in Saint-Leonard, Quebec.
Aftermath Even
after Rizzuto’s death, the Rizzuto crime family continued their campaign of revenge.
Nearly three years after Rizzuto’s death, Pierre de Champlain, a former RCMP intelligence analyst, stated that “if everything went well with organized crime in Montreal during Vito Rizzuto’s time, it was because of Rizzuto.” Subsequently, no other leader was able to bring the city’s various groups together, allowing street gangs to grow in power. “No one has been able to bring together all the Mafia clans in Montreal… the Mafia is in complete disarray. There is absolutely no emerging leader – that’s why the situation is unstable and volatile.”
