It was a time of tumult in the Montreal headquarters of the Canadian mob, when a series of bloody murders signalled the end of one clan’s rule and the beginning of another.
Three decades ago, as now, few could name the men who were pulling the triggers, let alone the ascendant kingpins who were pulling the strings.
In 1980, the coup de grâce came when Rocco Violi, the lone survivor of three Calabrese mobster brothers, sat down for a family dinner. As his wife and two young sons looked on, a sniper’s bullet smashed through a window and killed Mr. Violi. While elders of the Cotroni family who ruled over the Violis were allowed to live out their days in prosperity, their reign was over.
At suppertime on Wednesday, Nicolo Rizzuto, the aging Sicilian godfather of the Montreal mob believed to have orchestrated the deaths of the Violi brothers, met an end almost identical to the one that befell Rocco Violi. Two women in Mr. Rizzuto’s suburban Montreal mansion watched as a sniper’s bullet pierced the glass of his enclosed verandah and struck him in the head.
The murder was the culmination of a series of hits on Rizzuto associates, including Mr. Rizzuto’s namesake and grandson, Nick, last December, and the kidnapping and presumed murder of his son-in-law and right-hand man, Paolo Renda, in May.
As in the 1980s, police are struggling to understand who is orchestrating the destruction of the Rizzutos. As late as 1982, the Rizzuto name barely registered in a Montreal police report entitled “The State of Organized Crime,” despite the Violi murders and the family’s position at the centre of an exploding heroin trade.
“The parallels are striking,” said crime writer André Cédilot, commenting on the demise of the Violis 30 years ago and the Rizzutos today.
Mr. Cédilot is the co-author of Mafia Inc., a new book recounting the rise and fall of the Rizzuto family and the mob’s infiltration of legitimate Quebec and Canadian businesses, particularly in Montreal. His book and others have chronicled Mr. Rizzuto’s 86 years. Punctuated with flashes of mirth and cinematic audacity, it’s a story written in blood.
Born in Sicily in 1924, Nicolo Rizzuto was nine years old when his father was shot dead in New York by fellow gangsters. In 1954 he came to Canada with his son, Vito, as a major mob shakeout was taking place in Italy.
In the early 1970s, with the Calabrese clans holding sway and tensions building with Sicilians like the Rizzutos, Nicolo Rizzuto went into exile in Venezuela. He teamed up with members of Caruana/Cuntrera families to create a global organization that would flood North America and Europe with heroin, cocaine and hashish, funnelling much of the drugs and cash through Montreal where he maintained a strong foothold.
Mr. Rizzuto returned to Montreal as the Violi brothers were slaughtered in succession. Strongman Francesco was shot at his office in 1977; leader Paolo was gunned down with a double-barrelled Italian shotgun at his favourite hangout in 1978. An associate named Pietro Sciarra was shot outside a theatre as he left a viewing of Godfather II.
Like any good crime saga, the Rizzuto story has its darkly comic episodes as well, from the wads of cash Mr. Rizzuto was caught on tape stuffing into his socks, to his wife turning up at a Swiss bank, posing as a humble chicken farmer trying to withdraw money from accounts holding millions.
While dozens of mob associates and opponents have died violently over the decades, less well known are the hundreds of legitimate small-business owners who have been threatened into offering up the protection money that is the staple of organized crime – and suffering a beating, or worse, if they refuse.
