Bloodshed In Montreal: Rizzuto Family Feud?

Bloodshed In Montreal: Rizzuto Family Feud?

  July 08, 2010    Dapper_Don

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Police in Montreal, QC Canada are theorizing that all the recent attacks against senior reputed Rizzuto crime family members may be the result of an internal conflict rather than a Mafia war as reported by Paul Cherry for The Gazette:

In an article penned by Pierre de Champlain in yesterday's Journal de Montreal, the retired RCMP analyst listed the theory, among four, that "certain members of the Montreal Mafia have decided to do some interior cleaning of their own house." * * * Montreal police Deputy Chief Jacques Robinette said all theories are being looked at. But Robinette also emphasized there are no signs that two different groups are at war. * * * "Please come to us (to help) us try to understand what is happening on the street. Because I read (in the media) that it's war. But a war between who? The Sicilians vs. the Calabrians? So far it's only the Sicilians who have been taken down," he said. The leaders of the Rizzuto organization are of Sicilian origin. "For now, there is no war. To my knowledge you need two (sides) to have a war. We still don't understand what is really going on," Robinette said. * * *  Organized crime expert and veteran crime reporter Michel Auger said it is still early to jump to conclusions. "But I think it is a conflict between generations - young people who want to get rid of the old. It could be internal, a difference of opinion."

In any event, it's been a brutal few months for the Rizzuto clan:  last week family leader Agostino Cuntrera and his driver and body guard Liborio Sciascia were shot to death; last month reputed consigliere Paola Renda apparently was kidnapped off the streets; last December Nick Rizzuto Jr., the son of imprisoned reputed boss Vito Rizzuto, was gunned down; and last August convicted drug trafficker Frederico Del Peschio, a close associate of the family, was murdered. 

Meanwhile, police in Montreal are saying that a series of eighteen fire bomb attacks primarily against Italian cafes in the north end since last September is not part of a Mafia war but the result of "street gangs demanding a share of drug profits" as reported by CBC News:

"They wanted a cut on every [dollar] of drug sales," said Deputy Chief Jacques Robinette. Robinette said arrests have been made in five of the attacks, but 13 cases remain unsolved. He stressed that the attacks were against the specific cafés and not against the broader Mafia, as gang members tried to apply pressure on businesses where they presumed drugs might be sold. None of the incidents resulted in damage or injuries. In the initial aftermath of the attacks, police admitted they were stumped by the cases. The shop owners weren't talking much.