After Mob Boss Jailed for Bensonhurst Murders, Enemies Assassinate Allies
As Vito Rizzuto, leader of the Montreal Rizzuto crime family, rots in a U.S. prison for three 1981 gangland slayings at a Bensonhurst social club, his father and also the family’s godfather was killed by a sniper while in his kitchen last month.
Nicolo Rizzuto, 86, was in his mansion in a ritzy suburb outside Montreal when he was shot through a window. He was preparing dinner at the time, while his wife and daughter were in a nearby room, according to reports.
Spectators believe a power vacuum has existed in the Montreal underworld ever since Vito Rizzuto was extradited in 2006 by U.S. federal prosecutors to face charges for the Brooklyn slayings of gangsters Philip “Phil Lucky” Giaccone, Alphone “Sonny Red” Indelicato and Dominick “Big Trin” Trinchera, three Bonnano crime family capos.
At the time of his father’s murder, Vito Rizzuto was sitting in a federal prison in Colorado. Observers say his father’s murder and other recent killings are a message to the imprisoned Rizzuto that his days as a crime boss are over, and that the Rizzuto family is on its way out — towards extermination.
The three Bonnano captains were rumored to be planning a coup when they were shot to death at the Embassy Terrace social club in Bensonhurst in 1981.
Over the following decades, Vito Rizzuto rose to control the Montreal underworld of drugs and prostitution as Rizzuto crime family boss.
Indelicato’s body was discovered by playing children in an area of Brooklyn that borders Queens near the John F. Kennedy Airport in 1981. But it wasn’t until 2004 that FBI excavation crews returned to this area near Ozone Park on an informant’s tip and discovered the remains of Giaccone and Trinchera, as well.
The discovery led to Vito Rizzuto being extradited to the United States in 2006 and sentenced to 10 years in a federal prison in 2007 after conviction. An informant had named Rizzuto as one of the killers of Indelicato, Giaccone and Trinchera, who were gunned down in the social club’s basement after being lured downstairs.
Since then, the family has steadily lost allies to bloodshed and firebombings in the Montreal area. Observers have called it an “extermination” of the Rizzuto family.
Vito’s son, Nick Jr., was shot dead in December 2009. His brother-in-law Paolo Renda was kidnapped in May and is still missing.
Also recently, his friend Agostino Cuntrera was gunned down with his bodyguard in July, and another friend, Federico del Peschio, was killed outside his restaurant.
Reasons behind the violence range from rumors of an internal war within the Rizzuto family to theories that Mafia families in New York and Ontario may be trying to move in on the territory that the Rizzutos have controlled for decades.
Nicolo Rizzuto immigrated in 1954 to Canada with his wife, son and daughter from rural Sicily when he was 29. His father-in-law in Italy had also been a crime boss.
Rizzuto became part of the Cotroni organization in Montreal, which was connected to the Bonanno crime family in New York. He eventually rose to the top ranks, taking over the family with his son in the late 1970s after the murder of Paolo Violo and his two brothers, Francesco and Rocco.
Author Antonio Nicaso observed in the Toronto Sun that the amount of underworld business potentially up for grabs now could be huge.
Nicaso says that the Rizzutos are a major player in the Quebec construction industry, skimming 5 percent off all public contracts.
Besides drugs and prostitution, the Canadian province is about to begin a $42-billion infrastructure overhaul on projects ranging from hydroelectric projects to roads and bridges.
http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=4&id=39898
0 comments:
Post a Comment