Montreal godfather boards flight to Dominican Republic for vacation
Even reputed mob leaders need a vacation now and then and it appears Vito Rizzuto is doing just that as he boarded a flight at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport early Wednesday morning and appeared destined for a sunnier climate.
Sources have told The Gazette that Rizzuto, 66, appeared to be readying to board a flight to Punta Cana, a popular tourist destination in Dominican Republic at around 5:30 a.m. as he passed through the airport in Dorval. It is believed to be Rizzuto’s first time travelling outside of Canada since he was deported last year after having served a prison term in Colorado for his role in the 1981 deaths of three Mafia captains in Brooklyn, New York.
Rizzuto was not travelling alone and appeared to have been followed by two police detectives as he walked through the airport. A police source said the detectives were merely using the opportunity to strike up a conversation with the man described as the head of the Mafia in Montreal before he was extradited to the U.S. and sentenced, in May 2007, to a 10-year prison term after pleading guilty to a racketeering charge that encompassed the three murders. He has rarely been spotted in public since his return and was notably absent from the funeral last year of Joseph Di Maulo, an influential Mafioso who was killed outside his home in Blainville in November. Di Maulo once had close ties to Rizzuto and his organization but, police believe, he was also part of a group that tried to take over leadership of the Mafia in Montreal while Rizzuto was absent.
Rizzuto apparently left just before another cold front is expected to hit Montreal, bringing with it the sub-zero temperatures that send many Quebecers scurrying southward for a break. According to a police source, investigators who follow the Mafia closely are now “100 per cent certain” that Rizzuto chose to reside in Montreal when he was returned from the U.S. on Oct. 5. He was escorted by U.S. immigration agents on his flight back, which landed in Toronto, and he appeared to stay in that city for at least a couple of weeks before returning to Montreal, the city he lived in for decades.
It is very unlikely that Rizzuto would have been heading to the U.S. or Italy on his trip. Because his sentence in the U.S. is not over, he is still subject to conditions there, similar to parole, which can’t be applied in Canada. Also, while he was in the U.S., Italian authorities issued two different arrest warrants alleging Rizzuto, who was born in Sicily, was part of large-scale money laundering schemes.
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