Vito Rizzuto: Canada's Country Club Mobster
By Peter Edwards
You think The Sopranos are fiction? Meet the GTA and Montreal’s Mafia personalities and their activities and you will change your mind. In Vito Rizzuto: Canada’s Country Club Mobster, veteran crime reporter Peter Edwards guides readers through the complex inter-relationships of the crime families in Canada and their street colleagues, the biker and street gangs. From sophisticated business dealings to brutal hits and the scandals emerging from the Charbonneau inquiry, mobster influence is more wide-ranging than many of us can imagine. And cops, organized crime experts and other mobsters all agree that the kingpin had long been Vito Rizzuto until his incarceration for racketeering in the US. Recently released, everyone now waits to see what’s next in the bloody restructuring of the Canadian mafia.
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By Peter Edwards
You think The Sopranos are fiction? Meet the GTA and Montreal’s Mafia personalities and their activities and you will change your mind. In Vito Rizzuto: Canada’s Country Club Mobster, veteran crime reporter Peter Edwards guides readers through the complex inter-relationships of the crime families in Canada and their street colleagues, the biker and street gangs. From sophisticated business dealings to brutal hits and the scandals emerging from the Charbonneau inquiry, mobster influence is more wide-ranging than many of us can imagine. And cops, organized crime experts and other mobsters all agree that the kingpin had long been Vito Rizzuto until his incarceration for racketeering in the US. Recently released, everyone now waits to see what’s next in the bloody restructuring of the Canadian mafia.
When you subscribe to Star Dispatches, you'll receive new eRead titles, for only $1/week. That's only $1 per week, with a minimum subscription period of 1 month, to explore news and features from a new and unique perspective. Single copies of Star Dispatches eReads can be purchased for $2.99 at starstore.ca or itunes.ca/stardispatches
Excerpt:
Vito Rizzuto: Canada's Country Club Mobster
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Nicolo and Vito Rizzuto quietly rose in the Montreal-based crime family of Vic (The Egg) Cotroni. The Egg was born in the southern Italian province of Calabria and his crime family included both Calabrian and Sicilian members. Old-world tensions meant this was a difficult and sometimes explosive mix. The Egg was the Bonannos' branch plant manager and no one challenged his authority more than Nicolo Rizzuto and his only son, Vito.
Nicolo routinely ignored meetings called by The Egg and his Calabrian underboss, Paolo Violi. Violi suspected Nicolo was withholding a cut from his heroin trafficking network. It was also clear that Violi and Nicolo would one day be rivals for the top job in the Cotroni empire, when it came time to replace The Egg.
A hidden police recording device in Violi's ice cream shop captured Cotroni's voice as he discussed how he might handle the problem of Nicolo Rizzuto. "Me, I'm capodecina (head of the Montreal group). I got the right to expel."
On another occasion, a police bug caught Violi discussing the extremely secretive nature of his rival, Nicolo: "I told him he goes from one thing to the other, here and there, and says nothing to nobody. He does things and nobody knows nothing."
There are no human resource departments or pink slips in the Mafia, but there is plenty of buckshot. A half-dozen years after he attended Vito's wedding, Violi sought permission from the crime family's American bosses to have Nicolo Rizzuto killed. Mob protocol meant that the top level of the Bonanno family in New York had to approve Nicolo's murder. The Americans declined and Nicolo slipped away to Caracas, Venezuela, where he connected with a Corsican drug trafficking ring. He also became active in the local construction industry, ran a nightclub called Il Padrone and plotted his eventual return to Montreal.
Nicolo routinely ignored meetings called by The Egg and his Calabrian underboss, Paolo Violi. Violi suspected Nicolo was withholding a cut from his heroin trafficking network. It was also clear that Violi and Nicolo would one day be rivals for the top job in the Cotroni empire, when it came time to replace The Egg.
A hidden police recording device in Violi's ice cream shop captured Cotroni's voice as he discussed how he might handle the problem of Nicolo Rizzuto. "Me, I'm capodecina (head of the Montreal group). I got the right to expel."
On another occasion, a police bug caught Violi discussing the extremely secretive nature of his rival, Nicolo: "I told him he goes from one thing to the other, here and there, and says nothing to nobody. He does things and nobody knows nothing."
There are no human resource departments or pink slips in the Mafia, but there is plenty of buckshot. A half-dozen years after he attended Vito's wedding, Violi sought permission from the crime family's American bosses to have Nicolo Rizzuto killed. Mob protocol meant that the top level of the Bonanno family in New York had to approve Nicolo's murder. The Americans declined and Nicolo slipped away to Caracas, Venezuela, where he connected with a Corsican drug trafficking ring. He also became active in the local construction industry, ran a nightclub called Il Padrone and plotted his eventual return to Montreal.
