Slaying sends chilling signal
'It's really a severe blow.' But underworld always finds new
soldiers
By Aaron Derfel and James Mennie
December 29, 2009 6:54 AM
MONTREAL - The fatal shooting on Monday of Nick Rizzuto Jr.
- son of reputed Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto - comes amid
a power vacuum within the upper ranks of organized crime in
the city, experts suggest.
Rizzuto's slaying outside a construction company in Notre Dame
de Grâce that was raided last month by Montreal police
also raises questions about possible links between the industry
and organized crime.
Julian Sher, an investigative journalist who has written two
books on the Hells Angles, said it's too early to speculate
on who might be behind Rizzuto's death.
However, Sher noted Maurice (Mom) Boucher, former leader of
the Hells Angels Montreal chapter, is behind bars, while Rizzuto's
father, Vito, is incarcerated in the United States.
"Top Hells Angels are in jail, you've got a Rizzuto in
jail in the States, and now a son who gets gunned down - there's
clearly a lot of turbulence," Sher said.
"But don't worry, the underworld always finds new soldiers."
As far as organized crime expert and veteran police reporter
Michel Auger is concerned, only one fact can be gleaned from
Monday's shooting: Whoever pulled the trigger is already dead.
"I think one thing you can be sure of is that the next
murder you report on will probably be that of whoever was responsible
for today's killing," said Auger, who was also the victim
of a murder attempt as he reported on Quebec's criminal biker
gangs. "You'd have to go back to the late 1970s, to the
murder of (Mafia boss) Paolo Violi, to see someone that important
in the criminal world murdered."
Auger also noted that Rizzuto's death occurs at a time when
all of organized crime has been bruised if not battered by a
series of police investigations that have decimated the ranks
of the Mafia and criminal biker gangs in Quebec.
Rizzuto's father Vito, 63, is serving a prison term on a racketeering
charge related to three murders that occurred in the 1980s,
while Mom Boucher, the Hells Angel who oversaw much of the biker
wars in the 1990s, is serving a life sentence for ordering the
murder of two prison guards.
"I think we may be seeing an unexpected result of all
those police operations, of a weakening of organized crime,"
Auger said.
Auger notes that for the moment, street gangs are considered
by police to be the prime suspects in Monday's murder. But he
adds there are still about two dozen Hells Angels at large and
acknowledges that it's equally possible Rizzuto may have been
killed by a faction within the mafia.
In the book The Road to Hell: How the Biker Gangs are Conquering
Canada, Sher and co-author William Marsden (a Gazette journalist)
allude to a meeting between Vito Rizzuto and the Hells Angels.
"We literally place the Rizzutos at the same table in
an Italian restaurant with the Hells Angels when they're setting
the price of cocaine in the city," Sher said. "So
you're talking about a very powerful crime family that has dominated
the Montreal crime scene for years."
Much less is known about the son, but Sher notes in his book
that a police informant had overheard Nick Rizzuto talking to
a Hells Angel about 250 kilograms of cocaine going through Montreal
each week.
Pierre De Champlain, a retired intelligence analyst with the
RCMP and an expert in Italian organized crime, said Rizzuto's
death sends a chilling signal.
"My God, it's really a severe blow for Vito Rizzuto -
there's no doubt about that.
"It's clear that this is a signal that's being sent to
his father, Vito Rizzuto, who is incarcerated in the United
States. For a Mafia head to see his son getting murdered is
a bad sign."
De Champlain, who wrote Mobsters, Gangsters and Men of Honour:
Cracking The Mafia Code, suggested the Calabrese or the Sicilian
Mafias could be responsible for the slaying.
"Or it could be internal," De Champlain said. "It's
too early to say at this point."
aderfel@thegazette.canwest.com
jmennie@thegazette.canwest.com
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