Lemme preface this post by saying I am not at all an expert, and this is simply my interpretation from what I have read over the years... Bearing in mind most of what I read was years ago.


Vito was, at the very least, a made guy in the bonanno family after his involvement in the three captain's hit. I think they OFFICIALLY broke away (probably) around the time of the "George From Canada" Sciascia hit, whom was official captain of the Montreal "crew". However, it is by and large believed the sciascia, although ranked higher in NYC than both Vito and Nick Rizzuto, answered to them. But the truth is, they were only ever a true crew of the Bonanno family under Vic Controni.

Joe Massino even offered to officially induct Vito as the Capo after the Sciascia hit but he never showed up to accept it.

as far as I am aware, the "Rizzutos" considered themselves an independent family with ties to the Bonannos post Cotroni, Nick Rizzuto may have paid lip service to NYC but that ended after Sciascia was killed. As far as being a legitimate mafia, I don't think there's really anyway you can posit they are not a real family, despite their having broken away from NYC. They have historical and blood ties to the [BadWord]-Caruana clan whom operate out of the Agrigento pronvince of Sicily and have been partners in the drug trade for decades.

Their ties, as far as I can tell, have pretty much been with the Sicilians since Vito Rizzuto (whom is himself of Sicilian descent and married to a Sicilian ex-pat) took over as boss of Montreal. NYC was no longer relevant to their operation as Montreal quickly outstripped the NYC five families in terms of profitability. Not to mention their far reaching control that extends as far west as Winnipeg (possibly Edmonton and Calgary, no idea if there is any italian OC there), albeit Winnipeg is only indirectly linked to the Rizzutos, or Italian OC in general. There's certainly not a large pool of Italians from which to draw membership.

Some people have very different opinions of the Montreal status. The Arms seems to think they're a bunch of strung out idiots shaking down indian reserves or something. I really don't believe that to be the case, but who knows. Certainly Vito seemed to have far reaching ties with foreign families and seemed to be respected amongst other OC figures.