The patriarch of the Rizzuto family came to Canada in 1954 from the small Sicilian town of Cattolica Eroclea.
By 1975, he was identified in a public inquiry as a lieutenant of the Cotronis, the family of Calabrian origin that controlled Montreal's Mafia.
During the power struggle for control of the Montreal Mafia in the late 1970s, he was forced into exile in Venezuela, police wiretaps show. The 1978 assassination of the leading mafioso Paolo Violi enabled him to return, signalling the rise of mobsters of Sicilian origin affiliated with the Rizzutos over their Calabrian rivals.
Mr. Rizzuto served five years in jail in Venezuela for cocaine possession in 1998. ###################################################################
Bruh, thats a newspaper article, those have been proven to be inaccurate from the past you know. The meeting from NY that youve mentioned, in which I responded to, stating that the meeting did happen, but that NY Bonannos did not rule to exile Nicolo and instead told Violi to let him remain operating in Montreal, this is all supported by those same wiretaps. The sources are mentioned in various books on the subject like The Sixth Family and Mafia Inc. And again, Nicolo was still traveling back and forth to Montreal while he stayed in Venezuela, so how was he exiled? Violi was the only one who spoke about this exile business and he couldn't get permission from NY nor anywhere else. Nicolo voluntarily left, fearing Violi would bypass everything he was told, and would kill him anyway.
