Disorganized crime
Montreal's underworld is experiencing a change the likes of which has not been seen in nearly three decades, say experts on organized crime.
By Paul Cherry, The Gazette
May 1, 2010

The two most notorious groups that have dominated the scene for years, the Hells Angels and the Montreal Mafia, appear to be in disarray and reeling from police investigations of the past four years, which have taken out the leadership of the organizations, both known for maintaining hierarchical systems dependent on the loyalty of a large group of underlings.

This has created a scenario in which new players are rising to new prominent roles, a new epoch for independent middlemen.

"Forget about the past," said one Montreal police investigator who has probed the Mafia for years. "There is no structure like there once was. It's all about networking now.

"Nobody seems to know if there is a leader in Montreal. It hasn't been like this since the early 1980s."

Pierre De Champlain, a retired RCMP analyst, said there currently appears to be no one filling the role once occupied by Vito Rizzuto, 64, currently serving a 10-year prison term in the U.S. after pleading guilty in a racketeering case involving the 1981 murders of three New York mobsters. Rizzuto was arrested in Montreal in 2004 on a request from U.S. authorities and eventually extradited. Months before he pleaded guilty in a Brooklyn courthouse, in May 2007, the organization he left behind was devastated by Project Colisée, a police investigation that appears to have drastically altered the order of things in Montreal.

Rizzuto's role as reputed leader of the Montreal Mafia gave him considerable influence that extended to other criminal organizations, which sought him out as an arbitrator or a potential partner.

"The situation really has become confused. Before, when you had a problem you had a leader to go to, someone you could discuss things with," De Champlain said.

"There is a void. There is the absence of a charismatic leader. Things appear to be unstable."

When it comes to recent events, figuring out whether a broker or middleman is on any particular side appears to be a difficult challenge.

Ducarme Joseph, the man targeted in the recent shooting inside his clothing boutique in Old Montreal that left two people dead and another two injured, is described by many police investigators as a man who has made many enemies. But it is evident that one theory investigators are working with is that the March shooting was a response to the December murder of Nick Rizzuto Jr., son of Vito. A downtown strip club was recently shut down because police feared people loyal to Ducarme would shoot it up in retaliation. The bar was frequented by a former associate of Ducarme, Richard Goodridge, 41, who, the Montreal police allege, is a silent partner in the bar along with the Montreal Mafia.

As well, a series of fires set in Italian cafés from last summer to January, mostly in northern Montreal, are believed to involve influential street-gang members who have taken sides in an internal squabble within the Montreal Mafia.

Just trying to sort out who is in charge sparks debate.

Some investigators have mentioned Agostino [BadWord], 66, as someone who allegedly has stepped up into a leadership role in the Montreal Mafia. [BadWord]'s only criminal conviction is a significant one as he was sentenced to five years in 1978 for taking part in the murder of mob boss Paolo Violi, a slaying that allowed Rizzuto to gradually take control of the Montreal Mafia.

A few police sources interviewed by The Gazette allege [BadWord] appears to be acting as a sort of street boss, a role limited to whatever remains of the Rizzuto organization in eastern Montreal. Others are doubtful and counter that such a role goes against [BadWord]'s nature. They describe him as a reluctant leader and not someone who seeks attention.

"Right now nobody seems to want to take charge of the Mafia because all the major players are in jail or in a very critical position. "But I don't think that is going to last forever," said Antonio Nicaso, Canadian author of several books on organized crime.

"Many other members in the Mafia are trying to regroup and take advantage of this period of weakness for the Rizzuto organization. It's a very complicated situation," Nicaso said.

"The police still work with this idea of priorities - go after the Hells Angels and then the Mafia. Basically you eliminate one problem but other people come along to fill that vacuum."

To some degree, that void is being filled by a small group of street-gang members, but not necessarily their gangs, who have emerged as important role players in a new order that values middlemen, brokers, or freelancers, as opposed to managing a large group of loyal underlings - a structure that can create a huge target for police armed with anti-gang legislation.

Examples of such middlemen are Ducarme Joseph, 41, a former leader of a street gang called the 67s, Fritz Gérald Michel, 37, a former rapper and associate of the Bo-Gars street gang, or Fritzner Moise Jr., 35, a man alleged by police to be acting as a go-between for the Hells Angels Nomads chapter based in Ontario and street gangs in Montreal.

Carlo Morselli, a professor at Université de Montréal's school of criminology, said the idea of a criminal succeeding in Montreal without having to join the Hells Angels or the Mafia is nothing new. Morselli wrote the recently published Inside Criminal Networks, a book based on a decade of research on how people working within or for criminal organizations interact. He said extensive research done for the book shows the most successful criminals are the brokers, people who are able to move from group to group.

Flexibility, Morselli said, is the key to success in such an environment.

"What flexibility means is that instead of having these kingpins as the main participants or the main characters in organized crime, in a flexible context you have key players but they are more in the form of brokers, people who are able to keep links between different groups, able to keep crime going as people fall, as they get arrested or knocked off. The brokers become very important. We found the importance of brokers in all the data that we studied," Morselli said.

"The argument in the book, and in pretty much all the research that I have seen, is that flexibility dominates over formal organization."

Morselli disputes the notion that the Hells Angels and the Mafia held nearly total control over drug trafficking in the city for years. He said that his research often turns up freelancers who succeed because they stay away from large organizations.

"There's a strong consensus that organized crime is not as organized as we think it is, or as it is made out to be," he said.

"It means the criminal markets are more decentralized. That means they are very competitive. That's why the (drug) prices keep staying low. I mean if we really had these central organizations controlling things, be it the Hells Angels or Italians or street gangs, prices would go up. The fact remains the prices for drugs really haven't changed in 30 years and the quality of drugs has gone up. A straightforward economic analysis tells us that the market is as competitive as ever, which means it's decentralized."

One case Morselli researched in detail was Project Abat, a Montreal police investigation that, in 2005, resulted in more than 25 arrests of drug dealers tied to a group referred to as the Pelletier Ave. Gang. The case was considered one of the first tests in Canada in terms of applying anti-gang legislation to street-gang members.

Morselli said his analysis confirmed the most successful people tied to the network were those who acted as brokers to the gang and were able to move back and forth between other organizations.

"Some people will make a name for themselves because they have the franchise with them and say, 'I'm a Bo-Gars member, I'm a member of the 67s.' You have that reputation, that clout that comes with being part of a group. But it is not everybody within the group that is going to stand out. You are going to have certain individuals within these reputed groups who are going to organize themselves in an important way. What we've found is that these brokerage roles are more important," Morselli said.

"There is a selection process taking place. We can't forget that the criminal market, or the criminal setting, is a hostile and very competitive setting. Most people just don't make it - they don't go anywhere. The ones who go beyond - they aren't making it because they are gang members. They're making it because they found their place within the market."

Montreal police Insp. Charles Mailloux, of the special investigations unit, said "a very small number" of former street-gang members have graduated to a higher level of organized crime. Beyond their personal abilities, what they also offer to other organizations is their contacts within street gangs because they tend to maintain past affiliations.

"Some of these gangs date back to the 1980s and their members were 14 or 15 years old. Some are now 40, 45 years old. Some were dealing drugs on the street but, as it is with anything, a few among them have succeeded, gained credibility among other criminal organizations and have climbed in the hierarchy. It's not everyone, that's clear, but some have risen and developed trust among other groups. It's like with businessmen, they have established trust through doing business."

Among street gangs, Mailloux said, investigators have noticed a recent trend that indicates rivalries - generally between gangs who sport either Red or Blue colours - are now fading away in favour of profit. Attachments to one's street gang does not seem to last, especially when faced with new opportunities.

"Most of the time with street gangs the phenomenon is very fleeting. They don't stay in place for a long time. More often we call them disorganized crime, as opposed to organized crime. (Street gangs) are structures that are put in place to deal in drugs. But there really aren't leaders who work among these groups. Often, there are disagreements and they break down. They are not structured along the lines of the Hells Angels where you have a chief, lieutenants (and underlings). They have meetings, committees, hold elections and keep lists of who is where in the organigram. It is not like that at all in a street gang."

"What we're seeing more of now is that the street-gang members, those who have been successful, are associating more with traditional organized crime, like the bikers or the Italians. It's because it is through them that they have succeeded and risen. We don't call them street-gang members at that point any longer. They are part of organized crime because they become a part of the structure. But the one thing is that, while they climb in the hierarchy and stick to organized crime, they have the ability to go looking for guys on the streets for manpower."

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Disorganized+crime/2974286/story.html

Why is [BadWord] a bad word? Its the guys name, innit?

Hey that sucks. [BadWord] [BadWord] [BadWord]
Agostino [BadWord]

Ha thats funny.

Nine men have been arrested in connection to five of the eighteen recent fire bombings of Italian cafe's in Montreal. Each man is a reputed gang-member or gang affiliated.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Nine...5502/story.html

There has been much talk lately on the supposedly waning strength & presence of the Rizzuto LCN Family in the underworld of Montreal, like the great article that started this thread. Vito Rizzuto's US conviction & imprisonment has seen the Family described as "rudderless", & Calabrian mobsters & free-lance criminals, already strong in their own right, seem to have taken the opportunity to flex muscle & stretch out, at least according to some articles. The street gangs of Montreal in particular have risen sharply in relevant visiblity.

Besides the shock murder of Vito's son Nick Rizzuto* & a few other deaths, by far the most overt insult had been the seemingly random fire bombing's of Italian Cafe's & businesses in Montreal. Random because rather than organised attacks against specific figures, the fire bombing's are believed to have been the work of various street level gangsters, simply targeting Italian businesses to signify their disdain & disrespect for the Rizzuto Family & the Italian O.C Groups of Montreal in general. Other theories for motives include the attacks being related to "drug-turf". Canadian authorities even worked at one point the theory that the bombings were the work of rival Calabrian mafiosi. Official motives are still unclear, as stated in the first article linked. Below are some older ones in relation to the apparent conflicts between Mafia & the Street Gangs:
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2573110
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Strip+club+shutdown+linked+Montreal+shooting/2906750/story.html
*Murdered mobsters Nick Rizzuto & Frank Del Peschio
http://www.canada.com/news/Nick+Rizzuto+gunned+down/2386095/story.html
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Murder+victim+linked+Montreal+Mafia/1917043/story.html

The guy that seems to be riding the crest of this current wave of media notoriety is one Ducarme Joseph. He is linked to several tit for tat hits & retaliations & is exemplary of the so called street gangsters rising in power as attested by many recent articles.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+gangster/2732493/story.html
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Cops+probe+Mafia+link+double+slaying/2699657/story.html

Its interesting whats going on in Montreal at the moment. Not that i think the Rizzuto Family is done for yet. But it definitely seems like a lack of Family leadership has led to the rising reputation of the individual enterprise criminal.

So what's Bad Word's real last name? lol

C-u-n-t-r-e-r-a; as in the Caruana/C-u-n-t-r-e-r-a clan.