Rizzuto family death possible Montreal Mafia revengeAs the mafia war in Montreal continues to play out and attacks on the Rizzuto crime family continue new information and theories emerge. The latest attack against the Rizzuto’s was the fire bombing of the Loreto Funeral Home owned by the family last week. As the Rizzuto family continues to lose its top members and leadership the war to wrestle away control of the Montreal underworld continues. Now some sources with information on the gang land war think some hit’s on the Rizzuto family could be cold hard revenge from years past.
Paolo Violi was a member of the Montreal based Calabrian mafia faction when he was shot dead on Jan. 22, 1978. It was this mob hit that first paved the way for the Rizzuto crime family to move in and take control. Paolo was one of four brothers who held control over the Montreal and Quebec underworld his brother Rocco Violi was the last of the brothers alive when he was shot and killed by a snipers bullet in 1980 as he sat reading a paper at his home in Montreal. Once the Violi brothers were all dead then Sicilian based Rizzuto family would take control over the hold it over the next 30 years.
Now sources have confirmed that sons of deceased mobster Paolo Violi were spotted in the city just a week before the hit on the Rizzuto family patriarch Nicolo Rizzuto was carried out. Dominic and Giuseppe Violi were seen in Little Italy and in downtown districts of Montreal. The way the hit on Nicolo Rizzuto was carried out paralled the hit on on Rocco Violi from so many years ago and this time it may have signaled the end of the reign for the Sicilian family. When Paolo Violi was killed his wife and sons fled to Hamilton an area which is controlled by the Calabrian mafia or ‘Ndrangheta for protection. Sources now say the killing of the elder Nicolo Rizzuto may have been ordered from that same steel capital of Hamilton.
Mobsters often have long memories when their family or friends are killed says mafia book author Antonio Nicaso. The Rizzuto family became much easier targets as there power over the underworld in Canada started to slip away says Nicaso and it’s not like you can take revenge if the organization your fighting is stronger but when your target hits difficult times they become much more vulnerable. While there has been no clear new leader to emerge in Montreal or the Rizzuto’s completely fallin many feel when the shake up ends it will be the Hamilton faction of the Calabrian mafia to name the new successor.
It is also thought that the ‘Ndrangheta will begin to recruit new members from Montreal and Quebec which may include veteran mobsters like Moreno Gallo and Lorenzo Giordano. They may also court some of the Rizzuto families own members to help and consolidate the power hold in the province. Having turncoats flip from one family to another when a power change takes place is not new says John Galianos a former police investigator. It’s money that brings people into the underworld so people who most thought never would have been known to change camps. Many also think that the new mafia leaders possibly moving in will be forced to share control of the area with other organized crime groups like the Asian’s , Middle Eastern mobs , and biker gangs. Galianos says that if they do not share control it would mean all out war and for any of them to make money there has to be peace with so many organized crime groups now on the ground in the area.
With the Rizzuto family being Sicilian and the Violi family being Calabrian it is easy to link the attacks on the Rizzuto’s to the Ontario based Calabrians but some find it unlikely for them to be directly behind things. Nicaso says he believes it is a lot more likely that the attacks on the Rizzuto’s are coming from the Calabrian faction within the Rizzuto family and Hamilton instead of the Calabrian mafia itself but its hard to say for sure. The last top ranking member and boss of the Rizzuto family Vito Rizzuto still sits in jail in the U.S. while his family gets ripped apart but still shows no intention on abdicating his thrown so there may yet be a Rizzuto backlash when he is released next year.
http://themafiatoday.com/rizzuto-family-death-possible-montreal-mafia-revenge
