Even though they were heads of opposing Mafia's clans, Leonardo Rizzuto and Raynald Desjardins were arrested with pistols from the same US arms trafficker. This is the amazing discovery that the police made during Operation Magot targeting the son of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto and other leaders of an alliance between the Mafia, the Hells Angels and street gangs to share the narcotics market in Montreal, Le Journal has learned .
Tension was high in the mafia at the time of this raid, three years ago.
Several of his Rizzuto members, including Leonardo Rizzuto and former boss Stefano Sollecito, had already been warned by the police that their heads were priced by rivals.
On November 19, 2015, the Regional Joint Organized Crime Squad apprehended Rizzuto at his luxurious residence in Laval, as well as conducting a search.
In a kitchen cabinet above the refrigerator, the police found two semi-automatic pistols: a .40 caliber Walther P99 and a 6.35 Browning pistol.
At least one of these prohibited weapons was loaded. The police also seized ammunition, about forty bullets. The serial numbers of the guns had been made up or removed, as is the case with most firearms circulating in the underworld, to prevent the police from finding their source.
It is a clandestine supplier from the United States where several strains of organized crime in Quebec have been illegally supplied, according to our information.
As evidence, weapons seized in 2011 at the home of Desjardins and two of his acolytes during the investigation of the murder of the aspiring sponsor Salvatore Montagna have also been linked to the same American arms dealer, according to our sources.
Hidden in a couch
Desjardins was at the head of a group that was trying to take control of the Montreal mafia at the expense of the Rizzuto clan.
His loaded pistol, whose serial number had been erased by grinding, was hidden inside the lining of a couch in his living room. Desjardins is currently serving a 14-year sentence.
Leonardo Rizzuto - a 49-year-old lawyer practicing at the same office as Loris Cavaliere, sentenced to 34 months for gangsterism and expunged by the Law Society after Operation Magot - will stand trial for possession of prohibited weapons and drugs. November 21, before a judge of the Court of Quebec.
Cocaine in a jacket
The police officers who arrested him also seized five grams of cocaine in bags hidden in the bottom of a Hugo Boss jacket pocket.
They had also found nearly $ 50,000 in his home, including $ 3,000 wrapped in a nylon stocking.
Rizzuto spent 26 months in pre-trial detention before being released from charges of gangsterism and conspiracy against him in this operation.
In February, a judge ruled that he had been illegally wiretapped by police officers who had recorded him unwittingly in his colleague Cavaliere's office.
