The RCMP and FBI believe that it was at this point, following the death of Sciascia, that any tributes that were being paid from Montreal to NYC stopped. This was the point at which the Rizzutos formally, if without saying so outright, severed their ties with the Bonannos.
The FBI never made such a statement. They maintained well into the 2000s that the Rizzuto/Montreal group was a branch of the Bonanno family. Renaud states in his book about the Montreal mafia war that Montagna made trips between New York and Montreal in the years before his deportation to Canada. So contact between the groups remained. There is no evidence that the Montreal group ever officially seceded from the Bonannos. The Rizzutos may have broken off by themselves, but in order to become an independent group they need recognision from the other families, and there is no documented evidence to confirm this.
In response to your previous post, I think a case can be made that an Hollywood image has been created about the size and power of the Rizzuto organization by the authors of the Sixth Family.
At their height the Montreal Mafia was perhaps comparable to a midsized US family but never rivaled one of the Five Families, at least not in terms of numbers.
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Mafia Inc. is a great read, and the superior book to "The Sixth Family" - for a thorough understanding of the Rizzuto clan I highly recommend it.
Agreed.
"It was between the brothers Kay -- I had nothing to do with it."
