The killings of two close associates of a jailed mobster 11 weeks apart has confirmed Montrealers fears that the return of a reputed don has unleashed an underworld power struggle and settling of scores.
The men killed were associates of Raynald Desjardins. The returned don, fresh out of a US prison, is named Vito Rizzuto.
A former ally of the Rizzuto clan, Desjardins betrayed them in a bid for gangland control, according to mafia experts.
Desjardin’s former brother-in-law and business partner, Gaetan Gosselin, was walking home on Tuesday night north of Montreal when one or more assailants opened fire, killing him.
The ambush was reminiscent of one in November that resulted in the death of a man in his 70s, Joseph “Joe” Di Maulo, who was gunned down in the driveway of his home. “Joe” was also Raynald Desjardins’ brother-in-law.
The two murders — as well as the killings of a few minor henchmen for the mob — occurred soon after the return to Canada in October of Vito Rizzuto, after serving six years of a 10-year sentence in a US prison for his role in the 1981 murders of three members of New York’s Bonanno crime family.
As head of the Montreal mob for a quarter of a century before his arrest, he led with flare and brutality an underworld empire that included lucrative trafficking of Colombian cocaine in Canada and the United States.
During his incarceration however his Sicilian clan’s gangland grip faced deadly challenges from new rivals. The Rizzuto family in the end was decimated in its fight to hold on to power.
Rizzuto’s son Nick was gunned down on a Montreal street in broad daylight. Then his elder father Nicolo, was shot dead through a window in his home. Rizzuto’s brother-in-law and confidant Paolo Renda meanwhile went missing in May 2010; most believe he was killed but a body has never been found.
A settling of scores now appears to be inevitable.
The events of recent months “aim to re-establish a balance” that shifted with the massacre of Rizzuto clan members during the absence of their leader, explained in a measured way crime expert Antonio Nicaso.
Raynald Desjardins is presumed to be safe in a Canadian prison awaiting trial for the murder of rival Salvatore Montagna, whose bullet-riddled body was fished out of the Assomption River on November 24, 2011 northeast of Montreal.
But Andre Cedilot, co-author of a book on the Montreal mob, believes more reprisals are to come, with six or seven likely to be targeted who are “loyal to Desjardins or traitors in the eyes of Rizzuto.”
Keeping a low profile since his release from prison, Vito Rizzuto, 66, traveled last week to the Dominican Republic apparently for a vacation.
Mob experts do not believe, given recent developments, that he is planning to abandon a life of crime to retire in the sun. “He’ll be back,” said Nicaso. “He can’t wage a war from afar if he wants to retake control of Montreal.”
Should he return, however, Vito Rizzuto and his illicit dealings would face a new level of scrutiny as he has been summoned to testify at a corruption inquiry.
The commission headed by Quebec Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau is investigating alleged graft, bid-rigging and kickbacks in the awarding of government construction contracts in the Canadian province.
Witnesses have testified that construction executives colluded with crooked bureaucrats and politicians in a mafia scheme to embezzle public funds.
Federal police surveillance videotapes and wiretaps showed executives handing over stacks of cash to Rizzuto’s father and mobsters using threats to steer the bidding for public works contracts. The Rizzutos received a 2.5-percent cut of all public works contracts in the province of Quebec, the commission heard.
A former construction magnate also testified that Rizzuto himself once mediated a conflict between construction executives for a Transport Quebec contract.
“The mafia isn’t just involved in extortion and drug trafficking,” noted Nicaso. “It’s infiltrated politics and finance too.”
Montreal underworld violence erupts in bid for new order
