Mafia don’s demise out of the ordinary

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This article was published 12/11/2010 (5474 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MONTREAL — A single bullet hole through the window. White chairs arranged along the solarium with a serene view onto the backyard bushes. And a statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms outstretched.

This is where Nicolo Rizzuto met his end on Wednesday. Evidence at the crime scene supports the theory, cited in news reports, that a gunshot through the window brought down a Mafia don who once lorded over the underworld with powerful international ties.

The decision to kill him in his own home, with his wife and daughter nearby, was interpreted as an intentional deviation from the Italian Mafia’s standard modus operandi for murder.

“It’s out of the ordinary,” said Pierre de Champlain, a retired RCMP organized-crime analyst and author.

“In the Sicilian Mafia, when we want to kill a leader, usually it’s done in public and face-to-face. It’s never done in the house and even less often with family members present.

“It denotes to me that Nicolo Rizzuto had really become a disgrace in the eyes of the Montreal Mafia.”

Getting onto Rizzuto’s property would have been easy. There is no backyard fence.

But with security cameras protruding from every corner of the home, there would have been only one way for a gunman to make his way onto the property unnoticed: By hiding in the bushes, 15 metres from the window.

Police were combing the area Thursday, one day after Rizzuto was felled in his cozy living room by an assassin’s bullet.

By mid-afternoon, however, the police tape was gone and life appeared again to be normal — at least from the outside — on the street dubbed “Mafia Row.” The only outward sign of turmoil was the dozens of visitors filing in to pay their respects at a neighbouring home, one of several houses on the street belonging to the Rizzuto clan.

The 86-year-old don spent his final moments in the comfy back room, with the half-dozen windows looking onto the yard.

On Thursday, there were still three chairs resting against the windows, an espresso-maker on the nearby counter, and a religious statue sitting on the table to the left.

There was also a bullet hole about a metre off the ground, between two of the chairs.

“They could have killed him in any other place,” said Antonio Nicaso, a Toronto-based journalist and author specializing in the Mafia.

“The fact that they killed him at home is really an insult. Killing him in front of his wife and daughter was a punishment they could have avoided.”

He cites three lessons from the murder.

First, some group wants “to burn all the ground around (Nicolo’s son) Vito,” so that there’s nothing left when the current boss gets out of a U.S. prison in 2012.

Second, the killing of an 86-year-old great-grandfather proves “retirement is not an option in the Mafia,” Nicaso said.

And, finally, he said it suggests there is no statute of limitations on revenge. Over several decades, the Rizzutos made powerful enemies — along with allies — in many places.

The killing certainly generated attention beyond Canada’s borders.

Italy’s major newspaper websites all carried reports about it, with some media and blogs interpreting the impact it might have on the underworld.

“With the death of its historical patriarch the clan from Sicily has suffered a blow that could prove fatal,” said one news report from Italy’s Ansa agency.

“After 30 years of dominance, the power of the Rizzutos on Montreal’s organized-crime scene has been called into question over the past year.”

One of those same newspaper websites, the Corriere della Sera, also carried a report on 40,000 people attending a recent anti-Mafia march in Calabria and denouncing the pervasive criminal presence in the country.

The resentment of many Italians toward the Mafia was summed up in the first reader comment on the Rizzuto story on the website for Il Giornale: “Uno di meno (One less).”

— The Canadian Press

Mob developments

Recent events related to Montreal’s organized crime scene:

Nov. 10 — Nicolo Rizzuto, 86, patriarch of what was once Montreal’s most powerful crime family, is shot dead in his home.

Nov. 7 — Two men and a woman are arrested, the first break in a rash of firebombings at pizzerias and cafes in the city’s north and east ends.

Oct. 29 — Salvatore Vitale, 63, former Bonanno family crime underboss and a key witness in extradition hearings of jailed Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto on racketeering charges, is sentenced to time served in 11 murders, is expected to enter a witness protection program.

Oct. 27 — Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois repeats her calls for an independent public inquiry into the Quebec construction industry, citing allegations at a money-laundering trial in Italy that organized crime controls construction contracts in Montreal.

Oct. 8 — Antonio (the Florist) Mucci, considered a key contender to succeed Vito Rizzuto, is granted bail on weapons charges.

Sept. 29 — Ennio Bruni, 36, an associate of the Rizzuto family, is slain outside the Cafe Bellerose in Laval, Que. Bruni had survived a previous attempt on his life in November 2009.

June 29 — Agostino Cuntrera, 66, considered a possible successor to Vito Rizzuto, is shot dead, along with Liborio Sciascia, 40, a convicted marijuana smuggler described as his bodyguard. Cuntrera was alleged to have aided in the 1978 slaying of Paolo Violi, reputed to be the don of the Calabrian faction led by Vic Cotroni. Cuntrera was thought to have assumed the reins of the Montreal clan after Vito Rizzuto’s arrest a decade earlier, controlling a group of drug traffickers.

May 20 — Paolo Renda, the Rizzuto family’s consigliere, and son-in-law of Nicolo Rizzuto, disappears. His luxury car Infinity is found close to his home, with the keys in the ignition.

Dec. 28, 2009 — Nick Rizzuto Jr., 42, eldest son of Vito Rizzuto, is killed in broad daylight outside a construction company. He never faced charges related to organized crime.

— From the news services