Key Rizzuto Loyalist Slain This Week

Lorenzo Giordano, 52, was gunned down in a Laval parking lot Tuesday morning and died in the hospital from his injuries, a Montreal Gazette source confirmed.
Lorenzo Giordano was gunned down this past Tuesday.

A member of the Montreal Mafia formerly headed by deceased mob boss Vito Rizzuto was murdered this week -- indicating the Rizzuto clan may be on the defensive following the loss of its historic boss and more recently, a takedown that targeted the group's new hierarchy.

Lorenzo Giordano, 52, was gunned down in a Laval parking lot Tuesday morning and died in the hospital from his injuries, a Montreal Gazette source confirmed.

The Sûreté du Québec, which wouldn't confirm the victim's name, said he'd been shot "at least once" in Carrefour Multisports's parking lot early Tuesday morning. Due to the alleged ties to organized crime, the Sûreté du Québec took over the case from the Laval police department, the Gazette reported.

He's part of the Monreal Mafia group's younger generation of leaders, which according to reports served as Rizzuto's key shooters. Giordano was reportedly involved chiefly in bookmaking.

The Rizzuto family, whose bosses were taken down as part of a major investigation, now seemingly needs available mobsters of Giordano's ilk. This may have been a strategic move by elements of a rival Ndrangheta faction and any Rizzuto clan dissidents who survived Vito's blood purge before dying of cancer.

"Giordano was one of six men who acted as leaders in the Montreal Mafia while it was the subject of Project Colisée, a lengthy RCMP-led investigation that left the Mafia’s ranks badly depleted," the Gazette noted.

He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2009 — one of the harshest sentences of the six men. Giordano still had 10 years to serve but was released under conditions to a halfway house last December.


Rizzuto Family Boss's Brother Recently nabbed in the U.S.
Girolamo Del Balso -- the younger brother of Francesco, 45, a Mafia leader who was one of six who took control  after Vito was jailed in the U.S. and the group's hierarchy nearly destroyed by Project Colisée -- was arrested late last month in Arizona after a drug-trafficking police dog sniffed out 62 kilograms of cocaine in Girolamo's vehicle, published reports noted.

Comments