Cosa Nostra News

Around 13 firebombings in Greater Montreal in the past year are believed to be Mafia-related, which is more than double the number said to have occurred in 2015, according to Montreal police. The most recent arson is believed to have happened this past Monday morning targeting a strip mall in Laval's Vimont neighborhood. Police have said that the fire is "suspicious," according to published reports. CBC News recently noted that Montreal's Mafia "has become a shadow of its former self as rival clans battle each other to see which Mob boss will become the city's next godfather." An arson attack is alleged to be related to Mafia business. Caterina Miceli, who is married to Carmelo Cannistraro, saw one of her salons firebombed last week, as well as in the more recent strip mall bombing, during which four businesses were destroyed, including Streakz Coiffure, a hair salon owned by Miceli.

Leonardo Rizzuto was denied ball again, though a judge allowed it for a dying Stefano Sollecito . Alleged Montreal Mafia leader Stefano Sollecito was granted bail, the Montreal Gazette reported . Leonardo Rizzuto wasn't -- but then the son of deceased Montreal Cosa Nostra boss Vito Rizzuto isn't suffering what seems to be, in Stefano's case, terminal cancer. The reported reason for Sollecito's bail: the judge agreed "he cannot adequately be treated for the cancer he is suffering from inside a provincial detention centre."

Law enforcement investigates presumed gangland hit. A shooting this week in Terrebonne, a Montreal suburb in western Quebec, Canada, has "all the markings of an organized crime hit" and is not far from the location of the Lorenzo Giordano shooting in southwestern Quebec, north of Montreal, three weeks ago. The victim, Yannick LaRose, is "believed to have links to the Hells Angels," The Journal de Montreal and La Presse reported . (This likely means it was a move by 'Ndrangheta factions against what is left of the Rizzuto organization in Montreal.) Unlike typical gangland shootings, however, this one had a twist. The target survived the initial barrage and sought to escape the shooters inside a pool equipment storefront. The two masked gunmen, however, found him and shot him up some more.

Police used a Canadian comedian to infiltrate Vito Rizzuto's Montreal Mafia organization , the Montreal Journal reported tonight. The effort occurred in Cuba. Though the comedian, Michel Courtemanche , was allegedly unaware of the role he'd played, Fidel Castro 's Communist regime eagerly participated in the operation. In 2003, members of the New York-based Bonanno crime family phoned Rizzuto and told him that the crime family's boss, Joseph Massino , had flipped (two calls were placed; the first apparently told Rizzuto to go to a restaurant on Montreal's South Shore, where he got the news).  Rizzuto and his wife promptly hopped on a flight to Cuba. Rizzuto knew he was facing serious trouble; he'd participated in a triple homicide in Brooklyn, New York, in 1981 that Massino had direct knowledge of. As a rising star in New York's Bonanno crime family, Massino had actually orchestrated the hit on three dissident Bonanno capos. The form...

Leonardo Rizzuto Leonardo Rizzuto, son of deceased Montreal Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto, and Stefano Sollecito, who together helmed the powerful Canadian Cosa Nostra clan, will not be released on bail , a Quebec court ruled last Friday, noting that releasing them risked undermining the justice system and also jeopardized public safety. The Rizzuto organization is currently engaged in a war against elements of the Ndrangheta and former members of the Rizzuto clan who turned while Vito was imprisoned. Only last week, one of the Rizzuto family's key members was whacked  -- which certainly wouldn't have helped the Cosa Nostra co-bosses in their effort to obtain release on bail. The ruling must be particularly difficult for the 48-year-old Sollecito — Vito Rizzuto’s former lieutenant — who had to appear before the Quebec judge via video conferencing. He suffers from cancer and was making his appearance from another location, a detention center. "Sollecito is battling c...

Vito Rizzuto went down fighting. In the end cancer "allegedly" killed him. The 2013 death of Montreal Cosa Nostra boss Vito Rizzuto  at age 67 (supposedly of natural causes) didn't mark an abrupt end to the mob war between the Sicilian Mafia and a united group of factions consisting of former Rizzut o loyalists and Calabrian Ndranghe ta members based in Southern Ontario. (Unlike in the U.S., Canada has two homegrown Mafias : the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian Ndrangheta, based in Southern Italy.) However as of January 2016, things seem to have quieted down, for the moment anyway, and we now have a grasp of how the leadership void created following Rizzuto's sudden death from cancer was filled. We also know a great deal more about the dynamics behind the Montreal mob war owing to published reports and the book Business or Blood: Mafia Boss Vito Rizzuto's Last War .  (Though I am troubled by the number of factual errors I am encountering in the book....