Cosa Nostra News

You know what today is, right? One of the only Thursdays you won't find a new Gang Land News column because J.C. takes Thanksgiving off....  Montagna beside the Assomption River after shooting.   Well,  Gang Land more than earned a Thursday off when it reported last week  that Anthony (Gaspipe) Casso⸺the former Luchese crime family underboss serving the life sentence slapped on him in 1998 for 14 of the more than 30 murders he admitted to⸺had his attorneys file a longshot motion seeking a compassionate release from prison. Casso, 78, whom we recently profiled , is seeking to use the First Step Act of 2018, which allows certain elderly and sick inmates serving life sentences to win release for "extraordinary and compelling reasons." Casso's lawyers asked Brooklyn Federal Judge Frederic Block to reduce Casso's prison term to "time served" and allow him to spend what life he has left "under home confinement." So far, Block ignored a request to...

 "I fcking love Mom Boucher."  --Outlaw MC source, to Cosa Nostra News There are many reasons why Maurice “Mom” Boucher, the former Hells Angels leader in Montreal, Canada, serving life sentences for murder, would've wanted to kill longtime member of the Montreal underworld Raynald Desjardins. Maurice “Mom” Boucher. For the nonce, we can only speculate about the “why” of it, as Boucher’s motives were not included in the RCMP’s summary of facts presented during last month’s proceeding. What is known is that Boucher and Desjardins communicated frequently with each other in 1993. Around two years later, Boucher, a charismatic, extremely violent leader of the HA's Quebec Nomads chapter, made millions via a drug-trafficking (primarily cocaine) alliance forged with Vito Rizzuto, Montreal’s legendary Cosa Nostra boss.  Vito Rizzuto, Montreal Cosa Nostra boss. Boucher essentially murdered, retired, or scared away every “independent” drug dealer in the ...

One of the two alleged leaders of the Montreal Cosa Nostra entity was released from jail on Monday, February 19, after charges against them were dropped. Vito Rizzuto's son, Leonardo Leonardo Rizzuto, 48, and Stefano Sollecito were acquitted of gangsterism and conspiracy to traffic cocaine when Quebec Superior Court Justice Eric Downs ruled that they'd been illegally wiretapped in a conference room at their lawyer’s office. So basically, the main evidence against the pair, a single conversation recorded in that conference room, was tossed, and prosecutors said they had no other evidence to prove the charges of gangsterism and conspiracy to traffic cocaine. Leonardo, son of Mafia boss Vito Rizzuto (who died in 2013), had been detained since the arrests, while Sollecito--whose father, Rizzuto-loyalist Rocco Sollecito, was murdered in 2016--was granted bail in 2016 to undergo cancer treatment. Leonardo still faces charges of possession of a firearm and drugs, a...

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."

Undated photo of Desjardins. The RCMP launched a 16-month surveillance operation against Raynald Desjardins and seven associates one day after the murder of Salvatore Montagna, the former Bonanno crime family street boss. "The Iron Worker" had been shot three times, allegedly by elderly gangster Jack Simpson with whom Montagna was meeting, and died on a snowswept river bank outside Montreal. At the time of the murder, Desjardins was warmly ensconced in his alibi, eating breakfast with his daughter.

SEE  PART ONE In the fall of 2011 at around 3:30 p.m. a black BMW X5 pulled into the Tim Hortons' parking lot on Montreal's Lafontaine Boulevard. A black-and-grey Ford Flex was seen nosing its way into the parking lot a short time later. The SA Sûreté du Québec -- the Quebec Provincial Police -- had put a surveillance team there specifically to watch whoever participated in the meeting, called following an attempt on Raynald Desjadins' life. Montagna dared to make a huge power play. The tempers of many violent members of a once-solid Mafia faction were inflamed after an alliance was torn asunder; the result weakened a syndicate formed solely to mount a hostile takeover of the Montreal Mafia from loyalists of Vito Rizzuto , who was absent from the milieu to serve a prison sentence for his role in a brutal triple homicide that set the course for New York's Bonanno crime family.

Rizzuto loyalist Marco Pizzi, 46, of Montreal North, was ar rested in the latest coordinated Montreal takedown. Last November, Montreal law enforcement busted up an alleged " unholy" alliance comprised of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Hells Angels and a number of street gangs. They followed that up with another raid, snagging 15 people following a probe into drug-smuggling. The focus was on a key member of the Montreal Mafia, Liborio "Pancho" Cuntrera of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan, in which most members are linked by blood. The Italian press dubbed them the "The Rothschilds of the Mafia." (The Rothschild family business of financiers is considered the wealthiest in modern world history.) The Cuntrera-Caruana clan were a major component of the Cosa Nostra's 1980s-1990s drug trafficking operations, playing a major role in laundering illicit cash proceeds.

Simpsons was heading to his house in Charlemagne, an off-island suburb of Montreal, Quebec, where a deadly rendezvous had been planned.

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....

Vito Rizzuto's son Leonardo and Stefano Sollecito were identified as the two heads of the Montreal Cosa Nostra. The murder plot of Vito Rizzuto's chief enemy, Raynald Desjardins, set in motion today's series of predawn raids in Quebec, with police sweeping up 48, including members of the Montreal Mafia and the Hells Angels. Arrested were Rizzuto's son, an attorney reportedly not involved in organized crime (Leonardo Rizzuto, 46, took over after his father's death, police today claimed), and the daughter of Maurice "Mom" Boucher, a legendary former president of the Hells Angels' Montreal chapter. Boucher himself was arrested  in his jail cell where he's serving multiple life sentences for killing two prison guards.

Joseph Mignacca fired a Glock at a man with an AK47 in an attempt to murder Raynald Desjardins, now in prison awaiting trial. The man who saved the life of Vito Rizzuto's mortal enemy was sentenced to seven years in prison for exchanging gunfire with at least one man firing an AK47 (presumably a Mafia shooter sent to kill Raynald Desjardins, then a major figure in the Montreal underworld). Quebec Court Judge Gilles Garneau added two years to the prosecution's recommended sentence. Jonathan Mignacca, 30, a St-Léonard resident, was found guilty in January for discharging a firearm while with Desjardins, who reportedly split with the Rizzuto organization after serving a lengthy prison sentence. Allegedly Desjardins (whose nicknames include "Old" and "China," both rather baffling) buffered Rizzuto from becoming ensnared in the drug trafficking case.

Vito Rizzuto drove around the streets of Montreal  in an armored car  and brazenly sent his assassins across the world to kill those who defied him. The Godfather of Montreal, Vito Rizzuto, died one year ago of complications from lung cancer. In this group count traitors and Calabrian mobsters from Toronto. Vito's bloody street war to annihilate any and all rivals and defectors didn't end with his death in December 2013. So said a law enforcement source quoted in the Toronto Sun , which further noted that Rizzuto's death last December at age 67 failed to "stem the vendetta." The Rizzuto crime family still has some “Calabrian Mob opportunists and Sicilian traitors” that it needs to deal with, the source said. Although Rizzuto was challenged, he retained his power. “The ground was never lost,” the source said. On Dec. 1, after months of relative peace within Montreal’s Mafia circles, one of its Calabrian members was fatally shot in a restaur...

In May 2013, the charred, bullet-riddled remains of two gangsters from Canada were found in Sicily. Italian police feared a trans-Atlantic Mafia war  was brewing. Actually, the battle was already raging. Vito Rizzuto, the Montreal Godfather who died last December, had taken care of business. Yet again. So far, the death count is pegged at  more than 40, with law enforcement having recovered bodies in Montreal, Toronto, Mexico and Italy . The gangster once known as "Joe Bravo." Wiretap recordings played at the trial of the suspected murderers explain something we've been puzzling over since May 2013: namely, did  Rizzuto induct non-Italians into the Montreal Mafia ?

 Asaro was the Zip faction's  favorite candidate for the role of official boss of the Bonanno crime family. REVISED:   We found some interesting information about Vinny Asaro that explains something we've been puzzling over for some time: how did Asaro, who'd been busted from capo to soldier, then shelved, abruptly get reinstated and promoted to a spot on the panel overseeing the Bonanno family? At first we'd also been curious whether the FBI had known of this prior to its investigation of Asaro, which primarily centered on 30-year-old charges, including the much vaunted Lufthansa Heist celebrated in the film Goodfellas, but also the 1960s murder of a man who Asaro and Jimmy the Gent Burke had deemed an informant, incorrectly, as is usually the case in Mafia murders. We wonder how often the mob disposed of someone over some reason and used the "rat" excuse as justification... Asaro's cousin however began wearing the wire in 2009, so Asaro'...

Blackberry is among the communication devices of choice for criminals. They also like Skype. Back in January of 2012, when the battle was raging for control of the Rizzuto organization, Quebec police cracked one gangland slaying by accessing information on BlackBerry Messengers belonging to those suspected of orchestrating and committing the hit on Salvatore "Sal the Iron Worker" Montagna . The former acting boss of the Bonanno family in New York had been deported to Canada from the United States in 2009 was residing on the South Shore of Montreal. As noted  on this blog, BlackBerry Messenger are believed to be favored by organized-crime figures due to the device's purportedly unbeatable encryption capability. Businessmen and politicians also are known to prefer the device for this same reason: secure communications.Message encryption and email privacy for users have long been key selling features for the BlackBerry service. Just recently, the media was re...

Price Of Failure: Sal "The Ironworker" Montagna is pulled from the water. He was killed after his alleged attempt to have Raynald Desjardins taken out failed a month earlier. Canadian law enforcement has foiled plans for an escape plot meant to free organized crime big-shot Raynald Desjardins, according to a story that ran last Saturday in Montreal's French-language La Presse newspaper. The void at the top created by the sudden death of Vito Rizzuto is making mobsters antsy up north, as expected. As per the foiled caper, Desjardins would have been freed after his cohorts rammed his prison transport and unleashed a violent barrage of gunfire while the arrested gangster was traveling from prison in Bordeaux to the courthouse in Joliette. Desjardins was arrested in December 2011 for his alleged involvement in the slaying of former Bonanno acting-boss Salvatore Montagna, who'd been appointed by Vinny Gorgeous Basciano after he was arrested based on the t...

Rizzuto was strong enough to be a peacemaker; his successor has savvy shoes to fill. Montreal Mob boss Vito Rizzuto's death 'will trigger a lot of upheaval' - The Globe and Mail : Canada's most powerful Mafia boss, Vito Rizzuto, has died in a hospital, raising the spectre of further turf violence for control of the Montreal underworld. Mr. Rizzuto died at Sacré-Cœur Hospital at 4 a.m. Monday, one of his former lawyers, Jean Salois, confirmed in an interview. Mr. Salois said the 67-year-old Mr. Rizzuto died of natural causes. Radio-Canada, which first reported the death, said Mr. Rizzuto died of lung problems." A spokeswoman for Quebec's coroner said her office had examined Mr. Rizzuto's death. "It is a death by natural causes, beyond any doubts. Therefore there will be no coroner’s investigation,” Geneviève Guilbault said. “It’s news no one was expecting,” said former RCMP organized-crime analyst Pierre De Champlain. He noted that M...

Cosa Nostra News names Vito Rizzuto as Mobster of the Year, 2013. (We did this not knowing he would die about a week shy of the year's end, but considering what he achieved in the world he chose to live in--reclaiming what was his and having his enemies chased down and killed--the man certainly fit the bill. Buona fortuna, Vito...) Vito Rizzuto , continuing his ongoing vendetta against all his enemies, apparently sent a message as far away as Mexico last month, ending the life of Moreno Gallo while he was attempting to enjoy his retirement/exile from his homeland in a sun-baked beachside resort. This is one of the most recent hits allegedly ordered by Rizzuto -- but authorities are certain it is not the last. Rizzuto is back on top -- his opposition apparently wiped out. However, he is still hunting down those who turned on him, whomever they are and however far they attempt to flee. Experts say Vito is showing his Sicilian side now and likely will wait for year...

Up in Montreal, two gangland hits less than three weeks apart offered confirmation for a jailed mobster that a certain Cosa Nostra boss had returned home and had commenced settling scores. The men killed were mobster Raynald Desjardins' associates; the returned Mafia boss was Vito Rizzuto. Desjardins betrayed Rizzuto in a bid for gangland supremacy, but also partly due to envy over Rizzuto's ability to avoid getting arrested by law enforcement. Desjardins' former brother-in-law and business partner, Gaetan Gosselin, was walking home last Tuesday night north of Montreal when one or more assailants opened fire, killing him. The ambush was reminiscent of the earlier Guiseppe Di Maulo hit; he also was a Desjardins brother-in-law -- and he'd been shot to death in his own driveway. Guiseppe "Joe" DiMaulo, not Joseph The Gosselin and Di Maulo murders (plus a few other slayings, including the Sal The Ironworker Montagna hit among other minor associates) h...

Vito Rizzuto, right, seems to be tying up some lose ends. First, consider the mysterious death of a man in Florida who is believed to have been part of a small group of Montreal Mafiosi -- all of whom were "cursed," it would seem -- that early last year tried to negotiate who would fill a leadership void  caused by the murders of high-level mobsters related to Vito Rizzuto, who was still finishing his sentence in a U.S. prison. Then just this weekend, there occurred the slaying of a low-level associate who once kidnapped a soldier in Rizzuto's family. In October, Domenico Arcuri Sr., a man with past ties to the Rizzuto organization, died in an accident on a construction site in south Florida, about which the medical examiner noted “the context is worrisome,” the MontrealGazette.com reported.