OH GREAT, ANOTHER FUCKING MONTREAL MOB WAR

Here we go again, another mob war in Montreal. Back in ’94, during Les Guerre des Motards, the city was a fucking disaster. Children were regularly bombed by reckless bikers who couldn’t kill a squirrel without blowing up a park, and general anarchy seemed to be the rule of the city. Now, as sure as we have Boston steak-faces coming to fist pump the weekend away in our French-Canadian hooker parade of a city, it looks like that shit is coming back in a bad way.
This time around the whole thing is less smack-fueled rage and more a sophisticated homage to the type of Shakespearean blood feud that only Italians are romantic enough to recreate. And do they ever have a taste for the dramatic! In the last six months there have been twenty-plus fire bombings of Italian establishments and more mob executions than the Gazette can keep up with. But the whole thing is strikingly surgical, soldiered by relatively sober Mafiosi enforcers who enjoy a little cocaine and figa while they secretly scrap out an age-old family war. In 1978, Nick Rizzuto, the recently slain Sicilian Capo di tutti Capi of Canada, audaciously assassinated his Calabrese archrival, Paolo Violi, via sniper fire. Fast forward to the morning of November 10th 2010. Rizzuto, sitting cozy with an espresso and biscotti in hand, was put to sleep by a single bullet to the head from a lone gunman waiting in the woods behind his house. The parallel has not gone unnoticed, and falls in line with similar mob-style hits that typically invoke all manner of total vengeance.

So after that Casino-style shit, it was pretty apparent a righteous plot was shaping up in the tranquil streets of Montreal.

Both mob experts and Police officials admit an underworld war aimed at the Sicilian Cosa Nostra is brewing in Montreal. By all indications, the anonymous fighters are a highly organized network of assassins controlled by one strategic mastermind bent on the total extermination of the powerful Rizzuto family. And by the looks of things, this shit is going south quick for the Sicilians. Paolo Renda, their consigliere, was kidnapped in the summer of 2009 and hasn’t been seen since, Nick Rizzuto Jr. was capped by a Haitian gunman, former boss Agostino Cuntrera was executed along with his bodyguard in broad daylight outside of his personal negozio, and their chief drug trafficker, Frederico Del Peschio, was shot in the parking lot of an Italian eatery.

Some ‘boomer media types have described this string of murders as simple Italian score-settling, perpetrated by impulsive Mafiosi playing on bigoted stereotypes of Italian hot-bloodedness. If you refer to the experts, however, this shit has been an extremely calculated designed at the unilateral usurpation of the Rizzuto clan. “It is the same mastermind behind the murders,” said Antonio Nicasso, a hardened mafia expert who fled Sicily after an attempted mob hit by car bomb. “The challenge on the Rizzutos was not a random act, but was a very planned and strategic challenge. Whoever did it identified the targets and they had a clear idea of how to kill them.”

For the last 40-odd years, after liquidating the Violi threat, the Rizzutos, along with the Cuntreras, have controlled Montreal like the goddamn Sun King, dictating the terms of the criminal landscape through their charismatic leader, Vito Rizzuto, who besides being a ruthless prick, reigned as absolutist Monarch, frequently waving his dick at the cops and the traditional mafia powers that be. In the 50s Lucky Luciano identified Montreal as

the greatest drug port in North America, which is probably still true today. Easily accessed by the St. Lawrence River corridor from the Atlantic Ocean, it’s also in close proximity to the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve that shares a border with the US. By heavily arming Native gangs and paying them to ferry drugs to Maine and Vermont, the mafia has managed to expertly reduce the risk of detection from law enforcement agencies. It was a system that made the Bonano New York family famously wealthy—first from heroin importation, and later from cocaine, until Vito cut them off in the 90’s with a pretty strong “succhiare il mio cazzo.” Defying the age old control of Montreal by New York outfits, he asserted control of his own business in Montreal fashioning a drug and construction empire run out of the Montreal borough of St. Leonard.

Their traditional rivals, the Calabrese ’Ndrangheta clans of Toronto who once wielded the power of Montreal’s construction companies and key North American drug port, have since been creeping back into contention, signaling a potential war between both factions. And if it is the reinforced Calabrese ’Ndrangheta, the Rizzutos are totally fucked and should pack their shit and run for the hills.
Nicasso was adamant in stating that the ’Ndrangheta are the most feared criminal syndicate in the entire world and the only nefarious group with true global status, having a significant criminal presence in every single continent. “If it is the ’Ndrangheta of Ontario, they’re trying to replace the Sicilians and gain control of the drug pipeline to New York so they have an interest, but not only the ’Ndrangheta of Toronto, but the ’Ndrangheta of Calabria.” These motherfuckers are an ice-cold familial network of ferocious murderers, nearly impossible to infiltrate because of blood requirements to enter into the clan, and have a highly centralized authority. Not only do they all take directives from the same place in Italy’s Calabria region, which easily coordinates operations everywhere, nobody will rat; if you do, you’re a family traitor, abandoning your brother, cousin, or father. Besides being the biggest cocaine distributor in Europe, they pretty well run a consistent train on the asshole of the Italian government, assassinating politicians openly without fear of retribution.
Yet many believe that in order to cleave the once invincible Rizzuto organization from Montreal’s underworld map, the challenge needs to be from multiple players not just ’Ndrangheta, maybe even a hydra of organizations banding together against a fairly formidable group woven into the social and cultural fabric of the province. All politics in Quebec of late have been mired in allegations of extreme mafia infiltration Montreal’s city hall is allegedly so corrupt it’s considered a mafia asset. The Rizzuto family is currently wielding a power structure so vast and pervasive that historically only Capone could compare on a North American level.

And if you’re a mobster anywhere in the world, this is the stuff of wet dreams and legendary boners.

The Sûreté du Québec, was originally sheepish to admit that Rizzuto’s death was a harbinger of a mob war, but if you’re from St. Leonard, Citta Italia to locals, the mafia is everywhere and the rivalry is well known between the Calabrese and the Sicilian factions. They’re your neighbours, local business owners, financiers, parents on your daughter’s soccer team, the latest corpse in a street shooting, or conversely the grandson who crashed his brand new, stolen Ferrari into your Impala and you’re told to sit tight and shut the fuck up. Nothing goes unseen or unadulterated by the Mafiosi, who double as community leaders, allegedly counting former federal MP and cabinet minister Alfonso Gagliano among their made men. Even opening up a bar or a restaurant in the area means two Sopranos rejects will probably approach you for protection payments. Fail to pay and your building commits suicide by gas fire in the middle of the night. In the greater Montreal region, they’ve infamously infiltrated municipal construction contracts, which basically accounts for the

wartime Sarajevo look to city streets.

What’s most perplexing to mob experts and may be the dead giveaway in revealing this phantom group of aggressors, is the lack of response from the Rizzuto clan. Mob wars are all about retaliation, retribution, senseless violence, shootouts, car bombs; you know the good stuff we all live vicariously through in newspaper articles. Instead we’re served with the unsettling news that the Rizzutos have stood silent and by all appearances are paralyzed with fear lending credence to the possibility that they’re faced with the ghastly visage of a deadly tag team. Think Beelzebub and Bam Bam Bigelow. Nicasso, although uncertain agrees, “I tend to believe that this is a strategy that is put together by old enemies and new rivals, most likely the ’Ndrangheta and others.” That second member together with the ’Ndrangheta would need to present the only two headed monster scary enough to send the normally cavalier Rizzuto clan into hiding. It would require something unseen; not just Hell’s Angels with shotguns and malarial beards or unorganized Haitian street gangs from the north end.

What nobody will tell you is far more sinister and even if it’s just a whisper, the rumour exists among mafia sources we’ve spoken with recently. And it’s a severely fucked up revelation. The Camorra, the infamous global street gang from Napoli, responsible for environmental garbage disasters and the anarchic overlords of Italian cities and beyond, have entered into the fray on the side of the ’Ndrangheta. If the Calabrese are the old rival, the Camorra very well could be the new. It would be the breaking of uncharted territory for the Napolitano outfit, and a logical decision as Montreal has the identical port access of Napoli along with the same frail municipal government that already has mafia ticks sucking it dry.

So who the fuck are they anyway?
The Camorra are a seamlessly intricate network of criminal entrepreneurs, the opposite of a centralized ‘Ndrangheta, but effective all the same. Operating in a free market system they’re structured horizontally rather than vertically, making it incredibly difficult to destroy them. When one is exposed and extinguished, ten more clans germinate. Tracking their activities is equally troublesome as they consider any economic sphere viable, especially legal ones. They are the perfect corporate-criminal synthesis, combining boardroom level intellect with a knack for a fearsome street presence.
Did we mention they don’t give a fuck about anyone? Fuck honour codes and romantics, they burn toxic trash, shoot kids, give people cancer, and accuse pundits and journalists as pedophiles—and that’s before they kill them. They don’t just hurt everything they touch, they fucking ruin them.
We ran our source’s hypothesis by Nicasso who admitted he had no street evidence to refute the rumour but added: “I have not heard anything about the Camorra moving in. Camorra cells have always had investments in Canada, little things here and there but never a strong presence on one single territory.” But he wasn’t completely dismissive and regarded this as a possibility stating: “You have to understand that if someone wants to muscle in this is the best moment.”
In a North American mafia climate wherein the New York Five families have about as much street cred as Lance Bass, Montreal’s fading first family of crime represents the last bastion of the old order of bad asses still active today. This new challenge to their authority will change the landscape of Quebec crime forever, not to mention allow their traditional lapdogs, the Hell’s Angels, to maybe grow some balls and surpass their Roman overlords. But that’s pretty unlikely especially if the Camorristi will be running the streets. Not even the Irish mob, which is still active in the city, can put together anything near tangible enough to face up to the potential coming challenge, although they are known within mafia circles as expert hit-men and enforcers.
With all their faults the Rizzuto clan has managed to keep a lid on total gang mayhem in Montreal by being the punitive hand of fury to any group they deem unsavoury. It’s a true case of be careful what you wish for, especially when their replacement might not give a shit if the Plateau or Mile End and all the other hip places over-privileged McGill kids live, becomes West Baltimore. They’ve even kept St. Leonard relatively safe, albeit culturally insulated.

Things really won’t hit the heights of reverie predicted until Vito Rizzuto, the locked up and assumedly epically pissed off Sicilian don (aka “The Teflon Don”), is released from a US prison in 2012. Then shit will really kick off and move up to the Titus Andronicus level. Experts like Nicasso think his release will really indicate what’s going on with the Rizzuto family, if they still have power or if they’ll go the way of the Roman Empire: crashing down in a wave of blood and orgies. From what we’ve heard, however, we’re fairly certain, even if just hearsay, that the affair is a fait accompli for Vito and his clan.
But what does that mean for the rest of North America? It’s hard to believe, but what goes on at the fringes of the American Empire, in some French hinterland will have direct repercussions in the U.S. Montreal’s drug port is so important, the greatest American Mafiosi salivated at the thought of controlling it, and when it withers and changes hands, rest assured it will be felt down south. Both the Camorra and the ’Ndrangheta have a history of fixing the cocaine market, tampering with their product to maximize profit, simulating scarcity to drive up value, and spreading it wherever they can. Blow in Brooklyn might just become too expensive for the average hipster, or just too fucking nasty and mixed with Comet, shredded glass, or salt. Whatever the effect, this new hybrid-mafia-banshee of the Camorra and ’Ndrangheta might just be the signaling of their coming move southwards, their presence in Montreal merely the first warning and an implicit Hannibal ad portas.
Anyway, Nicasso isn’t too hopeful about the future and left us with this apocalyptic little gem of a prophesy:
“There will be an escalation of violence in 2012. You cannot put a period to this story before then.”

ALESSANDRO AMERIGO