Business or Blood (19 page)

On January 19, 2010, three weeks after the murder of Nick Rizzuto Jr., the parole board added another condition to Renda's freedom. He was told he would be monitored by “members of staff who will be in charge of your care.” It sounded so paternal, altruistic. Clearly, though, they weren't monitoring him too closely when he stepped into the black Cobra.

Renda's disappearance gave rise to horrific speculation. Perhaps he had been spirited away somewhere so that the Rizzutos' many secrets could be tortured out of him. It felt like life imitating art. In
The Godfather, consigliere
Tom Hagen is kidnapped at the outset of a mob war. The fictitious Hagen was held for only a few hours, so that he could relay a warning to his family. In Renda's case, there would be no message.

Did Vito's brother-in-law know that he was a dead man the instant he stepped into the fake police car? He would have understood the Sicilian term for such Mafia jobs:
lupara bianca
. It's impossible to translate cleanly, but Renda and Vito knew what it meant. The
lupara
refers to the short shotgun popular with mobsters in Sicily. Its two barrels are stacked one atop the other, making it easier to slide into a pocket.
Bianca
translates to “white,” but in the case of
lupara bianca
it means something more like “invisible.”
Lupara bianca
is perhaps the cruellest of Mafia murders and was generally saved for spies and traitors, who deserved nothing better than an anonymous end in a ravine, acid barrel or pit, covered in lime. A
lupara bianca
means no ransom notes, no body, no answers, no sense of closure, no funeral or flowers on a grave. Nothing but loss and fear.

The day after Renda's disappearance, Nicolò Rizzuto was scheduled to appear in municipal court on an outstanding impaired driving charge dating back to an incident on December 31, 2005, before his Colisée arrest. That New Year's Eve, he crashed his Mercedes into a fire truck that was en route to an emergency call. Police called to the scene reported he was unsteady on his feet and appeared confused. After Renda's disappearance, the prosecutors and defence lawyers agreed the
impaired case could wait. There was too much danger in the air to treat this like just another day in court.

Locked up in Colorado, Vito was shocked to hear the news of Renda's abduction. He appeared nervous. Vito didn't often look that way. Talk increased that the 'Ndrangheta groups and others who had once been his allies and associates were pooling their forces to move against him. Renda's abduction seemed too smooth and too well planned for the thuggish likes of Ducarme Joseph. How could any but the most sophisticated of assailants know when and where the
consigliere
would be travelling that day and how to avoid surveillance cameras on the streets? Only a pro could make Vito's trusted confidant disappear so silently and completely, like a puff of smoke in the breeze.

I
nmates at Montreal's Bordeaux Prison normally are housed two or three to a cell, but they refused to be placed with Nicolò Rizzuto It wasn't a snub, but rather a show of respect, so that the old man could have some degree of privacy in what could be claustrophic conditions. Nicolò particularly wanted to be kept away from members of black street gangs, whom he didn't understand or like. Hells Angels and mobsters obliged, shielding the old man from any unwelcome contact.

Libertina visited daily. Jailhouse rules barred Nicolò's wife from bringing him gifts or food, but she was allowed to prepare him meals with pasta, onions and tomato paste in a private kitchen area. Such accommodation wasn't without precedent. Indeed, Nicolò had enjoyed a special cooking area when in custody in Venezuela. Mobster Frank (The Big Guy) Cotroni calmed his own nerves and expanded his waistline in the late 1980s at Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines penitentiary by cooking vats of spaghetti for fellow inmates. There, members of the Hells Angels ironed Cotroni's clothes and placed them on his bed every day, like attentive staff members at a quality hotel.

While in custody, Nicolò's high blood pressure and prostate problems meant regular trips to nearby Sacré-Coeur hospital. It wasn't unusual to see inmates being treated there, and the hospital even ran an inmate
volunteer program on site. Hospital visits were a welcome social event for Nicolò, who charmed nurses, doctors and other staff. Nonetheless, the old man sometimes appeared disoriented and lost. He was out of his routine and away from his family, and there was plenty for him to worry about, if he let his mind go there.

On October 16, 2008, after two years in custody, Nicolò Rizzuto smiled broadly in court when he heard that he was about to return home. The great-grandfather received a suspended sentence and probation after pleading guilty to possession of goods obtained through criminal gains and possession of proceeds of crime for the benefit of a criminal organization. That marked a massive reduction of charges from what he had originally faced: twenty-three counts ranging from gangsterism to importing and exporting illegal drugs. At the time of his arrest, many thought the octogenarian would spend his remaining years in custody, where the high point of most days would be a good game of cards. Instead, that very night, he would sleep in his own bed on crisp, clean sheets.

The Crown had agreed to a plea bargain before his case went to trial, bolstering the case of those who blamed the Canadian legal system for the strength and diversity of organized crime groups in Canada. In Italy, crusaders like prosecutor Nicola Gratteri put literally thousands of mobsters behind bars. In the United States, the prospect of real life sentences or even the death penalty turned many hardened criminals, like Big Joey Massino of the Bonannos, into rats. In Canada, the founder of the country's most powerful crime group could cut a deal and return home to his mansion without even facing trial.

There were a few minor face-savers for the Crown in Nicolò's case, but one had to look hard to find them. The case marked the first time that the old don had publicly admitted he was part of a criminal organization. This wasn't exactly a revelation; it was akin to Wayne Gretzky divulging that he played hockey or Stephen King saying he writes scary books. It was also the first time Nicolò had been convicted of any crime in Canada since assuming the top spot in the Montreal underworld thirty years before. That last fact worked in his favour during sentencing, as did his advanced age and fragility with prostate and respiratory
problems, and some question about whether he was now anything more than a gangster emeritus.

Sharing the good feelings in the spectator section of the court that day were Nick Jr. and other family members—minus Vito, of course. Also basking in the cheerful mood were other crime family members in the prisoners' box, who were about to hear their own good news. During the same hearing,
consigliere
Paolo Renda pleaded guilty to the same two charges, as well as to three weapons offences related to firearms seized from his home on Mafia Row. Long-time family members Frank Arcadi and Rocco Sollecito admitted guilt in conspiracy and gangsterism charges that included cocaine trafficking, extortion, running gaming houses and bookmaking.

Younger family leaders like thirty-eight-year-old Francesco Del Balso and forty-five-year-old Lorenzo (Skunk) Giordano each pleaded guilty that day to conspiracy charges that included extortion. Del Balso further admitted to filing false income tax returns between 2003 and 2006, during which time he had claimed he was a grocery store worker, and to trafficking cocaine with the Hells Angels. He had caught a whiff of something odd in 2004 when Hells Angels were arrested as part of Project Ziplock while he had been left untouched.

In the end, Nicolò, the crime family's founder and currently its top man, had received the lightest sentence of the more than eighty people charged in Project Colisée. The name Colisée had been a pointed jab at Nicolò, a reference to collapsing Italian ruins, but ultimately it was the prosecution's case against him that had crumbled. All the others in the prisoners' box that day smiled upon learning they would be eligible for parole in five and a half years at most. Marc Fortin, an RCMP investigator and member of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, admitted the obvious to reporters that day after court: Project Colisée didn't mean the end of Vito's crime family. “It was dismantled in part, but it's certain it still exists,” he said.

Vito would be free before several of the Colisée prisoners, even though he had been the complex and costly operation's preferred target. And Colisée was just the latest in a long list of ambitious projects since the late 1980s to take aim at Vito, including Neige, Bedside, Cercle,
Battleship, Omerta, Jaggy, Compote, Cicéron/RIP, Calamus, Chili and Cortez. They had failed to deliver a single conviction against him. It was easy to understand why the mobsters smiled that day in court.

On February 11, 2010, Nicolò was back in court to settle up with Revenue Canada in a sixteen-year-old case. He pleaded guilty to two counts of tax evasion and agreed to pay $209,000 in fines—the value of his original taxes plus a 35 percent penalty. Again, the mobster's case was settled with a plea bargain and no trial. That case harkened back to 1994, when the RCMP found millions that the elder Rizzuto had squirrelled away in Swiss banks. In August 1994, his wife was arrested in Lugano, considered the financial core of Italian-speaking Switzerland, along with her restaurateur friend and neighbour Luca Giammarella. Libertina had power of attorney over Nicolò's financial matters, showing his absolute trust in her.

Swiss authorities found fourteen bank accounts registered to Nicolò, enough to arouse suspicion even in this country of extreme secrecy. Libertina and her friend were held for six months in preventive detention. The old woman never cracked, following a time-honoured tactic of deny, deny, deny.

Even before the discovery of the secret Swiss bank accounts, there certainly had been plenty to make the taxman suspicious. Nicolò claimed he was a pensioner living on $26,574 worth of Old Age Security and investment income, but somehow he managed to afford $1.8 million in blue-chip stocks, a spacious, pillared mansion, payments of $20,000 a year for a condominium in Milan, and a Jaguar and a Mercedes in his driveway. Not bad for someone who never went to high school.

Nicolò and Libertina had bought the land for their house in 1981, but Libertina purchased his share in 1983, making it tougher to seize as proceeds of crime. Her name also appeared as sole owner of the Jaguar and Mercedes. This was typical for the
milieu
, where men tended to shift their assets over to their wives and daughters to keep them out of government hands.

While many Canadians curse the thought of any contact with Revenue Canada, Nicolò must have held a warm spot in his heart for the tax agency. In September 2013, Radio-Canada reported that he had received a cheque for $381,737 from the tax office in 2007 for reimbursement of taxes. This largesse came while he was still in jail and under investigation for tax evasion, with a $1.5-million lien on his mansion. The news broke a year after the cancellation of Revenue Canada's Special Enforcement Program, which was meant to crack down on organized crime. At the same time, allegations were rife that Revenue Canada's Montreal office was riddled with Rizzuto-friendly employees. After the Radio-Canada revelations, Ottawa admitted that the cheque to Nicolò was undeserved and promised that those responsible would be punished. Then officials went mum, saying they couldn't go into details about the case for privacy reasons. With that, the affair was all but forgotten.

As Nicolò donned his grey fedora and left tax court that day without speaking to spectators, he had just one outstanding legal matter: the impaired driving charge that had been rescheduled because of Renda's disappearance.

On the streets, Montagna kept upping his profile at the expense of Vito's organization. He hadn't yet moved to Toronto, as planned. In Montreal, he tried to shake down construction companies for 5 percent of their profits, which was a couple of percentage points higher than the accepted rate. He also tried to squeeze ten million dollars from the brother-in-law of an extremely wealthy businessman with high-level political and banking connections. His arrogance even extended to Nicolò. Vito would have heard reports of grim meetings between his aging father and the Bonanno boss, where Nicolò was told that his underworld reign was over and it was time to step gracefully aside. Montagna's message was more threat than friendly suggestion. He had made several trips to Toronto and Hamilton, mustering support from the 'Ndrangheta and the old-school Canadian mob. He also had an alliance, however fragile, with Raynald Desjardins, Vittorio
Mirarchi and Joe Di Maulo. Montagna felt poised to take first Montreal then the rest of Canada.

Even in his depleted state, Nicolò considered himself more than a match for any coalition put together by Montagna, refugee leader of the oft-humiliated Bonannos. He made it clear to Montagna, who was less than half his age, that he wasn't going anywhere.

After his release from custody, Nicolò seldom strayed from his home on Mafia Row. Why risk abduction like Paolo Renda or bullets like Nick Jr.? He installed new security cameras on the front of his house to pick up movement on the street. There were worse places to be confined. When Nicolò looked out through the kitchen solarium window, he could see a natural, unspoiled woodland where one of the few man-made things was a statue of the Madonna, her arms outstretched as if offering an embrace. Nicolò had lived to be eighty-six years old in the midst of killers. For now, no place could feel safer than here.

T
he clock was ticking. Anyone who wanted to make a move on Vito's family had to act quickly; Vito would be out in October 2012. Until then, Agostino Cuntrera knew that the disappearance of Paolo Renda left him the number two free man in the Rizzuto organization, behind only Nicolò. Cuntrera couldn't have been much surprised when police warned him that his life was in more danger than usual. The aging Mafioso was stockpiling weapons, purchasing an armoured car and travelling close to a bodyguard. These may have been wholly sensible steps during a state of undeclared war, but hyper-vigilance takes a lot out of a man, especially an old one like Agostino Cuntrera. Now, he had to constantly scan the hands of men nearby. Consider their eyes. Check for the nearest exit in case he had to flee. Observe if there was anything threatening or odd about cars pulling alongside. Was a driver following him? It could all become overwhelming, and people close to the tired grandfather worried that he might turn one of his many guns on himself.