Authors: Lee Lamothe

The Sixth Family (45 page)

BOOK: The Sixth Family

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Disappointed prison officials then canceled future passes, keeping him in prison until his statutory release—a questionable law in Canada that automatically lets nonviolent prisoners out of prison after serving only two-thirds of their sentence. On November 11, 2004, the National Parole Board ordered him to provide officials with statements of income and expenses during his release to allow some monitoring of his activities. Having previously handed parole officials a psychiatric evaluation that said he was suffering from “burnout” from criminal activities and saying he was finished with crime, he planned to use his freedom to work in a corner store.

Despite published reports that Ragusa was the Emanuele who allegedly joined Vito in gunning down the three captains in 1981, there has been no known attempt by American authorities to request his extradition to face trial on the matter.

The FBI’s interest in Ragusa and other Canadians allegedly involved in the intrigue of the Bonanno Family is evident in an internal note from March 2004, after another debriefing session by agents of Frank Lino. Titled “Canadian Pictures,” the report says that Lino was shown a photograph of Ragusa and asked about him.

“[Lino] did not know Emanuele Ragusa’s name but remembered meeting him. [Lino] did not recall whether he had met him in Canada or the United States.”

Because of the Onig informant and the cross-border police cooperation, Ragusa’s Sixth Family venture faltered; such failure, however, was rare. Ragusa, Manno, Sciortino—police were able to pick away at the edges of the Sixth Family but the core remained intact. The organization, as a whole, was flush with success.

With each successful shipment, each new enterprise and every new revenue stream, their resources swelled, their abilities grew and their strength increased. Fewer and fewer organizations were capable of mounting a challenge. As long as the money kept flowing, there was little need for more wars. And the money did flow, in great gushing streams; which, of course, can create problems of its own.

CHAPTER 29

LUGANO, SWITZERLAND, AUGUST 1994

Through a narrow opening in the facade of the cobblestoned waterfront streets of Lugano, guests staying in just the right rooms of the Hotel Nassa Garni have a pleasing view of the cerulean waters of Lake Lugano. The city is nestled low on the south-facing shore and framed on both sides by the heavily wooded sub-alpine peaks of San Salvatore and Monte Brè. Beyond them are the snowcapped peaks of the Alps. That backdrop contrasts nicely with the bright terracotta rooftops of the city’s old buildings, blessing Lugano with views tailor-made for postcards and travel brochures.

This scenery, however, can be better viewed from better hotels. The Hotel Nassa Garni is a modest three-star facility that must have had one of its stars affixed merely for its location, being on Via Nassa, the heart of Lugano’s shopping district and in the midst of a stretch sometimes called “the luxury mile.” On this surprisingly narrow street, meticulously maintained stores offering the famous Italian fashion brands of Armani, Gucci and Versace vie for the wallets of passing visitors with equally tidy stores offering famous Swiss luxury watch brands such as Breguet, Patek Philippe and TAG Heuer. That blend of culture typifies Lugano. In the southernmost canton of Switzerland, lying just 14 miles north from its border with Italy, the largely Italian-speaking city boasts wide piazzas, tree-lined promenades and relaxed cafés, giving it a decidedly Mediterranean flavor and making it a popular destination for travelers from Italy.

It was the Hotel Nassa Garni where Libertina Rizzuto, the doting mother of Vito and faithful wife of Nick, checked in on August 31, 1994, after arriving alone on a connecting flight from Montreal. It was not for the shopping, however, that she had come to Lugano. Like most visitors, the stores and the views were mere trappings for Libertina; the real reason Lugano consistently attracted a wealthy clientele was that, despite a population of less than 50,000, it maintained more than 100 full-service banks. This gave the city one of the highest banks-per-capita rates in the world, more than twice that of Zurich.

On the evening of her arrival, after checking into the hotel, Libertina walked around the corner and across the Plaza Carlo Battaglini to the seven-story Hotel Excelsior. At the time, the Excelsior, a waterfront property with tasteful lakeside palms, was the finer of the two hotels, known for its spectacular view of the waterfront and its lounge’s well-stocked bar.

In front of the Excelsior, as had been arranged, she met Luca Giammarella, a 47-year-old Montreal Realtor who lived directly across the road from Nick and Libertina on Antoine-Berthelet Avenue. The Rizzuto and Giammarella families had been close for more than a decade and Nick and Libertina showed that familiarity and affection by always calling Luca Giammarella by a nickname—“Nino.” Giammarella arrived in Lugano the day before Libertina, having flown from Montreal to Milan and then taking the popular 90-minute train ride across the border, arriving at Lugano’s train station, which overlooks the town from the west. Once in Switzerland’s third-largest banking center, he checked into Room 415 of the Excelsior.

That evening, as the tourist season was waning, Libertina and Giammarella met to discuss the best way for them to retrieve the contents of an account in a private Swiss bank. After agreeing to meet outside the Credit Suisse Trust the next afternoon, they bade each other good night and Libertina returned to her room in the Nassa.

Shortly after 2 p.m. on September 1, 1994, Libertina met Giammarella again, this time in front of the modern offices of the Credit Suisse Trust, a branch of the century-old bank. It is a meandering one-and-one-half-mile walk or a short taxi ride to the bank from the Hotel Nassa; slightly less from the Excelsior.

“I met Nino in front of the Credit Suisse bank and I went inside. Nino had a small plastic handbag in which he would have put all the money we could withdraw in cash,” Libertina said, shortly after her visit to the bank. “If the operation had worked, I would have deposited the money in another bank in Lugano.”

The neat modern offices of the Credit Suisse Trust are just a few hundred yards from the waterfront and staffed by 16 employees skilled in the diverse languages and banking requirements of its international clientele. It is one of those storied Swiss banks, the fodder for many a movie and novel, one offering, as it advertises, “a full range of fiduciary and administrative services,” specializing in “setting up and administering offshore companies, Anglo Saxon Trusts, Panama and Liechtenstein Foundations, holding bankable and non-bankable assets.”

It was here that Giammarella maintained account No. 312413, opened on May 25, 1988. On the day of Libertina and Giammarella’s visit to Lugano, the account maintained a balance of 820,000 Swiss francs, worth about US$718,000 at the time.

Inside the Credit Suisse branch, Giammarella—his blue bag in hand—said he wished to close the account and to have the balance turned over in cash, Swiss authorities were told. A banking representative asked him about the bag that he carried and he said he was going to stuff the cash in it and take it with him. The banker asked him to wait in a small room for another official.

“In the bank, Nino learned that the directors would not give him the money in cash, whereby he asked—at my suggestion—that they give him two checks in my name,” Libertina later said.

“A few moments later,” Giammarella added, “the police arrived and they accompanied me and Mrs. Rizzuto to the Lugano police station.”

Libertina Rizzuto and Luca Giammarella were kept apart in police custody, after being escorted to the Lugano police headquarters, and it was a little before 4:30 p.m. when Inspector D. Bianchi entered one interrogation room, where he greeted Libertina, and Inspector Renato Pagani entered another to interview Giammarella. When the two officers later emerged from their questioning and compared their notes they found striking contradictions.

“A week ago, my husband and I decided that I should come to Lugano to withdraw all the money in an account under the name of our close friend Luca Giammarella—who is also a resident of Canada—but in fact is our property,” Libertina said, in Italian, according to a transcript of her interrogation made by Swiss authorities. She explained that she had arranged to meet Giammarella at the bank and was in the midst of a simple financial transaction when they were arrested.

The money, she insisted, was the proceeds from the family’s legitimate business holdings in Venezuela—primarily from powdered milk, cheese, industrial chicken production and furniture manufacturing. She and her husband, Nick, had asked for the money to be deposited in Giammarella’s name about 10 years earlier for business reasons, she told police. They now wanted to clean up their financial affairs.

“He had to deposit the money because he wanted to declare it in Canada,” she said. “I came to Lugano to withdraw our money from Giammarella’s account, leave it here [in another bank] and inform the Canadian government that it was here, to pay the taxes, on the day my husband was to receive his Canadian residency.” Her husband could not come to do the transfer himself, she said, because he was ill and unable to travel.

“Why did your husband send you, a senior, to Lugano and not your son or daughter?” Inspector Bianchi asked, a suggestion that seemed to insult Libertina, who was a fit and capable 67-year-old matriarch.

“Because I came,” she said bluntly.

“But why this sudden trip after leaving this important matter for years and years in the hands of a third person, an outsider?” the officer asked.

“We just decided to. And also because on October 27, 1994, my husband will undergo another operation,” she answered, telling officials that Nick was in Montreal awaiting surgery but that he still maintained his primary residence in Venezuela. He was in the process of again obtaining permanent resident status in Canada after his lengthy stay in South America, she said, although she appears to have made no mention of his recent incarceration there.

“What does this matter now?” she asked. “I just want to point out that I was with Nino at the Credit Suisse bank making a legal transaction.”

Her version of events was strikingly different in almost every detail from what Giammarella was, at that moment, telling Inspector Pagani in a neighboring room. During his questioning, Giammarella said he was not at the bank with Libertina, that he did not know she was in Switzerland and that he had in fact no plans to withdraw any money from his account but was merely there to ask for some credit information from a banking official named Battista Petrini.

“I was alone. They had me wait for Mr. Petrini in a small room. Then they asked me to move to another room, and that’s when I ran into Mrs. Libertina Rizzuto, a woman I’ve known for many years as a neighbor in Montreal. I had no idea she was there,” he said.

“The money in the account is yours?” Inspector Pagani asked.

“Yes, it’s my money,” Giammarella insisted.

“Does Mrs. Rizzuto factor into the information you were seeking at the Credit Suisse bank?” the officer asked.

“No. As I said earlier, I met her by chance in a room at the bank. I didn’t even know she was there. As I said, I’m staying at the Excelsior. As for Mrs. Rizzuto, I don’t know if she is passing through Lugano or if she is staying at a hotel.” Again he was asked if the money was his.

“Again, the money, which I believe to be about 500,000 Swiss francs, is mine, and Mrs. Rizzuto was not with me. I only met her by chance.” Giammarella also denied telling bank officials that he had brought the empty blue handbag with him for carrying the money he was there to withdraw. Police interrupted their interrogation of Giammarella for an hour while officers searched his hotel room at the Excelsior. After the search, Giammarella was allowed to collect his personal belongings, pay his hotel bill and return to police custody, where the questions became even more uncomfortable.

In Giammarella’s room, police had found two notes. The first read: “Poplare—Flavia Alberti MICA 23910 tel 587111 via Vigezzi N.1.”

“It’s the Banque Populaire Suisse—I have some interests in that place. I’d rather not get into specifics,” Giammarella explained, naming another bank branch in Lugano.

“On another note found in your possession are the words ‘Signor Muller B. di Roma Piazza S. Carlo,’” Inspector Pagani said.

“That’s the Banca di Roma of Lugano. I have contacts at that bank, too, that I’d rather not go into here,” Giammarella countered.

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