Montreal underworld war erupts
In a bid for gangland control in the region
MONTREAL: The killings of two close associates of a jailed mobster 11 weeks apart has confirmed Montrealers fears that the return of a reputed don has unleashed an underworld power struggle and settling of scores.
The men killed were associates of Raynald Desjardins. The returned don, fresh out of a US prison, is named Vito Rizzuto.
A former ally of the Rizzuto clan, Desjardins betrayed them in a bid for gangland control, according to mafia experts.
Desjardin’s former brother-in-law and business partner, Gaetan Gosselin, was walking home on Tuesday night north of Montreal when one or more assailants opened fire, killing him.
The ambush was reminiscent of one in November that resulted in the death of a man in his 70s, Joseph “Joe” Di Maulo, who was gunned down in the driveway of his home. “Joe” was also Raynald Desjardins’ brother-in-law.
The two murders - as well as the killings of a few minor henchmen for the mob - occurred soon after the return to Canada in October of Vito Rizzuto, after serving six years of a 10-year sentence in a US prison for his role in the 1981 murders of three members of New York’s Bonanno crime family.
As head of the Montreal mob for a quarter of a century before his arrest, he led with flare and brutality an underworld empire that included lucrative trafficking of Colombian cocaine in Canada and the United States.
During his incarceration however his Sicilian clan’s gangland grip faced deadly challenges from new rivals. The Rizzuto family in the end was decimated in its fight to hold on to power.
