Business or Blood

by Peter Edwards

  CHAPTER 20

  Lupara bianca

  Paolo Renda called home around noon on Thursday, May 20, 2010, to tell his wife, Maria, that he had just finished his round of golf and would be home as soon as he picked up four steaks for a barbecue. Beyond the tumult in Montreal’s milieu, life was agreeable for the seventy-three-year-old: he was cruising along Gouin Boulevard in his luxury grey Infiniti sedan towards his home in the same enclave in the leafy, well-heeled borough of Ahuntsic–Cartierville as Vito and Nicolò. He was nearing Albert-Prévost Avenue and only a few minutes from home when he saw the flashing lights on the roof of a black Dodge Cobra. It was annoying, but there was no need to argue with police and spoil his dinner plans. He eased on the brakes and slowed to a halt by the curb. Two men got out of the Cobra, ushered Renda out of his Infiniti and into the black car, and drove him away.

  When her husband still wasn’t home by 3 p.m., Maria telephoned the family butcher. Renda was a man of habits and one of those habits was always to buy his steaks from the same butcher shop. The butcher told his wife that he had come by about ninety minutes earlier. Maria felt a flash of panic. She was Vito Rizzuto’s sister and fully aware of the possibilities. Her husband should have arrived home long ago. She called his probation officer, but the officer knew nothing of Renda’s whereabouts and called police. At around 6 p.m., officers found his Infiniti just where he’d left it, on Gouin Boulevard. The steaks were on the front passenger seat and his keys were on the dashboard. The Cobra with the flashing lights on the roof was but a hazy memory for the city workers who had briefly seen it. It didn’t take much investigation to know it wasn’t a police car.

  That was the last anyone heard from Paolo Renda. It was a quiet, tidy exit from the often turbulent milieu. It befitted a man who generally worked with numbers, not guns, although police did find a loaded .32 Smith & Wesson pistol inside a hidden compartment of a dresser in his walk-in closet and two rifles in his basement. He could easily have passed for an accountant, which was appropriate since he was the keeper of financial secrets for Vito’s family: he knew who was paying what to whom in the lucrative construction industry; he oversaw gambling in family-controlled bars and cafés. On paper, he was also vice-president and administrator of Renda Construction Inc., which helped him explain his posh lifestyle to Revenue Canada.

  Paolo Renda was three years from his fiftieth wedding anniversary when he vanished. His disappearance was a major loss to Vito. Even if the exact relationship between these brothers-in-law/first cousins was a challenge to decipher, it did allow for one quick and accurate conclusion: Paolo Renda’s abduction and probable murder were a strike deep into the heart of Vito’s family.

  Renda had immigrated to Canada with his parents in 1954 and became a citizen ten years later. He started his work life as a barber, and in 1972 he was sentenced to four years in prison after attempting to burn down his Boucherville, Quebec, barbershop to collect on an insurance policy. It wasn’t a tough crime for police to solve, since he was found near the burning shop, his clothes reeking of smoke. His co-accused in the crime was Vito, who was sentenced to two years in custody. In commiting arson, Vito Jr. was carrying on a family tradition started by his namesake grandfather back in New Jersey in the 1930s, although this would be the last time Vito went behind bars before the Three Captains bust.

  Renda had rebounded nicely from his arson arrest, setting up a bistro, a motel and a pair of construction firms. He carried himself with a Zenlike air of casual success, and often appeared at the Consenza Social Club in a stylish sports jacket and open business shirt, but Renda knew much of the darker side of mob life. He was the Rizzuto crime family’s consigliere: top adviser and number three man in the organization, behind only Vito and Nicolò

  Despite his calm demeanour, Paolo Renda did have serious enemies. His name, together with that of his father, Calogero, was often linked to the 1978 murder of Paolo Violi. This explained why Renda left Montreal for Venezuela in the late 1970s before an arrest warrant could be signed or bullets could be fired in his direction. He didn’t return until years later, after he was assured the warrant had been cancelled. By that time, most of the people who wanted to kill him had been murdered, banished to Hamilton or co-opted by Vito’s organization.

  By the early 2000s, Renda might have preferred to spend more time golfing and barbecuing, but the Colisée crackdown and Vito’s imprisonment spoiled those plans. In his own Colisée case, Renda pleaded guilty to gangsterism charges while more serious charges of drug trafficking were dropped. He had been released on parole three months before his disappearance after serving two-thirds of a six-year prison sentence.

  Parole had returned Renda to a violent, unstable world. With Vito behind bars, independent drug dealers were comfortable selling their wares in Montreal’s downtown—Rizzuto turf. Renda had always preferred to try to defuse tensions on the street. A hidden police bug at the Consenza had once picked up Renda counselling Skunk Giordano not to drink too much or attract attention, after Giordano’s unsettling target practice on the testicles of an Iranian-born heroin dealer in a trendy restaurant on Saint-Laurent Boulevard on April 18, 2004.

  Renda’s parole conditions meant that, until October, he was forbidden from associating with others who were considered criminals or from owning a cellphone, pager or any other portable communications device, or any weapon. He also couldn’t go to any Italian cafés or what the parole board described as “European-style cafés,” or keep the company of anyone involved in organized crime or the drug culture.

  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.

  CHAPTER 21

  Home fire

  Inmates 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.