by Lamothe, Lee
In 1972, Tommaso Buscetta joined with Nick in illegally importing a fine white powder into Venezuela. Buscetta insisted until his death that it was powdered milk. Given Nick’s interests in food-related businesses—as well as drugs—this might even have been true.
Along with these endeavors, Nick Rizzuto and the Cuntrera brothers started arranging heroin- and, later, cocaine-trafficking operations, government documents from several countries show. Their presence in Venezuela, if not their underworld operations, was sanctioned by corrupt government officials, much to the frustration of the U.S. government, which badly wanted them in custody, as most of the drugs ended up in the arms and up the noses of American citizens.
Major Benedetto Lauretti, a specialist in organized crime and drug operations with Italy’s Raggruppamento Operativo Speciale (ROS) Carabinieri, said Italian authorities have long tracked the activities of the Sicilian mafiosi who arrived in Venezuela by way of Canada.
“We’re talking about the existence of a Mafia family called the Venezuelan Mafia Family, which is composed of people linked to the Mafia of Siculiana, who emigrated into Canada and Venezuela starting in the 1950s,” he said. Lauretti said the growth of the Venezuela Mafia Family was bolstered by the arrival of Nick Rizzuto and the subsequent involvement of Nick’s family, including Vito, in the Venezuelan operations. Citing a firm called Ganaderi Rio Zappa, a cattle company that owned a massive ranch—including a private airstrip—near the border with Colombia, Lauretti named Nick Rizzuto as one of the founders.
Now that they could connect directly to South American cocaine suppliers and heroin sources, the Sixth Family and their expatriate Mafia allies began to be an increasingly important part of one of the world’s most profitable businesses.
It is testament to both the secrecy of the underworld and the cleverness of Nick Rizzuto that top investigators on three continents still argue over the nature of his relocation to Venezuela, even with the broad hints captured on the Reggio bar wiretaps. The FBI calls it an “apparent expulsion” from Montreal, on orders from Cotroni. The Bureau then notes: “It is also possible that Rizzuto was planted in Venezuela to further develop narcotics trafficking.” RCMP files describe the relocation as a strategic move initiated by Nick to avoid being killed by Violi.
“Rizzuto escaped this fate,” an RCMP briefing says, “exiling himself and his family to Venezuela where he consolidated links between his family and the Caruana-Cuntrera group as well as the Colombian cartels.”
In Venezuela, Nick himself confided to Buscetta that he had left Montreal under threat because Violi wanted him dead.
Although he had physically removed himself from Montreal, Nick had neither abandoned his position nor ceded his interests there. He quietly returned to the city periodically, when business or family demanded it, or when the occasional health concern prompted a trip north to take advantage of Canada’s skilled, and free, health care system. Violi was incensed whenever he heard of Nick being spotted in town. Usually the information came long after Nick had returned to the safety of his South American compound, highlighting further the disconnect between the Rizzutos’ men and Violi’s men on the city’s streets. Canadian gangsters would also “holiday” in Venezuela only to be seen meeting privately with Nick around Caracas, or nearby Valencia, but rarely swimming or sunning at the beach.
Nick ensured that his significant business and other interests in Canada were nursed through his absence. For this he turned to one of his most trusted associates—Calogero Renda. Renda was a mainstay of the Sixth Family, having accompanied Nick’s father in their ill-fated 1925 foray into America, and the father of Paolo Renda, who would continue the family tradition of being at the Rizzutos’ side. Calogero’s appointment as Nick’s representative and authority in Montreal gave him proxy over the day-to-day running of the family’s affairs.
Despite the growth in the Rizzuto family’s interests abroad and Renda’s steady stewardship of its interests in Montreal, these were nonetheless trying times for the Rizzutos. The organization was virtually at war with the powerful leadership of its own decina in Montreal and seemingly losing the battle of opinion with the boss in New York. Vito Rizzuto and Paolo Renda were both in jail for the botched barbershop arson. The Rizzuto women also suffered as a result of the difficulties in the lives of their men. Nick’s wife, Libertina, and daughter, Maria Renda, lived together in a house Nick maintained in Montreal. The two women bided their time while their husbands remained beyond reach.
Nick’s absence from the streets of Montreal, however, did not end his quarrel with Violi or cede his claim to his throne. How could it? It was precisely the need for the Sixth Family to control Montreal that was at the root of the dispute. For an outsider to retain power in such a key location—even one with an ’Ndrangheta background and American Mafia membership—would have created a situation of insecurity for the Sicilian gangsters, who trusted few who were not kin. Perhaps if Violi had stepped back and allowed the Sixth Family to run heroin unfettered through “his” town, he might have avoided his fate. Perhaps not. The ferocity of the Sixth Family, their acquisitiveness and distrust of those outside their group likely would have meant that, in time, they would have to overpower him. Besides, Violi rarely, if ever, stepped back. Time seemed to be on the side of the ever-expanding, ever-consolidating Rizzutos. This was something Nick seemed to fully understand. He could be a man of immense patience and planning.
Violi might well have breathed a sigh of relief at Nick’s departure. He certainly felt he had triumphed in this war of nerves and words, and he gave himself credit for the diplomatic coup. Violi was starting to feel he had regained a firm handle on affairs in Montreal. But just as he began to feel secure again, his hold would start to crumble.
The uncertainty began in New York and gradually made its way to Montreal.
CHAPTER 11
MANHATTAN, AUGUST 1973
Paolo Violi’s progress in pulling New York to his side was thrown into jeopardy when the strain of the job as Bonanno Family boss got the better of Natale Evola. On August 28, 1973, his short reign as boss ended when he was felled by cancer, not rival gangsters. The search for a replacement was on and Violi started pushing for Philip “Rusty” Rastelli as the man to fill the void. Violi feared that someone with whom he had no personal ties, or—worse—someone who was too tight with the Sicilian mafiosi, might move into power. Violi, more than most in the American Mafia, knew the true intentions and interests of the Sicilian mafiosi.
On October 20, 1973, John DeMatteo, a Bronx-based member of the Gambino Family, visited Violi at the Reggio Bar and passed along a message from New York. Violi was told to attend a meeting at the Americana Hotel in Manhattan. On November 6, Rastelli himself called Violi, inviting him to the same meeting and telling him to bring Vic Cotroni’s brother Frank with him. The next day, Violi updated Cotroni on the development. Cotroni, a man with a sound mind for strategy, immediately balked at the idea of his brother attending such a delicate meeting. Frank was not to go, Cotroni said, “since he is so closely watched by the police.” This was a nod to Frank’s increasing drug involvement, although Frank’s drug connections might well have been why Rastelli wanted him there in the first place.
By Friday, November 9, Violi had a plan in place and asked Joe DiMaulo, a trusted and loyal mafioso, to stand in for Frank. Violi and DiMaulo would head to New York separately, in case one of them was stopped at the border. The two discussed their cover stories if they were questioned by police or border guards and, early the next afternoon, DiMaulo left in a car driven by Raynald Desjardins, his brother-in-law. Violi left by plane on the Sunday. Both car and plane made it safely to New York and the Montreal representatives met with at least three New Yorkers—Rastelli, Nicholas “Nicky Glasses” Marangelo and Joseph Buccellato. Largely because of the advance warning from Canadian police who were listening to the Reggio Bar wiretaps, FBI agents secretly monitored the gangsters coming and going from the Americana Hotel, photographing th
em as they walked and talked. Violi later complained of the agents’ presence. He had spotted someone snapping his picture inside the hotel.
Behind closed doors, Rastelli told Violi that the Commission had installed him as the acting boss of the Bonanno Family. Rastelli also declared his intention to secure the job permanently at an election by Bonanno captains to be held in New York in a few weeks’ time. Montreal would have a vote and Rastelli wanted Violi’s support. Violi, rarely shy, immediately asked for permission to induct new soldiers into his organization. Rastelli said it was impossible at that time. Despite the rebuff, Violi was thrilled to help propel into high office someone with whom he had a solid relationship.
Later, on March 19, 1974, in his office at the Reggio Bar, Violi had what was likely a rare encounter with Nick Rizzuto that he actually enjoyed. For once, Violi felt he had the upper hand and likely spoke with braggadocio when updating Nick, who was on one of his occasional visits from Venezuela, on recent events. Things were changing in New York, Violi told Nick. He said that Rastelli had been elected as the new boss, Nicky Marangello as underboss and Stefano “Stevie Beef” Cannone as the new consigliere. Violi said he had sent Roméo Bucci, whom he described as a “senior” member of the decina, to New York to register Montreal’s vote. And, he could not resist adding, shortly after Rastelli’s ascension Violi himself went to New York, on February 25, 1974, to meet with the new boss and his administration.
Nick knew what subject would have dominated the conversation. The distance between Montreal and Venezuela had eased none of the animosity.
MONTREAL, 1974
With Nick Rizzuto living in exile, if not in fear, Violi was feeling more comfortable in Montreal, freer to exert his power. At a meeting with Pietro Sciarra and Leonardo Caruana, two mobsters of Sicilian birth, Violi decreed that all outsiders would have to follow his orders while they were in his territory—a clear shot aimed at reducing the sudden influx of Sicilian Men of Honor into Montreal.
In April 1974, Pietro Sciarra arranged for Giuseppe Cuffaro and another Sicilian mobster to travel from Sicily to Montreal to meet with Violi and Cotroni. They updated the Montrealers on recent changes in Agrigento. At a meeting with Violi on April 22, the Sicilian mobsters passed along news that Leonardo Caruana, the one-time Montreal resident who had been repeatedly deported from Canada back to Agrigento, had been elected capo-de-madamento, or district boss, on the Cupola, the ruling panel of the Mafia in Sicily. The movement of mobsters between Italy and North America was becoming a difficult issue for crime bosses everywhere. How were they to be treated? Could a Sicilian Man of Honor set up shop in North America as if he were an inducted member of one of the Five Families? Could an American gangster expect to be considered a made man in Sicily? Could a gangster be made in both countries? If so, where did his loyalty lie? As globalization came to the Mafia, these issues were openly debated at senior levels of the underworld.
The Rizzuto faction that remained in Montreal continued to push Violi to officially recognize some of their newly arrived colleagues from Sicily. They wanted full “working privileges” endorsed by Montreal and New York. Violi outlined his view on the Sicilians to Sciarra and Cuffaro: “I know all about how it is here in America. Someone who comes here from Italy—it’s orders and you better believe it—he has to stay here for five years under us. After the five years are up, then everyone can see what he’s like.”
Not long after, the Sicilian mobsters were back sipping coffee with Violi at the Reggio Bar and again bringing news of Leonardo Caruana; his ascension to the ruling board in Sicily was causing controversy because some in Sicily considered him an outsider after his long exile in Montreal. Suspicions between the New World and Old World mafiosi, despite their deep links and ongoing dealings with each other, were evident on both sides of the ocean. It led the men to again discuss the issue of membership. The visitors wondered: If a Montrealer could sit on the ruling board in Sicily, under what conditions could a mobster arriving from Sicily become part of the Montreal organization? Violi reiterated his position: visiting Men of Honor would be accepted; those who wanted to permanently relocate were a different story. They needed to prove their loyalty to Violi.
“He comes here, he moves his home, he comes, he comes to us here, he has to stay with us for five years, and after, he can move up—if there’s an opening and we can give it to him. That’s how it’s done,” Violi said. The visiting Sicilians were unimpressed.
“In our mob,” the visiting Sicilian mafiosi said, in apparent dismay, “it’s a friend and we got to recognize a friend and that’s that.” The rebuff from Violi was an insult.
If the Sixth Family was by that point growing ever more impatient with Violi, they would soon get a helping hand in ending his reign from an unexpected quarter. With Nick Rizzuto ensconced in Venezuela and his son, Vito, still in jail for the botched arson, the offensive was not directed by the Sixth Family but it nonetheless greatly aided their cause.
MONTREAL, 1975
Le commission d’enquête sur le crime organisé was a public investigation ordered by the provincial government of Quebec. The sessions, some held in private, others sensationally public, began to shine a light into some shadowy places for Montreal’s mafiosi and other homegrown gangsters. The hearings were similar in style and protocol to the 1951 Kefauver commission hearings of the U.S. Senate, which forced Frank Costello, one of the leading bosses of the Five Families—a man dubbed “the Prime Minister of the Underworld”—to take the stand. There were also echoes of the 1963 U.S. Senate Permanent SubCommittee on Organized Crime, chaired by Senator John McClellan, that put Joe Valachi on display as a Mafia turncoat.
From September 27, 1972, to March 31, 1977, the Quebec organized crime commission was given the power to subpoena witnesses, question them at length and present its findings in a quasi-judicial forum that carried the weight of the government. It also had the power to issue contempt citations for those who refused an order to appear, or who refused to give truthful and meaningful testimony.
The first target of the commission was the Cotroni-Violi organization.
The prospect of a commission that would dig up dirt but not have the teeth to lay serious criminal charges was at first a source of ridicule and amusement among the Montreal mob. Shortly before Christmas in 1973, Violi was heard lampooning the commission: “Their balls are in an uproar because they don’t know anything.” What he did not know was how deeply his organization was about to be exposed. Nor did he know of the profane and embarrassing police recordings of him and his closest advisors and co-conspirators in his inner sanctum. One man who did seem to realize what was at stake was one of Violi’s closest confidants, Joe DiMaulo. On September 19, 1974, when DiMaulo was being questioned by police on another matter, he asked directly whether his trip to New York the year before to help install Philip Rastelli as the Bonanno Family boss was going to be entered as evidence at the commission hearings.
“DiMaulo thought that public disclosure of the election of a head of the American Mafia would be a disaster for him and for the family. For DiMaulo, this would be a serious breach of the rule of silence with respect to all family business,” says one of several reports issued by the commission.
The toll of the inquiry on Violi and his organization was profound. In 1974, the commission sought first to hear from Vic Cotroni. Responding to a subpoena, Cotroni put on a show of befuddlement, gently rebuffing question after question in what he hoped would come across as benign ignorance. The charade did not hold. After eating up more than a thousand pages of commission transcripts he had revealed nothing of importance, prompting one commentator to describe him as “impassive as the Sphinx.”
“I have no authority,” Cotroni said in a whisper to the three-judge panel. The commission was not pleased. Cotroni was sentenced to a year in jail for contempt of the proceedings. The sudden jailing of the boss sent Violi into action. Likely expecting a renewed challenge for leadership by the Rizzutos, he took the initiat
ive of formalizing his position with New York. On January 9, 1975, he called Pietro Sciarra into his office and told him to go immediately to New York to ask what should be done.
“You’re gonna talk,” Violi told him, preparing him for an audience with Rastelli. “The best thing is to explain your case before. You’re gonna say to him: ‘Paolo sent me here, actually, and seeing as Vincent’s inside all that time … somebody’s got to take responsibility now.’”
Rastelli knew what Violi was really asking for and gave it to him: “When Vincent gets out, have him call me, and if a change has to be made then, I’ll talk to Vincent. But for the time being, you take over,” Rastelli told Violi. Just days later, Violi was heard bragging to Joe DiMaulo of his appointment by New York as the acting boss. His joy was short-lived.
After Cotroni testified, Violi was also ordered to appear before the inquiry. His appearance was a media spectacle. Dressed in a sharply tailored light gray suit and fashionably wide, striped tie, Violi appeared as a stern, brooding man who stood authoritatively and defiantly in the witness box. His dark hair, with a hint of gray at the temples, was neatly combed and glistened in the television lights. In contrast to Cotroni, who seemed to shrivel before the commission, Violi seemed to swell beyond his natural size. His testimony was as unhelpful for the commission as Cotroni’s had been but—as with everything else Violi did—he was less subtle than his mentor.
