Family members and other mourners follow the casket of Agostino Cuntrera as it is taken from Notre Dame du Mont Carmel Church in St. Leonard Monday. Cuntrera, 66, and 40-year-old Librorio Sciascia were gunned down June 29 in broad daylight outside Cuntrera's food-distribution business. Cuntrera was said to be shortlisted as a possible leader of the Rizzuto crime family.
‘Cleaning of their own house’. You need two sides to have a war, police say, but only ‘Sicilians have been taken down’
Is the recent turmoil within the Rizzuto organization the result of an internal struggle as opposed to a conflict with another group?
The hypothesis appears to be one of several being looked at as Montreal police continue to probe a growing number of murders related to an organization that controlled the Montreal Mafia for decades but now appears to be on the wane.
In an article penned by Pierre de Champlain in yesterday’s Journal de Montreal, the retired RCMP analyst listed the theory, among four, that “certain members of the Montreal Mafia have decided to do some interior cleaning of their own house.”
He wrote that the possible goal of this would be to reestablish ties to the Bonanno crime family as well as other crime families in New York.
The Bonanno organization considered Montreal to be their branch office when mobsters in this city answered to Vic Cotroni during a period that stretched from the 1950s until his death in 1984. The relationship continued when the Rizzutos took over, but to a lesser degree as they grew more independent.
When asked yesterday to comment on what has happened to the Rizzuto organization in recent months -the
murdersof Nick Rizzuto Jr. and Agostino Cuntrera as well as the abduction in May of Paolo Renda -Montreal police Deputy Chief Jacques Robinette said all theories are being looked at.
But Robinette also emphasized there are no signs that two different groups are at war.
“Nothing is thrown away, everything might be good. Is it the bikers? Is it the Italians? Is it the Calabrians? Is it the Sicilians? Is it street gangs? All information is good,” Robinette said, while appealing to the public for information.
“Please come to us (to help) us try to understand what is happening on the street. Because I read (in the media) that it’s war. But a war between who? The Sicilians vs. the Calabrians? So far it’s only the Sicilians who have been taken down,” he said. The leaders of the Rizzuto organization are of Sicilian origin.
“For now, there is no war. To my knowledge you need two (sides) to have a war. We still don’t understand what is really going on,” Robinette said, adding the Montreal police are getting help from other police forces outside the province, including the United States, as they try to piece together what appears to be a complex puzzle.
“The RCMP, Surete du Quebec, Ontario, the United States -everybody is on the case,” he said.
When asked if the police are looking into the possibility an organization from New York might be involved, he replied: “Everything is on the table. We need to look at every angle, so obviously we (look) to the United States and we (look) to New York.”
Organized crime expert and veteran crime reporter Michel Auger said it is still early to jump to conclusions.
“But I think it is a conflict between generations -young
people who want to get rid of the old. It could be internal, a difference of opinion. There wasn’t an immediate reply to the death of Rizzuto. It shows a weakness,” Auger said.
“The police have a list of hypotheses but nothing in particular.”
Robinette, the person in charge of special investigations and the street gang dossier for the Montreal police, said it appears street gang members were hired to carry out the December murder of Rizzuto, the son of reputed mob boss Vito Rizzuto, who is behind bars in the U.S.
“We’ve never seen that before. We’ve seen bikers using street gangs before. But among the Italians, this is the first time,” he said, adding that whoever wanted to kill Nick Rizzuto didn’t want to “do the dirty work.”
Robinette was able to say he believes the recent rash of arson in Italian cafes involves “something totally different” from what might be behind the murders and Renda’s abduction.
“I think the arsons (involve) street gangs attacking Italian cafes to get their cut (of drug trafficking in northeastern Montreal),” Robinette said.
Several arrests were made recently in connection with the arsons, and the Montreal police consider five of the 18 solved.
“But who did the other 13? I don’t know, but it is an ongoing project,” he said.
” I would like to keep my mouth shut about that.”
