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'Brilliant' operation targets underworld’s upper crust

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It has been almost two years since the likes of Salvatore Cazzetta, Gregory Woolley and Stefano Sollecito were seen in public at the same event, as among about 1,000 mourners at the visitation for Vito Rizzuto, the head of the Mafia in Montreal who had died a week earlier.

With their arrests in a drug-trafficking investigation on Thursday, along with Montreal defence lawyer Loris Cavaliere, Rizzuto’s surviving son, Leonardo Rizzuto, whom police describe as one of his two co-successors, and 43 other people, the police operation has exposed a “perfect” criminal organization that had been assembled since Vito Rizzuto’s passing and that might have made the don proud.

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Among those arrested are members of the Hells Angels, major street gangs and the Mafia, and it recalls the legacy of Vito Rizzuto, who during his reign struck new ground for his organization by forming alliances with outside criminal gangs, says Antonio Nicaso, an expert on organized crime who has written several books on the Mafia and teaches a course on Mafia history and culture at Queen’s University in Kingston.

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“One of his major accomplishments was the creation of the consortium, the strategic alliances between the Mafia, Hells Angels, West End Gang, the Colombian cartels,” he said.

“What this new management was trying to accomplish was a new strategic alliance with the Hells Angels and the street gangs. They were trying to rebuild the same concept introduced by Vito Rizzuto. … They were trying to put together a perfect organization to deal with drug-trafficking or other major sources of income.”

In fact, the pieces were already present at the time of Rizzuto’s death.

Nicaso lauded the police operation, which he said bored through three layers of the illegal drug trade in Montreal: the importation of large quantities of illegal drugs, which is handled by the Mafia, the distribution of the drugs, which is the domain of outlaw biker gangs, and point-of-sale on city streets, which in parts of Montreal is the bailiwick of street gangs.

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“So this was a brilliant operation,” he said of the police. “This operation targeted in a very good and efficient way the (entire) criminal organization. So this should be a case study.”

A fourth and crucial layer in a criminal conspiracy is money-laundering, he said, but it was unclear as of Thursday whether the police operation had attacked that.

However, what is significant is that among those arrested is a lawyer, a profession that represents the juncture between the underworld and the legitimate economy, Nicaso said.

“The Mafia without professionals, without accountants, without lawyers, without businessmen, without politicians, is like coffee without caffeine,” he said.

The police charge that Cavaliere acted as a facilitator and mediator for members of the criminal alliance and allowed his law office in Little Italy to be used for their regular meetings. (Leonardo Rizzuto is also a lawyer.)

“If you want to dismantle a criminal organization, you have to target the upper world and the underworld,” Nicaso said. “You can’t just put in jail alleged members of a criminal organization because they’re replaceable. But if you target the wider circle that helps the Mafia get stronger, then you can accomplish something.”

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The arrest of the lawyer is a coup for the police, organized crime experts say, because lawyers are a difficult group to target in an investigation because of solicitor-client privilege. It’s difficult for police to obtain permission for a wiretap, and lawyers are the one profession exempted from Canada’s money laundering and terrorist financing law.

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the exemption in February, which means that lawyers are not required to report on clients’ suspicious financial transactions to the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or Fintrac.

The Supreme Court ruling said the law provides inadequate protection for confidences that are subject to solicitor-client privilege.

Canada is unlike a lot of countries in excluding lawyers from such provisions, said Margaret Beare, a professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School of York University.

“I think it’s a problem,” she said, adding that she too was surprised to see lawyers among those charged on Thursday. “The very large money-laundering cases will very often have a lawyer involved in it.

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“Lawyers are important to organized crime.”

Meanwhile, pundits and experts are speculating about who may fill the void following Thursday’s arrests.

Just as two years ago, one of the elements may already be staring everyone in the face, Nicaso suggested. One of the largest wreaths at Vito Rizzuto’s funeral was sent by the Hells Angels in Ontario, he said.

“I don’t think we’ll have a super crime family with the same power they used to have,” Nicaso said of the Montreal Mafia. “But a very strong and rising power is the Hells Angels in Ontario and Quebec. And we got the indication that they were strong players and strong allies of the Mafia at the funeral of Vito Rizzuto.”

lgyulai@montrealgazette.com

twitter.com/CityHallReport

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