LETTER FROM MONTREAL
The small street is lined with luxurious mansions whose swimming pools are hidden from view. At the end of the gardens flows the Rivière des Prairies, which borders the island of Montreal to the north; nearby, the tall trees of the Bois-de-Saraguay keep the residents cool in summer. It's a chic, peaceful suburban street, like thousands of others in the Quebec metropolis, with a few distinctive features. In the 2010s, the English-language Canadian newspaper National Post dubbed Avenue Berthelet "the mafia street."
It was common knowledge at the time that, of the dozen or so houses on the avenue, all belonged to the family or close friends of Vito Rizzuto, considered the godfather of the Montreal mafia. Life in the neighborhood was far from peaceful, and within a few years it was decimated. Vito's brother-in-law, Paolo Renda, considered to be one of his closest lieutenants, was kidnapped on the street in 2010 and has never resurfaced. His father, Nicolo senior, was shot dead by a gunman in his garden in front of his wife, and his own son, Nicolo junior, was murdered in 2009 a few kilometers from his home.
These settlings of scores marked the beginning of the end for the Rizzuto family: while the patriarch derived his influence from his ability to organize the entire Quebec underworld like a small business, from street gangs to Hell's Angels (bikers) to old Italian families, his six-year imprisonment (2006-2012) in an American prison for a triple murder committed in the 1980s plunged the underworld into indescribable chaos.
The who's who of Montreal's mafiosi is now the subject of almost daily news coverage in the province's media, largely fueled by the bloody incidents perpetrated by these criminals. On November 17, Gregory Woolley, a gang leader close to the "Sicilians" clan, referring to the Rizzuto family from Cattolica Eraclea in the Agrigento region, was shot dead in his car south of Montreal. On June 6, Francesco Del Balso was also shot dead outside his sports club,the 12th underworld murder of the year. He was suspected of masterminding the murder of 53-year-old Leonardo Rizzuto in March.
A lawyer by profession, the heir to the Rizzuto clan since the patriarch's death in 2013 eventually survived. Claudia Iacono, 39, daughter-in-law of a notorious mafioso, was not so lucky; she died a few weeks later, shot at point-blank range in her car, again in a Montreal neighborhood.
This bloody Monopoly in the heart of the city can be explained by the fact that for decades, Montreal has been one of the strongholds of criminal organizations in North America. Its port made it a prime location for heroin trafficking during the "French Connection" of the 1960s. Gangsters from Marseille and mafia families from the United States and Quebec, then dominated by the Calabrians, organized a lucrative trade between Marseille, Montreal and New York. This era had its share of incredible episodes, as recalled in the podcast "French Connection: Marseille, Montréal, New York" by Stéphane Berthomet, co-produced with Radio Canada, and broadcast on France Culture in 2021: it was in the sound systems of certain famous French-speaking stars on tour in Quebec, such as Johnny Hallyday, Charles Aznavour and Jacques Brel, that the drugs were transported, without their knowledge.
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