Here is another article that Police are speculating Arcadi may be the runner up for replacing Vito as boss and it mentions Del Balso as well as a higher up Lt. This chart is hard to do, I agree so many speculations and possibilities and yes Desjardins is only a associate. Nobody really knows 100% the structure exactly.





Mob takes a hit

February 15, 2009 by The Boss · Leave a Comment

The Mafia can no longer feel comfortable in Montreal, police say after completing a massive operation that targeted the alleged heads of the criminal organization.

Among the 90 people arrested or sought on warrants yesterday morning was Nicolo (Nick) Rizzuto, 82, father of Vito Rizzuto, 60, the reputed head of the Mafia in Montreal.

Another alleged Mafia leader arrested was Paolo Renda, 65, Vito Rizzuto’s brother-in-law.

The organization is alleged to have infiltrated Trudeau airport to import cocaine.

When Nicolo Rizzuto was escorted to RCMP headquarters, he was wearing a fedora and smiled at photographers and television cameras.

More than 700 police officers took part in the investigation, dubbed Project Colisee. As of yesterday evening, 73 people had been arrested, including one person in Toronto and another in Halifax.

By 9:30 last night, 37 people had been arraigned. Most were refused bail and were detained in Bordeaux jail. They are to return to court Monday for bail hearings. Others were released on $1,000 bail and such conditions as surrendering their passports, not communicating with their co-accused and not possessing any weapons.

The rest were also held at Bordeaux jail and are to be arraigned today.

Canada, and more specifically Montreal, has long been criticized as harbouring Mafia figures who operate on an international level with seeming impunity. Those days are over, RCMP Superintendent Richard Guay said yesterday.

“Thanks to our investigators, we have penetrated the heart of this organization,” he said.

“The techniques we were able to use as part of the investigation let us gather evidence in places where this criminal organization felt free to talk and act on their criminal activities.”

Project Colisee “surpassed all expectations,” Guay added.

“We were able to pierce through this group of criminals where they felt safe.”

Francesco Arcadi, 53, was arrested at a country cottage early yesterday. Handcuffed and sporting a camouflage jacket, he was led into RCMP headquarters in Westmount.

Police sources have been saying Arcadi was one of a few men favoured to eventually replace Vito Rizzuto – extradited to the United States this year to face racketeering charges – as head of the Montreal Mafia.

Renda, Arcadi, Nicolo Rizzuto and three other men are considered the key players targeted in Project Colisee.

They are described by the RCMP as being part of a criminal organization whose primary activities are the smuggling and exportation of drugs, as well as bookmaking and extortion.

The charges filed at the Montreal courthouse allege the men took part in criminal conspiracies that spanned several countries, including Colombia, Jamaica, Mexico and Haiti.

“We think it is a very serious blow to Italian organized crime,” RCMP Cpl. Luc Bessette said.

“The work of the RCMP in Quebec specializes in targeting all the members of an organization. We target the problems and not the symptoms,” Bessette said.

The operation was one of the “most significant” in the history of organized crime in Canada, Bessette said later.

Also targeted were two agents with the Canada Border Services Agency and about 10 employees of airline and food-service companies based at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval.

Bessette said those people are suspected of helping the Mafia smuggle cocaine into Canada through the airport.

Some of the people rounded up yesterday face charges of bribing the two customs agents.

Marilyn Beliveau, 27, of Montreal, and Nancy Cedeno, 32, of Laval, face charges alleging they accepted bribes while working for the Border Services Agency.

One of the women is in custody and the other is at large, authorities said yesterday, but they did not elaborate.

Neither woman works for the customs agency anymore, Border Services spokesperson Amelie Morin said yesterday.

The RCMP yesterday arrested one female agent employed at Trudeau airport.

An arrest warrant is out for the other female agent, who worked at one of the agency’s offices in Montreal.

“Obviously, these two individuals no longer exercise their functions” with Border Services, Morin said.

“These are rare cases and, of course, it’s a very serious matter for us,” she said. “We do have 7,200 Border Services officers across Canada who perform their job with integrity and professionalism.”

Of the 1,843 customs agents employed in Quebec, 306 work at Trudeau airport. Details about the two agents are to be provided at an RCMP news conference today at 2 p.m., Morin said.

The police investigation also targeted another criminal organization that was smuggling marijuana into the United States through the Akwesasne reserve, which straddles Quebec, Ontario and New York state.

“Speaking geographically, it is very difficult to manage that area” against criminal organizations, Bessette said.

The investigation was headed by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit – led by the RCMP and composed of investigators from various police forces – which specifically targets organized crime. The Surete du Quebec, Montreal police and Laval police took part carrying out search and arrest warrants yesterday.

“Partnership is essential in this type of operation. We can’t do investigations like this without partners,” Bessette said.

Guy Ouellette, a retired Surete du Quebec investigator and an expert on biker gangs, compared yesterday’s roundup with one that shut down the Hells Angels’ Nomads chapter five years ago.

“It is as important as Operation Springtime 2001,” he said.

“They have arrested the heads of the Mafia (in Montreal), the decision makers.

“It is important because it is like shutting down the head office, much like the Hells Angels’ head office in Montreal was shut down in 2001.”

pcherry@thegazette.canwest.com

Drugs, arson, gambling, conspiracy, assault on kingpins’ game cards

Nicolo Rizzuto

Vito Rizzuto’s 82-year-old father first came to public attention during a 1975 provincial inquiry into organized crime. Rizzuto, who was born in Sicily, was alleged to have controlled a number of men of Sicilian origin who operated as a branch of the Cotroni family in Montreal.

The book The Sixth Family: The Collapse of the New York Mafia and the Rise of Vito Rizzuto portrays Nicolo Rizzuto as a cunning underworld figure who orchestrated the takeover of the Cotroni family.

Before yesterday’s arrest, the elder Rizzuto appeared to be immune to police investigations in Canada. But he did serve five years in prison in Venezuela between 1988 and 1993 after being convicted of cocaine possession. An undercover RCMP officer was later informed that Rizzuto was paroled early after an associate of the family delivered an $800,000 bribe to Venezuela.

Paolo Renda

Vito Rizzuto’s 65-year-old brother-in-law was his partner in a number of legitimate business interests for several years.

Renda’s only previous conviction came in 1972. He and Rizzuto were arrested in May 1968, after they set fire to Renda’s barber shop at a strip mall in Boucherville, apparently for insurance money. The arsonists ended up setting fire to themselves and firefighters found Renda and Rizzuto rolling around in the dirt trying to put out the flames.

Renda was a suspect in the January 1978 murder of Paolo Violi, the head of the Cotroni family. The murder is believed to be the turning point in the struggle between the Cotroni and Rizzuto families. Renda was named in a February 1978 arrest warrant in connection with the murder, but it was withdrawn seven months later. Other Rizzuto associates were convicted of the slaying.

Francesco Arcadi

Some police sources have speculated that the 53-year-old former Cotroni associate was a possible candidate to replace Vito Rizzuto as the reputed head of the Mafia in Montreal. This despite having only one conviction under his belt, for running an illegal gaming house.

Arcadi is mentioned often in an intelligence report the Montreal police filed in court a few years ago.

Police conducting surveillance often spotted Arcadi at Vito Rizzuto’s side while he attended weddings and funerals. Arcadi’s name also appears often among the charges filed yesterday in connection with Project Colisee. He is charged in some and named as a co-conspirator in others. That includes one charge that alleges some of the people arrested were involved in a bookmaking operation that extended from the Montreal area to the United States and Belize.

Rocco Sollecito

The 58-year-old was once linked to Vito Rizzuto through a stock exchange scam that eventually landed the reputed head of the Montreal Mafia in hot water with Revenue Canada.

Sollecito is also mentioned often in the Montreal police intelligence report on Rizzuto.

Police surveillance teams noted that he, Rizzuto and a few other suspected Montreal mobsters had travelled to Toronto together in 2000 to attend the funeral of a mob enforcer who was murdered.

His criminal record in Quebec

involves only minor run-ins with Revenue Quebec and Revenue Canada.

Lorenzo Giordano

The 43-year-old is described by police sources as an aggressive lieutenant in the Rizzuto organization.

Giordano was arrested and questioned this year as a suspect in the November 2005 assault on John Xanthoudakis, the chief executive officer of Norshield Financial Group. Montreal police suspected Giordano was attempting to collect money for people who lost funds in the money-management firm’s collapse.

Giordano was never charged in the incident, but he is currently accused of using a firearm to make Swiss cheese out of a car that was parked in front of the Cavilli restaurant on Peel St. on Aug. 23.

Besides being named in many of the criminal conspiracy charges filed yesterday, Giordano is accused of attempting to murder a man in Montreal on April 18, 2004.

Francesco Del Balso

The 36-year-old Laval resident was, like Giordano, arrested and questioned this year in connection with the 2005 assault on Xanthoudakis, but was not charged.

Del Balso’s home in Laval is the subject of a seizure order as the suspected proceeds of crime.

In 2001, he pleaded guilty to assault with a weapon and was sentenced to two years’ probation and ordered to do community service.

In 1992, he was charged in connection with an arson fire but was eventually cleared.

Despite his relatively young age, Del Balso was described as a key figure among the people arrested yesterday. He is charged with being part of the same criminal conspiracies as Nicolo Rizzuto.

canada.com/windsorstar/story.html?id=eecea7d4-54ca-4c44-9f6a-0c14876441b6