by Lamothe, Lee
“If the first container arrives, sure, the Customs guy will check,” the informant said. “But if the containers go through all the time, after a couple of months they’ll still check, but not as much. If we imported fruit 10 times, on the 11th time you put in coke and the chances of them checking would be much less.” The informant, Fernandez and others quibbled over what kind of companies to start and were thinking of textile firms, but when arrangements were ready, the informant called Fernandez.
“Okay, man, good news. Our friend says it’s a fruit store,” he told Fernandez. “Yeah, he has mangos to sell and everything.”
“Beautiful,” Fernandez replied. As Fernandez started spending more time in Toronto than he did in Montreal, the informant headed east with him, with his police handlers keeping watch.
In York Region, a suburban area north of Toronto that includes the town of Woodbridge, where several mobsters live hidden amongst the large population of honest Italians, police officers had been busy probing changes in the underworld that came with the Sixth Family’s re-invigorated presence. They had noticed the increasing swagger of Gaetano Panepinto and had started setting up a probe of him and his associates when the casket salesman was murdered. This gave York police the code name for their case, Project R.I.P., for “rest in peace,” a phrase usually reserved for tombstones. Officers running Project R.I.P looked into Panepinto’s old crew—and found Fernandez running the show—at about the same time that officers with Project Calamus were following Fernandez west from Montreal and finding him in Woodbridge. A joint police effort was launched, with Vito and his son Nick the prime targets of one of many strands of investigation that were emerging, according to police.
In 2001, police uncovered an alleged extortion plot involving a Toronto car dealer who owed $500,000 to Frank Martorana, a Montreal luxury car dealer. According to police, Martorana happened to owe a similar amount to a third luxury car dealer, also based in Montreal. Police believe that this third dealer approached Vito about getting his money out of Martorana, who had previous dealings with the Montreal Mafia and boasted a mild criminal past, including a conviction in 1999 when he visited an art gallery, took a liking to the works on the walls and walked off with them. When the Toronto car dealer who was at the end of the debt chain was visiting Montreal, he was greeted by four men: Vito; his son Nick; a member of the Caruana family; and a fourth man who did business with the Rizzutos, according to police. The Toronto car dealer was allegedly told that the debt would now have to be paid—not to Martorana—but to them, which was certainly a more alarming debt to be holding. Police believe the money was soon turned over to a lawyer who had links to Vito, but when the disgusted Toronto car dealer made a remark about contacting the Quebec bar association, which regulates lawyers in the province, the money was returned. Rather than face possible exposure, the Montreal men immediately stepped away from the deal. This was not the way it was supposed to happen; rarely did things turn so sour in Montreal.
In an interview, the Toronto car dealer declined to talk about the matter in any detail, saying the incident was “a personal matter.” He acknowledged that he had met the Rizzutos, Carmelo Caruana, and another man over money but would not discuss it further.
“I made a report to the police,” he said. “That’s behind me now.” And perhaps it is; none of the details was ever made public. It was, however, another sign that Ontario was not playing by the rules of engagement that the Sixth Family had grown comfortable with in Quebec. No charges were ever laid in the matter, and, in fact, when it became clear that neither Vito nor his son would be criminally prosecuted for any alleged involvement in the car dealer’s debt, Montreal’s Project Calamus wrapped up.
Another effort to catch Vito and his family involved in a crime had crumbled. The Project Calamus informant, however, who was by then moving with Fernandez about Toronto, remained in Ontario and continued to work with the Project R.I.P. officers.
TORONTO, MAY 2002
The Montreal police informant had gained the trust of Fernandez, which did not appear to be an easy task. That the informant was not a nervous wreck dealing so closely and precariously with him is a wonder. Almost everyone else was petrified of Fernandez. From outlaw motorcycle gang members to other mobsters, veteran drug traffickers to Eastern European crime figures, a common theme to their conversations was nervousness about upsetting Fernandez. Conversations between tough underworld figures reveal their obsequiousness when speaking with him, their obvious attempts at flattering and their determination to keep him happy.
As Fernandez set about inserting himself in Ontario’s underworld on behalf of the Sixth Family, he had some assistance from an unexpected quarter: members of two police agencies. A municipal police officer and a federal officer seemed to be secretly helping the Sixth Family. One officer tried to track down the name of an informant who was leaking information about Fernandez to police; tipped the mobsters off that a building they used was under secret police surveillance; let them know when search warrants were issued by a judge; and ran a records check for them on the central police computer from his squad car. One of Fernandez’s key associates in Toronto said he had a cousin who was a member of York Regional Police drug squad and another cousin working with the RCMP in Milton, west of Toronto, according to claims made by the mobsters, captured on tape and quietly filed in court.
“They’ve got surveillance set up at Fabulous Fitness,” a close associate of Fernandez told him on December 20, 2001.
“For?” asked Fernandez.
“Well I don’t know. He was assigned to work it and to photograph everybody coming and going outta there,” the associate said. “He doesn’t know why. He was uh, he was assigned to do it and he had to work it last night.”
“Who told you this?” asked Fernandez.
“My little cousin and he works for York Region,” answered the mob associate. “They started it two days ago.”
“Okay then, anyways, just keep your uh, ears open for me, okay?” said Fernandez. The associate also said he had his cellphone checked by his cousin through the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC), the central records database for Canada’s police agencies. When Fernandez suggested that a cellphone might be bugged, his associate said he knew it was clear.
“I have my little cousin run it through CPIC, through his computer,” the associate bragged. “He actually came down with his car just to come fuckin’ talk to me about it.”
On March 7, 2002, the police source passed additional information to the mobsters, information Fernandez needed to ferret out a snitch, according to the conversations. Someone had been telling police about Fernandez’s presence in Ontario in a bid for leniency on charges after he and several friends were arrested.
“I talked to my cousin,” the associate said. “He doesn’t know exactly who it is … but they’re [the police] under the impression that you’re somewhere in the Woodbridge area. … Now, he says he wasn’t one of the arresting officers,” the associate continued, “but there was something that happened about a month ago. … He says there were four people that were picked up on this issue.”
“Yeah?” said Fernandez.
“Now one of them, okay, had said that you were back in town,” he said, adding the snitch was “looking for leverage” on a minor charge.
“Can you get the names?” asked Fernandez.
“He said he’ll get them for me when he’s back on duty.”
“All I need are the names of the people that got stopped,” said Fernandez. “Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“And I’ll take it from there,” Fernandez added ominously.
On April 24, 2002, his underling again had information from his police source: “There were a number of search warrants issued out on that same day,” the associate said to Fernandez. “It’s a huge investigation with Metro, Peel and York Region,” he said. “He says he’s only got a little glimpse of it because he’s on the drug task force. … But on April the
second, he says there were ten search warrants issued out by the same judge all for the same purpose.”
On May 15, 2002, Fernandez called his friend in an uncharacteristic frenzy: “This morning something happened that it really stinks,” began Fernandez. He had spotted undercover surveillance officers but was not sure if they were after him or someone else. “Is there a way that you could find out?”
“Yeah, yeah, there is,” said his associate. “I got another cousin that works for Milton dispatch, RCMP,” he said. “Joe, I will check. … Give me about a half hour, okay?”
The cat-and-mouse game of infiltration—the police into the mob and the mob into the police—was a complicated one.
Also chronicled by the informant and police officers were meetings and conversations between Vito and Fernandez and many friendly personal chats between Fernandez and Frank Campoli, one of the men then involved with OMG. During one such call between Fernandez and Campoli, the OMG executive asked him if he wished to speak with “our buddy.” Campoli then handed the cellphone to Vito, who had a brief chat with Fernandez, according to a recording of the phone call. Fernandez and Campoli also discussed using an OMG truck to move a large load of tiles. Fernandez was also heard claiming that he had some financial involvement with OMG, or would at least profit when the firm was sold to Spanish interests. (His involvement led police investigators to suggest the government try to seize the firm as a proceeds of crime asset. No such move ever materialized.)
Meanwhile, the informant had learned of plans by Fernandez to bring in a large shipment of cocaine and he passed the information on to his police handlers. The officers were trying to nail down exactly when and where it was to land. It was then, in May 2002, that the undercover informant was called in for another meeting with Fernandez.
When the two men had a moment of privacy, Fernandez passed a dirty woolen work sock to the informant, its sides bulging with a large pistol and a handful of bullets inside. Fernandez told him to take the gun and use it to kill Constantin “Big Gus” Alevizos. Big Gus stood six-foot-six and weighed 450 pounds, leaving little wonder as to how he got his nickname. Big Gus had upset Fernandez; a rumor placed him as a likely suspect in the disappearance of a duffel bag of cash from Panepinto’s home after his murder. Fernandez seemed to think the money was rightfully owned by the Sixth Family. The murder contract put police in an awkward situation. If they shut down the investigation, they would lose all hope of tracking the cocaine shipment. If they did not withdraw their informant, he risked being fingered by Fernandez as a rat. And even if the informant had simply declined the murder contract, officers feared Fernandez would have asked another of his minions to pull it off. They could not allow that to happen.
Shortly after the passing of the loaded sock, police shut down Highway 407, a major expressway north of Toronto, while heavily armed police officers stopped a sport-utility vehicle. Fernandez was hiding inside. When he was arrested, police found him in possession of several pieces of false identification and a credit card in the name of Carmine Iacono, the Toronto-area lawyer in whose Miami condominium he had stayed. It was surprising, because Iacono was an active member of the community, having unsuccessfully run as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the Vaughan-King-Aurora riding in the previous provincial election. Iacono declined to comment when asked about his involvement with Fernandez.
Four months later, Project R.I.P. was concluded with raids by police on businesses and homes around Toronto, on Canada’s East Coast, and in New York State. Thirty-two people were arrested, charged variously with dealing in drugs, fraudulent credit cards, stolen goods, weapons offences and violence.
It was as close to the Sixth Family as Project Calamus and Project R.I.P. ever got. The family’s rocky reception in Ontario, however, was not yet over.
MONTREAL, MAY 30, 2002
A blue 2001 Jeep Grand Cherokee with a beige interior was heading west on Maisonneuve Boulevard West in downtown Montreal when the driver was signaled to the side of the road by a police officer. It was 3:45 a.m., and the officer apparently detected signs of impairment, but when he asked the driver to take a breath test, the driver allegedly refused. It was a normal part of patrolling Montreal’s downtown streets. The fact that the driver was Vito Rizzuto, and the Jeep was not his, made this a traffic stop of note.
Vito was placed under arrest and informed of his rights. Half an hour later, lawyer Jean Salois had been roused and informed of his client’s status and, not long after, Vito was released on a promise to appear in court two days later. It must have made any police officer curious as to why a Montrealer as well known as Vito was driving a Jeep with Ontario license plates. After running the plate number, officers found that it was registered to an Ontario company: OMG Media Inc.
It took six months for the connection between Vito and OMG’s Jeep to become public, but when it did, it was a scandalous affair. The head of the City of Toronto’s public works department called for police to investigate possible links between OMG and the Mafia, and city officials in Ottawa and Montreal started reexamining their contracts and asking for legal opinions from city solicitors. OMG officials played down the incident. OMG owned eight vehicles; seven of them were in Ontario and one, the Jeep, was in Quebec. That Jeep had been given to Michael Strizzi, the head of the company’s Quebec division, for company use, said Salvatore Oliveti, president and founder of OMG. It was that Jeep Vito was driving.
“I really think this is all about me being Italian and speaking with a big accent,” Oliveti said. Not everyone agreed. Strizzi said he had lent the Jeep to Vito a month or so earlier. Under intense pressure to distance himself and his company from the controversy, Oliveti accepted Strizzi’s offer to resign.
Vito, however, did not see what the uproar was about. In an uncharacteristic chat with a reporter, he explained why he was behind the wheel of the OMG Jeep.
“OMG Media Inc. does business in Montreal. There’s a friend of mine who works for OMG Quebec, has been working there for four years, five years, I don’t know how long. His name is Michael Strizzi. He’s the designated driver for this truck, and once in a while I go out with him and once in a while he lends me the truck,” Vito said, adding he had been friends with Strizzi for 20 years. “That’s the way it is,” Vito added.
“I don’t know why they’re making a big fuss out of this thing just because I was driving the truck,” he said. “All they got to do is just go see the company and ask them what do I have to do with the company.”
Despite Vito’s nonchalance over the public link between him and OMG, the effect on the company was devastating. A forecast of $8 million in revenue dwindled to $3 million, according to a letter sent from Salvatore Oliveti to officials with a firm that had been in negotiations to purchase half of OMG.
“The events of this past February have caused us severe and possibly irreparable damage,” Oliveti wrote on June 24, 2003, of the public revelation of Vito’s traffic stop. “Now, months after the news coverage that involved people associated with OMG, the true extent of the damage is being realized.” The company was forced “to pursue extensive public relations exercises with city councils,” and still the stigma of organized crime remained. “There are many agencies that simply will not associate with the current OMG ownership,” he wrote to officials with potential investors, Corporacion Americana de Equipamientos Urbanos S.L., of Mexico. “Needless to say, this has affected our relationships with different cities and we have worked very hard to regain their confidence.” Oliveti also feared that the problem could, “at any given time,” become larger. For Lou Gallucci, OMG’s vice-president, the embarrassment was personal.
“OMG’s staff have all suffered terribly as a result of these allegations. My children have been asked if I am involved in the mob. I will not forget the day I returned home and my child asked me what the mob was and whether I was a member. My experience was common to other members of OMG’s staff,” Gallucci wrote in an affidavit.