MAFIA BOSS BRIBED HIS WAY BACK TO CANADA

RCMP Internal Mountie report says mob paid $800,000 to free ailing kingpin

Mafia kingpin 'Nick' Rizzutto was freed from a Venezuelan jail in 1993.

The two men sitting in a downtown Montreal restaurant looked like any other
executives as they chewed mouthfuls of food, sipped their wine and laughed
during what appeared to be a typical business luncheon.

The first was Domenic Tozzi, a globe-trotting member of the Montreal mafia.

The second diner was a man Mr. Tozzi believed was a corrupt manager of a
local currency exchange who, for three years helped him and his associates
launder close to $100 million in cocaine drug money.

Their chatter was intoxicating. The mob gossip they traded during that
April 1 1993, luncheon was wildy tantalizing.

As the meal proceeded at a leisurely pace, Mr. Tozzi shared with his guest
- -- in reality an undercover RCMP officer -- what may be one of the most
well-guarded secrets of one of Canada's leading mafia families.

Mr. Tozzi whispered that the aging patriarch of Montreal's Rizzuto clan,
Nicolo, was freed from a Venezuelan jail in 1993 after $800,000 was
delivered to somebody in the South American country.

Mr. Tozzi proudly described how he personally took $800,000 to Venezuela to
get the ailing former mafia kingpin "Nick" Rizzuto -- then 69 and jailed
there for cocaine offences -- out of a local jail.

Mr. Tozzi's statements about the $800,000 delivery to Venezuela are
contained in a secret internal RCMP investigation report and a sworn
affidavit which Montreal Mounties used to obtain wiretaps during a 1994
police probe.

The Citizen has obtained copies of both documents.

Despite the RCMP having this information, the aging Mr. Rizzuto, once
paroled in Venezuela, was allowed to return to Canada without any difficulty.

When the elder Mr. Rizzuto landed at a Montreal Airport on May 23, 1993, he
was greeted by son Vito Rizzuto -- described in RCMP reports as Canada's
most notorious Sicilian mafia boss -- and more than two dozen friends and
relatives.

The Rizzuto patriarch, who had spent almost five years in jail in
Venezuela, is now 74 and lives with his family in north-end Montreal.

Montreal criminal lawyer Jean Salois, who represents the Rizzuto family,
denied that an $800,000 payment was made to any Venezuelan authorities to
secure freedom for the elderly Mr. Rizzuto.

"Certainly, my clients would never have entrusted Mr. Tozzi with $800,000.
You know, Mr. Tozzi had a very bad reputation in the milieu," Mr. Salois
said. "It makes no sense and it borders on comedy."

The RCMP certainly didn't believe the matter was a joking matter.

In the internal RCMP report, dated April 30, 1993, RCMP Sgt. Marc Lavoie
writes an account of Mr. Tozzi's lunch with coded undercover RCMP officer
identified only as DR-374: "As for Tozzi, he himself brought $800,000 to
Venezuela to get out of jail Nick Rizzuto, the father of Vito."

In the wiretap affidavit dated Jan. 17, 1994, the Mounties again wrote of
the April 1, 1993 lunch: "He (Tozzi) said he himself brought $800,000 to
Venezuela to pay the lawyers of Nick Rizzuto and to fix his (Rizzuto's) case."

Nick Rizzuto and four accomplices were arrested at Mr. Rizzuto's residence
in Venezuela on Feb. 8, 1988.

They were charged with cocaine possession and trafficking after police
found several kilograms of cocaine at the home.

Mr. Salois said Mr. Rizutto was acquitted of all charges at his first
criminal trail. But Venezuelan prosecutors appealed that ruling and later
obtained a conviction against him on one count of cocaine possession.

The elder Rizzuto had fled to Venezuela from Montreal with his wife and two
children in the 1970s after a contract was put out on his life by the late
Ontario mob leader Paolo Violi, who was himself murdered a few years later.

Before the Rizzuto patriarch spent five years in jail, the RCMP says, he
ran a money laundering and cocaine trafficking ring in Venezuela with links
to Sicilian mobsters and cocaine producers in nearby Colombia.

In an interview with the Citizen, Mr. Tozzi denied he ever told the RCMP
officer he took the money to Venezuela to get Mr. Rizzuto out of jail.

Mr. Tozzi said it was another criminal lawyer who was convicted in the drug
money laundering case who delivered the cash to authorities in the South
American country after making a stop in Amsterdam.

Asked if the $800,000 was a bribe, Mr. Tozzi replied: "I think so."

Asked to whom it was paid, Mr. Tozzi replied: "I don't know."

Mr. Tozzi was sentenced to 10 years in jail in March 1996 after he pleaded
guilty to charges that he laundered $27.2 million in drug money and
conspired to import cocaine into Canada for the mob.

He currently lives at home during the day and in a Montreal half-way house
at night as part of his parole conditions.

One thing is clear: Mr. Tozzi did go to Venezuela.

In October, 1993, the RCMP arranged for Canada Customs to search and
interrogate Mr. Tozzi upon his return from a trip to Nigeria.

His passport bore stamps indicating he had not only travelled to Venezuela
several times, but he had also visited Luxembourg, Italy, the United
States, Thailand, Costa Rica and Switzerland between 1990 and 1993.

The RCMP sought details from the government of Venezuela about the
circumstances surrounding Nick Rizzuto's parole, but nothing ever happened
as a result, according to Sgt. Yvon Gagnon, the Mountie who oversaw the
police operation in Montreal which was told about of a $800,000 payment.

"I think Mr. Tozzi probably brought the money there. Whom it went to and
why, we'll never know," Sgt. Gagnon told the Citizen.

One of Mr. Tozzi's associates, Joe Lagana, a convicted money launderer and
former lawyer, once told an undercover RCMP officer from the same team of
police officers that if Mr. Tozzi were arrested, many mobsters would be
jailed.

He knew a lot and talked so much, he risked finding himself at the bottom
of the St. Lawrence River in a sleeping bag, Mr. Lagana said.

Copyright 1998 The Ottawa Citizen

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski