The Rizzuto Organized Crime Family Raises Concerns for Law...

The presence of the Rizzuto crime family in Quebec has, and continues to, raise a number of concerns for law enforcement personnel in Quebec. In fact, the Rizzuto’s serve as a microcosm for many of the larger issues which arise for police agencies in combating organized crime in Canada and abroad. The primary challenge for law enforcement is infiltrating the mafia as it is virtually impossible without prior associations. As of yet, no Canadian police agent has been able to conduct undercover work of major organized crime groups in Canada to the same level of success as the FBI in the United States. As a result, it is challenging to know how criminal organizations operate, who they are connected with, and where their proceeds of crime are stored. Due this this major issue, one of the only other options to gather the intelligence necessary to prosecute the Rizzuto clan and their associates was to conduct surveillance. However, this too poses many challenges as opportunities rarely present themselves to accommodate covert police investigations. Indeed, this was only accomplished rather fortuitously when it became known that there was a brief period in which no mob security was present at a club frequented by the Rizzuto’s which allowed a combined task force of the RCMP, Quebec Provincial Police, and the Montreal Police Service to install surveillance equipment allowing them to listen in on mob conversations in order to gather the evidence needed to prove beyond a reasonable