MAN: Shake this Square World and blast off for Kicksville.
NIXON: America's public enemy number one is drug abuse.
NANCY: Just say no.
MAN: The Mafia is a major player in the international drug underworld.
MAN 2: At the end of the day, it's all about the dollar.
It's all about the dollar.
REAGAN: American people want the Mob,
and its associates brought to justice,
and their power broken.
HARRIS: There's now an understanding that the war on drugs was an abject failure.
MAN 3: You have to stop and ask yourself, how did we get here?
(thunder)
(wind)
(helicopter rotors)
JOHN: You have to be pretty top‐notch in your profession,
just to survive it all.
You get heavy turbulence.
You gotta slow the aircraft down because you could have structural failure.
Like, losing a wing wouldn't be much fun.
A North Atlantic storm in November,
it's a pretty impressive event, to put it mildly.
My name is John Raymond Boulanger.
I'm what you would call a mercenary pilot.
I fly for hire, to he who pays the most.
I had 4,343 kilos of cocaine,
and I was flying from Colombia,
directly to Canada.
Normally the flight would be about nine hours, give or take.
But I ran into the storm, for about 45 minutes or an hour, before I broke out.
And, low and behold, there were the F‐18s.
Then they were off to my rear.
And the other guy came up close beside us, and flying around me,
making signals to go down.
And I just waved to him.
They can't shoot at you.
But they were running out of gas.
We were just timing it and say, okay, how long is it gonna be before
they're gonna run out?
It was interesting. He gave us a nice little show.
I went down to treetop level.
I flew the rest of the way treetop level.
Below radar, so nobody knew where the airplane was.
The authorities put out an alert, to all the airports.
There's a big white Convair,
somewhere in Canada,
if anybody saw it to report it.
I should have arrived around 6:00 in the morning,
but I arrived at quarter to nine, instead.
I was standing out on the runway,
waiting for the crew hired to go and do the pick‐up.
I looked all over the place,
couldn't figure out where the hell these guys were.
Turns out they had been there since 3 in the morning.
At around 7:30, they decided I wasn't coming,
and they left!
So, anyway, I started walking.
And a truck went by.
I hitch‐hiked.
And he gave me a lift all the way down to the lumber camp,
and that's where I was when the RCMP arrived by helicopter,
'cause the Police had blocked off all the roads.
So they asked, "What's in the airplane?"
I said, "Cocaine."
And he says, "How much?"
I says, "A lot!"
ANCHOR: It's being touted as the biggest drug bust in Canadian history,
and probably the most dramatic.
CHRIS: The seizure of 4,300 kilos of cocaine really reverberated through DEA.
That's a staggering amount of cocaine,
coupled with the fact that it was flown directly
from the North Coast of Colombia, into Canada.
JOHN: I would have made around 45 million.
It's a pretty good payday.
For one day's work, that's not bad.
I was arrested.
Pled guilty and got 23 years.
And that was it and became famous.
But I take things with a grain of salt.
It was and I believe it still is,
the biggest bust ever in Canada.
CHRIS: We were just wondering, who could be behind this?
JOHN: Everybody knows who it is,
but I don't technically wanna say their names,
but they know.
PIETRO: Don't get me wrong, these people are killers.
But he was always a gentleman, very charismatic.
Everywhere he went, he showed respect.
VITO: Best lawyer in the country, over here.
ANTONIO: Nick Rizzuto was very ambitious.
He came from a major crime family in Sicily.
Nick talked it up that he belonged to the kind of, the aristocracy of the Mafia.
But when he came to Canada,
he realized there was a well‐established criminal
organization in power.
PIETRO: Anybody that lived in Canada would tell you,
I wanna go to Montréal and enjoy myself,
because of all the nightclubs.
The downtown core of a two‐kilometer radius,
we had 480 licensed alcohol establishments.
And, for the great part, they were controlled by the Cotroni family.
The gambling, the loan sharking,
protection, if you had a business you had to
buy their cheese, you had to buy their ice‐cream.
They controlled everything.
ANTONIO: Vic Cotroni came from Calabria.
Nick Rizzuto came from Sicily.
And there was bad blood between them, since the beginning.
They never like one another.
Nick Rizzuto found himself among powerful men,
and he tried to find an area of operation.
NICK: Rizzuto's organization had three main
profile‐driven schemes:
drugs, particularly heroin,
money laundering, and public construction contracts.
Nick Rizzuto Senior's intentions were to create profits that would endure,
not only his lifetime,
but the lifetime of his grandchildren.
PIETRO: There was gonna be violence.
There was gonna be a turf war.
He knew that was coming.
(gunshots)
♪ ♪
ANTONIO: Nick Rizzuto, with his family,
left the Canada and moved to Venezuela,
because he fear for his life.
He had to run.
PIETRO: Rizzuto had a lot of connections in Venezuela.
He had family there.
And he used that family to really strive and gain power.
ANTONIO: Venezuela, at that time,
was a place where the Mafia was well‐established,
and they were able to infiltrate institution,
banks, to corrupt the politicians,
because they willing to accept their money.
It was the perfect place to establish a criminal enterprise.
Because they were very close to Colombia,
and very close to drug traffickers there.
NICK: Cocaine was emerging as a popular drug of choice in North America.
JOHN: Cocaine pretty well displaced the heroin market, the beginning of the 80s.
PIETRO: Heroin was for addicts, junkies,
whereas cocaine was part of having a glass of wine,
everybody would consume.
There was cocaine all over the place.
JOHN: Once it started getting popularized,
with the disco culture and all that sort of stuff,
then it went skyrocket.
NICK: Nick Rizzuto saw the opportunity to create millions of dollars
from cocaine.
CHRIS: The Cali Cartel got their start in the early 1970s,
by sending smaller quantities of cocaine into the United States.
And they were slowly able to evolve into bringing in larger quantities.
They were able to really present themselves as businessmen.
CHRIS: So they wore suits.
They socialized with the upper society, the elites.
CHRIS: Drugs would leave Colombia, go into Venezuela, depart Venezuela,
and go into Canada.
CHRIS: Cocaine was coming in camouflaged, in anything that you could think of:
seafood, fish, shrimp, coffee.
REPORTER: Agents find more than seven tons of cocaine, hidden in broccoli boxes.
CHRIS: These kind of shipments and these methods were extremely effective for
bringing drugs into the United States.
PIETRO: Nick Rizzuto groomed his son, Vito, very well.
And, today, we don't see mobsters of that caliber, of that personality.
He was a tall man, with a deep voice,
and he spoke four languages fluently.
ANTONIO: For Vito Rizzuto, the son of Nick,
was the baptism of fire.
♪ ♪
PISTONE: My name is Joseph Pistone, Special Agent in the FBI.
I was undercover for six years, in the Bonanno crime family,
and my undercover name was Donnie Brasco.
During this operation, I found out that the Mafia crew, up in Montréal,
were considered a faction of the Bonanno Mafia family.
They had their own boss, and everything, but they were
loyal to the Bonanno family, in New York City.
PISTONE: There was a lot of friction within the Bonanno family.
There were three capos that were not loyal to the boss, who was in jail.
They wanted to take over the family.
So they called a sit‐down, which is a meeting, and the plan was,
when the three opposition capos got to the meeting, they would kill them.
One of the guys they brought in for the hit was Vito Rizzuto, from Montréal.
When the three capos walked in, the guys were hiding in a closet,
and these guys jumped out, and Vito Rizzuto yelled,
"This is a stick‐up."
(gunshots)
Hitting three capos,
at one time, is a big deal within the Mafia.
To Vito Rizzuto, it was a feather in his cap,
to solidify his place in the family.
REPORTER: Two shotgun blasts, at close range.
Paolo Violi dead, in his own Montréal coffee bar.
Violi's death was part of a gang war, that has not yet ended.
REPORTER 2: The hotel killers wore masks and used submachine guns.
Police say they knew exactly who they were after.
They shot three men in the bar and a fourth outside.
PRODUCER: Okay good, we are good to go.
We're rolling on this end.
♪ ♪
REPORTER: The self‐confessed hitman told the court he saw Montréal mobster,
Frank Cotroni as a father figure.
When asked why he killed for Cotroni, Simard answered,
"I wanted to be part of the family.
I wanted to treat him with respect."
PIETRO: Real Simard brought down the Cotroni family.
He brought down the Cotroni family.
NICK: Vito was to be the godfather, le parrain, of Montréal.
PIETRO: The legitimate economy was booming, and so was organized crime.
The Rizzutos came along with the cocaine.
That was the new product. That was the new thing.
NICK: The Rizzuto crime family did not have the will to distribute,
because they wanted to remain anonymous, and to avoid detection from the different
law enforcement agencies in Canada.
They had to develop a relationship with those that had the capacity,
and the manpower, to distribute on the street.
Thereby you see a relationship developing between the Rizzuto crime family and the outlaw
motorcycle gangs.
CHRIS: Thousands of kilos were coming into Canada,
that were being distributed by the Rizzutos,
was going to the Hells Angels,
the West End Gang, other street gangs.
ANTONIO: He succeed by creating the strategic alliances between the Mafia,
the Colombian cartels, the street gangs, the Hells Angels.
PIETRO: He was a visionary.
He had the talent of getting people together.
REPORTER: Drugs and money, they go hand in hand.
Cocaine and marijuana sales generate so much money that
smugglers literally have no place to put it all.
PIETRO: In order to combat organized crime and money laundering,
you gotta follow the money,
not the individual, not the product...
Follow the money.
ANTONIO: At one point, Colombians want to be paid in American Dollars.
And so, Vito Rizzuto had this major issue,
to convert Canadian Dollars
in American Dollars.
PIETRO: The RCMP and Montreal Police opened up an exchange bureau, a money exchange.
Like, in every major city in the world, you would change your currency.
It wasn't phony, it was a real exchange bureau,
with real employees, right smack downtown Montreal.
And the service was excellent, and they were acting like Western Union,
that everybody knows today.
But it's a sting operation.
Wise guys would bring in their money to exchange from Canadian to American,
and then wire it to Venezuela, Peru, or Colombia, for the purchase of narcotics.
It was fantastic.
All the serial numbers were noted, of every bill.
It was a brilliant undercover operation.
Brilliant.
REPORTER: More than 40 suspects were rounded up yesterday,
during a massive sweep by the RCMP.
Security at the Montréal Courthouse was particularly tight,
as the accused were arraigned on more than 500 charges.
CHRIS: Sabatino Nicolucci was an important conduit for
the Rizzuto crime family,
with the Cali Cartel.
He had contact with the Cali Cartel,
and was able to coordinate a lot of drug shipments,
from Colombia into Canada, for the Rizzutos.
And Sabatino Nicolucci laundered in excess of $30 million,
through this undercover currency exchange house.
He was wanted on over 400 counts of drug trafficking,
and money laundering.
Nicolucci had done loads, on behalf of Vito Rizzuto,
in Montreal.
We deployed to Cali, and set up surveillance on the apartment complex that
we had identified through the telephone tone analysis.
We made a phone call into the residence, 'cause we had the number.
(ringing)
And, a few minutes later, we did a raid on the apartment.
And Sabatino Nicolucci was arrested.
This was definitely a significant arrest,
because of the overall player that he was.
REPORTER: The RCMP says the operation had dealt a major blow to organized crime.
Rizzuto's name appears on this court document,
of people allegedly involved in the money laundering.
REPORTER 2: He's been called Canada's Teflon Don.
In the 80s, the man the RCMP calls The Godfather of the Montreal Mafia,
dodged the bullet on drug trafficking charges.
VITO: Best lawyer in the country, over here.
PIETRO: Vito Rizzuto was never directly involved with it.
He was never charged.
His associates were.
He never directly put his hands in the cookie jar.
He always had somebody else do it for him.
He had a art of delegating.
He should have given management courses, in university.
The Rizzutos make a lot of money,
and they reinvest it back into gaming,
internet gambling, finance companies, construction.
So, basically, they became parallel banks.
And, slowly, they're getting away from it,
because with cocaine you do a lot of time.
The moneymaker was the drugs.
But Vito wanted his kids to go straight, go legitimate.
NICK: Vito Rizzuto's most important legacy he wanted to
leave behind was the fact that his children had not
adopted the lifestyle that he had for himself.
CHRIS: If you give law enforcement enough time,
they will be able to take down any criminal organization.
♪ ♪
REPORTER: Killings, that took place more than 20 years ago.
The victims, three members of the notorious Bonanno crime family.
They were shot dead in a New York city social club, in 1981,
during a bloody internal war.
PISTONE: Cases like that never go away.
And eventually somebody's gonna get arrested,
somebody's gonna talk.
It took over 20 years to solve the case,
but at the time of the hits of the three capos,
Joey Massino was one of the main players in the killing.
And then, from this hit,
Joey Massino becomes a boss of the Bonanno family,
and then Vito becomes boss up in Montreal.
He didn't wanna die in an electric chair.
When Joey turns, he actually testifies against Vito.
His information is that Vito was in on the hit, and he was one of the shooters.
So, it gave the Government enough ammunition,
and enough evidence, to indict Vito.
PIETRO: It was the 20th of January, it was a cold day.
We went at his house with Nick Milano,
at six in the morning.
It was all coordinated with the United States, also.
NICK: Pietro and I arrived at the door.
We were welcomed by his wife.
Upon entering, Mr. Rizzuto was at the top of the stairway.
PIETRO: Actually, the first thing he says,
he asks his wife to "make me a coffee."
I knew Vito.
And he says, "Pietro, what are you here for?"
I said, "I have a warrant to execute."
NICK: We stepped into the parlor,
and I informed him that I was arresting him,
with regards to the triple murders conducted in New York.
PIETRO: He didn't really take it seriously, in the sense that he says,
"My lawyer is working on that."
He was wearing his jeans and, I guess, when I'm nervous
I tend to joke around more than anything else,
so I asked him,
"Mr. Rizzuto, it's a big arrest for me, could you put a suit on?"
You know, and he did.
(sirens)
REPORTER: Today, Vito Rizzuto's luck finally ran out,
in a Brooklyn courtroom.
Rizzuto was sentenced to ten years, for his role in a brutal,
triple murder, in New York, 26 years ago.
ANTONIO: Nick and Vito were in power for at least 25 years.
One of the longest reign in the history of the Mafia,
in North America.
Vito Rizzuto was able to build a criminal enterprise
worth billions of dollars.
When he was in a prison in the United States,
that was the most difficult ten years of his life,
because old enemies and new enemies get together and start to kill the people
very close to Rizzuto.
REPORTER: Nick Rizzuto Senior, the 86‐year‐old head of Canada's most
famous Mafia family,
has been shot and killed in his own home.
REPORTER 2: His shooting, in his home last week,
comes less than a year after grandson,
Nick Junior, was gunned down in public.
PIETRO: He lost his father while he was in jail, and then his son.
That devastated him.
His closest allies actually turned on him.
And he never thought that he had so many people that would back‐stab him.
I saw him when he came out of jail, and he was totally a different person.
Totally a different person.
NICK: Vito Rizzuto's claim to fame, if you will,
his strength, had always been negotiation.
ANTONIO: Vito Rizzuto pioneered the way criminal organization should
work and operate.
The idea of building the strategic alliance to conquer new markets.
Today, the 'Ndrangheta is the most globalized Mafia.
They operate in almost five continents,
and they use the same system of Vito Rizzuto.
PIETRO: You can control it,
but we'll never eliminate organized crime...
Never.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.