Profile: Salvatore Montagna

MONTREAL – Salvatore Montagna did not return to his birthplace quietly.

The
40-year-old reputed Mafioso, who was found dead Thursday on a small
island near Repentigny, was deported by the United States in 2009. As a
dual citizen of Canada, where he was born, and Italy, where he was
raised in Sicily, he chose to return to the city he was born in. Police
sources have speculated for months that Montagna, who was married and
the father of three daughters, chose to return to Montreal with the goal
of filling a void in the Mafia created by a series of arrests that were
followed by kidnappings and murders.

After keeping a relatively
low profile for a while – some local organized crime investigators had
no idea who Montagna was in 2009 – he appeared to become more active in
2011.

A police source told The Gazette on Thursday that Montagna
was suspected of shaking down several Montreal-area construction
companies for five per cent of their profits, something he allegedly did
in New York during a short stint as the head of the Bonanno crime
family before his deportation to Canada.

He was known among his fellow associates in the Bonanno family as “Sal the Ironworker” because of his work in the field.

He owned a company based in Brooklyn, N.Y., called Matrix Steel Inc.

His
return to Montreal made headlines in 2009 and left police wondering how
he would react to what transpired within the Rizzuto clan following
2006’s Project Colisée, an investigation into the leadership of the
Mafia in Montreal and its associates.

Nicolo (Zio Cola) Rizzuto,
the octogenarian leader of the organization, was convicted in Colisée
but was sentenced to time served in 2008. He was killed on Nov. 10,
2010, while his son, Vito, was serving a 10-year sentence in the U.S.
The sentence ends in less than a year.

Another leader in the organization, Paolo Renda, was kidnapped after serving a short prison term for his conviction in Colisée.

In
recent months, police have theorized that Montagna – along with Raynald
Desjardins and Joseph (Jos) Di Maulo, a man reputed to have ties to the
Mafia that date back decades – tried to create a consensus over who
should lead the Mafia in Montreal.

“Looks like it didn’t work,” said one police investigator on Thursday.

An
attempt was also made on Desjardins’s life in Laval in September, but
he escaped uninjured. Desjardins, 58, was once a very close associate of
the Rizzuto clan before he was sentenced to 15 years in 1994 for
plotting to smuggle large quantities of cocaine into Canada with the
Hells Angels.

Montagna was shot shortly after 10 a.m. Thursday and
was found on the shore of Île Vaudry, just south of the municipality of
Charlemagne and next to Repentigny.

The case was quickly turned over to the Sûreté du Québec.

“The
Repentigny police were called at 10:08 a.m. after someone reported
hearing gunfire. A witness said they saw a man jump in the water, the
Assomption River, after hearing at least one shot,” said Sûreté du
Québec Sgt. Benoît Richard. “When the police arrived on the scene they
found a man next to the river. They immediately started doing CPR and
asked for (an ambulance) to be called to the scene. The man was
transported to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.”

Because it is a suspicious death, the Repentigny police have asked the Sûreté du Québec to take over the investigation.”

Richard
said investigators secured two potential crime scenes; one on the shore
of Île Vaudry and the other across the river in the municipality of
Charlemagne.

It appeared that Montagna was shot in Charlemagne and
then crossed the narrow frigid river to Île Vaudry in a desperate
attempt to elude the shooter. Richard said Thursday it was too early to
say if that is indeed what happened.

Richard said the victim is believed to be a 40-year-old man but could not confirm the identity.

He said the victim’s family had yet to be informed of the death and that a coroner had not officially identified the body.

Montagna
was the short-lived head of the Bonanno crime family in New York until
he was deported. A widespread investigation of the Bonanno family led
the FBI to make several arrests in New York in 2004. The probe decimated
the leadership of the Bonanno family in the U.S. and saw Vito Rizzuto
arrested in Montreal and charged in New York in a racketeering case
involving the 1981 murders of three mafia captains in Brooklyn.

Joseph
Massino, who was the head of the Bonanno family when he was arrested in
2004, eventually turned informant on his successor, Vincent (Vinny
Gorgeous) Basciano. U.S. authorities later alleged, during deportation
proceedings, that Montagna replaced Basciano, despite his young age.

Montagna
was deported when U.S. immigration officials realized he had a criminal
record, a contempt of court conviction in 2003, and was not a U.S.
citizen. Born in Montreal in 1971, Montagna was raised in Sicily and
moved to the U.S. as a teenager.