Mob associate gunned down in Montreal 

By Daniel Renaud ,QMI Agency

 

MONTREAL - The killings and score-settlings that have rocked Montreal's mafia for two years continued Monday night with the shooting death of mob associate Lorenzo "Larry" Lopresti.
He was killed in the city's north end, nearly 19 years after the body of his father Joe was found in a Montreal alley, wrapped in a sheet with a bullet in his head.
Several residents of an apartment building called 911 on Monday evening after shots rang out.
"When police arrived, they discovered the 40-year-old man who had been hit with at least one gunshot," said Montreal police spokesman Daniel Lacoursiere.
The killer or killers were still at large as of Tuesday.
Lorenzo's father, assassinated in 1992, was involved in what was known as the Pizza Connection. The name referred to a heroin route between New York and Montreal and the sale of the drug in pizzerias.
Joe Lopresti was a close friend of the Rizzuto clan that sat atop Canada's mafia hierarchy for 30 years before recent murders and kidnappings depleted the family.
Lorenzo had distanced himself from the Rizzutos following his father's death but remained close to one of their main allies, Antonio "Tony Suzuki" Pietrantonio.
Police say Lopresti was Pietrantonio's right-hand man and that the two had financial ties to parking lots in downtown Montreal.
Lopresti laid one of the biggest wreaths at the 2009 funeral of Rizzuto associate Federico Del Peschio, who was gunned down in front of his restaurant.
The murder of Lopresti might have been connected to a turf war over the heroin trade, a source told QMI Agency.
He was also known to be an enemy of the Calabrian mafia clan that is believed responsible for the Rizzuto purge.
Recent mafia-related assassinations:
August 2009: Convicted drug trafficker Federico del Peschio, 59, a former cellmate and friend of the now-deceased godfather, Nicolo Rizzuto, Sr., is shot to death outside his north-end Montreal restaurant.
December 2009: Nicolo Rizzuto Jr., 42, son of Vito Rizzuto and grandson of the don, his namesake, is shot to death out front of a west-end construction business.
May 2010: Rizzuto consigliere Paolo Renda, 70, is grabbed from his car in Montreal and hasn't been heard from since.
June 2010: Rizzuto second-in-command Agostino Cuntrera, 66, and bodyguard Liborio Sciascia, 40, are shot to death in front of Cuntrera's east-end Montreal restaurant supplier.
September 2010: Rizzuto associate Ennio Bruni is gunned down while leaving a cafe in suburban Laval.
November 2010: Nicolo "Nick" Rizzuto Sr., 86 is assassinated by a sniper in his north-end home as he cooked dinner near his wife and daughter.