Body of alleged mafia boss found in river in Canada
Salvatore Montagna named by FBI as acting boss of Bonanno crime family who was deported from US for refusing to testify
The body of an alleged mafia boss, who US authorities said once led New York's notorious Bonanno crime family, has been fished out from a river north of Montreal.
Reports identified the body as Salvatore Montagna, although police would not immediately confirm or deny the identity.
The FBI once called him the acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, prompting one of New York's tabloids to call him the "bambino boss" because of his rise to power in his mid-30s. Nicknamed "Sal the Iron Worker", he owned and operated a successful steel business in the US.
Montagna's death is the latest in a series of mafia-related killings and disappearances over the last two years. He was considered a contender to take over the Rizzuto family.
A provincial police spokesman said that a private citizen called after seeing a body along the shores of the L'Assomption river. The same person also reported hearing gunshots, but Sergeant Benoit Richard said he couldn't confirm how the victim died.
"When [police] arrived, they saw a man lying near the river, they took him out of the water and started doing CPR with the help of the emergency personnel," Richard said.
He said police would await the results of a postmortem to determine the cause of death.
Montagna was born in Montreal but raised in Sicily. Although he moved to the United States at 15, he never obtained US citizenship.
The married father of three was deported to Canada from the US in 2009 because of a conviction for refusing to testify before a grand jury on illegal gambling.
He pleaded guilty to the minor charge, but it made him ineligible to stay in the US. Montagna had no criminal record in Canada and re-entered without trouble.
His arrival in Montreal occurred just months before members of the Rizzuto family began to be killed.
The FBI had called Montagna the acti! ng boss of the Bonanno crime family, an allegation his lawyer denied.
The Bonanno crime family is one of the five largest mafia families in New York, and one of the notorious criminal gangs that formed the original Commission, along with Al Capone and Lucky Luciano.
There had been speculation that Montagna had been part of the new mafia leadership in Montreal and was trying to reorganise the leaderless group.
His death comes just two months after another man with mafia ties, Raynald Desjardins, narrowly escaped death in a shooting in a suburb north of Montreal. Desjardins had close ties to Vito Rizzuto, the reputed head of the Montreal mafia who is currently imprisoned in the US.
A rash of killings and disappearances in late 2009 and early 2010 ravaged the operation and robbed him of many of his closest family members. Rizzuto's father and son were gunned down, as were other friends, while his brother-in-law simply vanished.
Montagna has become the latest name on the list.
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