Francesco (Chit) Del Balso, a very brash and aggressive leader in the Montreal Mafia, was killed in the West Island early Monday afternoon.
Police sources confirmed Del Balso was the person killed near the Monster Gym located between the service road of Highway 40 and St-Régis Blvd. in Dorval.
“It was inevitable,” one of the sources told the Montreal Gazette with a sigh.
Two attempts were made on Del Balso’s life in recent months and he was reportedly a suspect in the attempt to kill alleged Mafia leader Leonardo Rizzuto.
“A few minutes before 1 p.m. (Monday) afternoon, police were called because of gunshots heard on St-Régis Blvd. near Deacon Ave. in Dorval,” a Montreal police spokesperson said. “When officers arrived on site, they found a 53-year-old man injured on his upper body by (the bullets from) a firearm. Unfortunately, the death of this man has been confirmed on site.”
No arrests have been made in the shooting, the spokesperson added.
A few hours after the shooting, Del Balso’s body was still at the crime scene, covered by a red blanket as it lay next to an outdoor table.
In an interview Monday, organized crime expert and Queen’s University lecturer Antonio Nicaso said he also wasn’t surprised by Del Balso’s killing.
Nicaso pointed to the recent attempts on Del Balso’s life and how he was reportedly the main suspect in the attempt to kill Rizzuto in mid-March.
“This murder confirms that the Montreal war is not yet over,” Nicaso said. “The power vacuum caused by the death of Vito Rizzuto continues to provoke violence among the various factions of what was once the most powerful Mafia family in Canada.”
Nicaso, who has written several books on the Mafia, described Del Balso as a senior member of the Rizzuto crime family when it was still led by Vito Rizzuto.
He said Del Balso ended up clashing with the organization after Rizzuto’s death as he tried to carve out more space and power for himself.
“He tried to raise his profile and most likely paid with his life,” Nicaso said. “This is the risk one takes when ambition is not supported by caution.”
Del Balso was not known to many when he was arrested in Project Colisée in 2006. But the evidence that emerged from the lengthy police investigation into the Montreal Mafia and its leaders back then made him notorious. He seemed to operate without any fear of consequences as he was recorded several times talking over cellphones while he threatened people and assumed it was likely the conversations were being recorded.
One of his more chilling threats was played during the Charbonneau Commission to show how the Montreal Mafia had influence in the construction industry. In 2004, while investigated in Colisée, Del Balso was recorded when he called a tool rental company seeking to collect on unpaid bills.
“The guy that’s going to make you eat out of a straw for six months if you don’t go pay him,” Del Balso was recorded as saying when the person on the other end of the line demanded to know who was threatening him.
In 2008, Del Balso ended up pleading guilty to some of the charges filed against him in Project Colisée. Through one guilty plea, he admitted he acted as a leader in the Rizzuto organization. He received a 15-year sentence, one of the lengthier prison terms meted out in Colisée, and when he was released years later Montreal’s organized crime scene had changed completely.
The Rizzuto organization’s supremacy over the Montreal Mafia was challenged several times. In 2016, Lorenzo Giordano, the man Del Balso worked closely with while both were investigated in Colisée, was killed in Laval, also close to a workout gym. An informant who testified at a series of murder trials said Giordano was killed on orders from brothers Salvatore and Andrea (Andrew) Scoppa as part of a conflict between Sicilian and Calabrian clans within the Montreal Mafia.
Following Giordano’s murder, Del Balso’s life always seemed to be in peril.
In May 2017, a man named Marc Laflamme Berthelot stormed into Del Balso’s home in Laval and threatened his family while demanding to know where he was. One of Del Balso’s relatives managed to call him to warn him about what was going on. Del Balso pried off a GPS locating device that he was required to wear on his ankle as part of a series of conditions imposed on him by the Parole Board of Canada. He later said he did this because he figured whoever it was who wanted to kill him figured out how to use the GPS locator.
In August 2019, while out on another statutory release, Del Balso told the parole board he was unable to meet with his parole officer, even though the meeting was supposed to be held at a police station, out of concerns for his safety.
“The initial plan was to have supervision meetings at the police station and then at Correctional Service offices following a risk assessment. Considering the instability in the world of (the Montreal Mafia) and the security concerns for you that were still in place, only one meeting took place at Correctional Service Canada offices,” the parole board revealed in a decision it made that month.
Three years later, it was obvious that Del Balso’s life was still in jeopardy. The Lexus he was driving in near his home in Laval was damaged by bullets as someone tried to kill him.
On Jan. 29, the car of a 77-year-old man was riddled with bullets while it was in the parking lot of a SAQ outlet in Laval. According to La Presse, the man’s car was targeted by accident and the shooter intended to kill Del Balso.
On March 15, someone tried to kill Leonardo Rizzuto when his car was also riddled with bullets in Laval.
According to media reports, several days later Del Balso tried to board a flight to Italy at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport but was arrested. He was released without being charged, but the arrest was reportedly made in connection with the investigation into the attempt made on Rizzuto.
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