October 27, 2022 — Montreal mafia figure Vincenzo (Black Vince) Armeni was shot to death in a strip mall parking lot in suburban Laval this week, another in a long line of bodies to drop in the Great Canadian Mob War. The 66-year old Armeni, known to the RCMP as a drug lieutenant in the Rizzuto crime family, was slain Tuesday, less than two years after being paroled from a 20-year sentence for narcotics trafficking.

Before he was sent to prison, Armeni maintained ties to Rizzuto crime family leaders Lorenzo (Skunk) Giordano and Rocco (Saice) Sollecito. Both Giordano and Sollecito were killed in the unrest during a two-month span in 2016. Giordano and Sollecito were part of Montreal Godfather Viti Rizzuto’s inner-circle at the height of the Rizzuto clan’s glorious, yet ill-fated reign.

Rizzuto’s extradition to the United States in 2007 to serve prison time for a triple murder he participated in back in 1980s, cratered his gangland empire and unleashed a fury of bloodshed that has yet to cease. The violence began in Quebec in the late 2000s and by the 2010s, it had spread to Ontario.

There has been dozens, if not hundreds, of mob hits attributed to the war. Rizzuto himself died of cancer in 2013.

This article was originally posted here