The overnight firebombing of a funeral home in east-end Montreal appears to be the latest attack on the crumbling empire built by the late Nicolo Rizzuto.
An arson investigation is now underway into the attack on the funeral home that is owned by members of the Rizzuto family, whom the Montreal Gazette names as Maria Renda and Giovanna Cammalleri -- Nicolo Rizzuto's daughter and the wife of his son.
Police say the Loreto funeral home was hit just before 1 a.m. on Thursday, when a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the front door.
Firefighters were able to get to the funeral home quickly and the building did not suffer serious damage.
How the owners will cope with the situation before them is unknown, but CTV Montreal reporter Stephane Giroux told CTV News Channel "these are not people who have been known to cooperate with police."
Two men in dark clothes were seen running from the scene in the early hours of Thursday morning. They got into an SUV driven by a third man.
Soon after, a suspect vehicle was stopped by police and all three men are now being questioned by investigators.
Montreal police spokesperson Yannick Paradis told CTV News Channel that the three men are all in their 30s and are known to police.
"We know at this point that they are three males -- one white, one black male and one Asian guy," Paradis said Thursday morning, about nine hours after the attack on the funeral home.
"They were all known to the police...had criminal records and they are all in their 30s."
The three men are due to appear in court on Thursday afternoon, at which time at least one man is expected to be charged.
Paradis told The Canadian Press that police could lay charges of arson, arson causing damage to property, possession of an incendiary material and conspiracy.
A violent pattern continues
While police say it is too early in the investigation to link the firebombing to other attacks, Giroux said the attack on the funeral home fits a pattern that has seen various assailants target Italian-owned businesses in recent months.
"The way it happens is that somebody in the middle of the night smashes the front window and throws in a Molotov cocktail, which is exactly what happened," Giroux said Thursday.
"Every time the pattern is the same: They arrest somebody, but that person usually turns out to be a very low-level, low ranking criminal."
In those prior cases, the alleged perpetrators have told the court that they undertook attacks to be relieved of drug debts, but none have revealed who they are working for.
But the fact that the funeral home was owned by Rizzuto family members, suggests that it may be linked to a tidal wave of attacks on those close to the family.
The Loreto funeral home is the same place where mourners recently attended a visitation for Nicolo Rizzuto, who was slain by an assassin's bullet at his home in November.
The previous December, Rizzuto's namesake grandson was shot dead in broad daylight on a Montreal street.
But those were only two of the major attacks in the past year or so, a period in which a number of other associates of Nicolo Rizzuto have gone missing or turned up dead.
Vito Rizzuto, the father of the dead grandson and the son of Nicolo, is currently serving time in a U.S. prison for racketeering. He is due to be released in October of next year.
With files from The Canadian Press
