The reputed don of Montreal’s mafia, Vito Rizzuto, has been summoned to testify at a corruption inquiry, Canada’s public broadcaster said on Saturday.
Rizzuto, 66, returned to Canada last month, after serving a decade in a US prison for his role in the 1981 murders of three members of New York’s Bonanno crime family.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corp said he was served on November 19 with a subpoena to appear before the commission headed by Superior Court Justice France Charbonneau.
The commission is investigating alleged graft, bid-rigging and kickbacks in the awarding of government construction contracts.
Witnesses have testified that construction executives colluded with crooked bureaucrats and politicians in a mafia scheme to embezzle public funds.
Federal police surveillance videotapes and wiretaps meanwhile showed executives handing over stacks of cash to Rizzuto’s father, who was gunned down in 2010, and mobsters using threats to steer the bidding for public works contracts.
A former construction magnate also testified that Rizzuto himself once mediated a conflict between construction executives for a Transport Quebec contract.
The Rizzutos received a 2.5-percent cut of all public works contracts in the province of Quebec, the commission heard.