Mafioso Francesco Del Balso was shot and killed in Dorval on Monday afternoon in Montreal. But who is he?
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PHOTO QMI AGENCY, MAXIME DELAND
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Arrested for gangsterism during Operation Coliseum in 2006 alongside Nicolo Rizzuto, the man who was once one of the main leaders of the lucrative illegal online betting market on behalf of the Italian mafia had been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Screenshot, archival
Shortly after his release, Del Balso had threatened a journalist from our Bureau of Inquiry who had uncovered his attempts to extort from pizzeria owners in the Quebec region. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 30 days in prison and two years probation.
- Listen to the court segment with Félix Séguin where he explains who Francesco Del Balso is via :
In September 2022, Francesco Del Balso was arrested for attempting to extort nuns. He would have tried to recover jewelry that had been given by his ex-wife a few years ago to a convent in the Chomedey district.
Del Balso is suspected by the police of having ordered the attempted murder committed at the expense of Leonardo Rizzuto, the alleged co-leader of the Montreal mafia, on March 15. The son of the late godfather Vito Rizzuto was then injured by two projectiles from a firearm among the flurry of bullets fired in his direction while driving on Highway 440.
ARCHIVE PHOTO, QMI AGENCY (MAXIME DELAND)
The police thesis wants that Del Balso, a specialist in extortion and illegal sports betting, could have acted in retaliation for a shooting from which he escaped unscathed in Laval in November 2022.
Francesco Del Balso is often described as a “boiling” Mafioso, known for his impulsive and hot-tempered temper, but was now brought closer to bikers than the Rizzuto clan.
-With information from Éric Thibault and Félix Séguin from the Bureau of Investigation