HOW FRANCESCO DEL BALSO ENDED UP BACK BEHIND BARS
In November 2006, Francesco (Chit) Del Balso, now 47, was arrested in Project Colisée, a Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit investigation that focused on the Rizzuto organization. It revealed that Del Balso and five other men were part of a committee assembled to replace Montreal Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto after he was arrested in 2004 for being part of a murder plot in the U.S.
Colisée significantly weakened the Rizzuto organization. Del Balso and a few of the other leaders received lengthy sentences as a result of the charges filed against them. By the time he was granted a statutory release last year, Montreal’s organizedcrime landscape had changed.
Sept. 18, 2008: Del Balso pleads guilty to several crimes committed while he was under investigation in Project Colisée, including cocaine smuggling, gangsterism, possession of the proceeds of crime and tax evasion. He is sentenced to an overall prison term of 15 years.
Feb 12, 2016: Del Balso is granted a statutory release for the first time.
March 1, 2016: Lorenzo (Skunk) Giordano, 52, who played a leadership role very similar to Del Balso’s in the Rizzuto organization, is killed in Laval shortly after his December 2015 statutory release. Within hours of Giordano’s death, Del Balso is arrested and returned to a penitentiary for his own safety because, according to parole records, police had reason to believe he was “next on the execution list.” The same parole decision made reference to an “organization (that has) murdered and has tried to murder other person(s) in public in recent years” as the group believed to be behind Giordano’s slaying.
May 26, 2016: Del Balso is granted his second statutory release.
May 6, 2017: Two men break into Del Balso’s home in Laval’s Vimont district and assault his wife and one of his two sons. Two men arrested shortly after the home invasion occurred — Marc Laflamme Berthelot, 33, and David Cormier, 25 — face 18 charges each in connection with the incident. Their case returns to court in October.