Paolo Renda

Paolo Renda (; September 10, 1939 – disappeared May 20, 2010, later declared dead September 2, 2018

Shortly after the murder of Paolo Violi in 1978, an arrest warrant was issued for Renda, who subsequently fled to Venezuela but returned to Montreal when the warrant was dismissed. The police believed that Renda's father, Calogero, had planned Violi's murder. He then became a consigliere for the Rizzuto family. In the 1980s, Renda ran the illegal gambling houses in Montreal for the Rizzuto family. Renda lived on the "Mafia Village" district on Gouin Boulevard with his house located between the houses owned by Nicolo Rizzuto on one side and his son Vito Rizzuto on the other. A Montreal police reported noted: "It is interesting to note that these properties on Antoine-Berthelet Avenue are part of a real estate development created and managed by Paolo Renda and that the majority of the lots and homes have been sold to persons suspected of criminal activity". When Gaetano Panepinto, the Rizzuto family's Ontario agent, was murdered in October 2000, Renda along with Vito, Rocco Sollecito and Francesco Arcadi were part of the delegation that attended his funeral on October 10, 2000 in Toronto. During the funeral service, the Rizzuto delegation were observed speaking with the leaders of several Ontario outlaw biker gangs who also attended the funeral. Renda was a regular of the Consenza Social Club where he usually spoke with Vito and Francesco Arcadi. He was the owner of a construction company, Renda Construction, and the co-owner of a funeral home, the Loreto. Along with Vito, Renda was also a major shareholder in BT Céramique, a firm which laid the tiles for the federal ministry of justice in Ottawa with the American embassy and the Casino de Montreal. The firm of BT Céramique was later found to have engaged in tax fraud in a hostile audit by the Canada Revenue Agency with the firm not paying hundreds of thousands in sales taxes due to the federal government.

The journalists Peter Edwards and Antonio Nicaso wrote about Renda: "He could easily have passed for an accountant, which was appropriate since he was the keeper of financial secrets for Vito's family: he knew who was paying what to tom in the lucrative construction industry; he oversaw gambling in family-controlled bars and cafés...He carried himself with a Zenlike air of casual success and often appeared at the Consenza Social Club in a stylist sports jacket and open business shirt...". After Rizzuto was arrested in 2004, a committee of caretaker leaders for Vito Rizzuto was formed of Renda, Nicolo Rizzuto, Rocco Sollecito, Francesco Arcadi, Lorenzo Giordano and Francesco Del Balso. Renda was held at the Rivière des Praires jail while awaiting trial where he shared the same wing with Nicolo Rizzuto. On October 23, 2007, a series of coordinated police raids took place in Italy, France and Switzerland where banks worth €500 million (the equivalent to CA$700 million) were frozen where companies and properties worth US$212 million were seized with the police forces stating that Renda had running from Montreal a complex money laundering operation in Europe. In connection with the investigation, the Italian government issued extradition requests with Canada for Nicolo Rizzuto, Renda, Sollecito and Arcadi. Colonel Paolo La Forgia of the Direzione Investigativa Antimafia told the media: "From prison, they pulled the strings of their Italian colonies".

On September 18, 2008, Renda pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing profits from organized crime. He was released on parole in February 2010.

Disappearance On May 20, 2010, Renda went golfing in the morning and then went to a funeral home owned by his family in Saint-Leonard. He then phoned his wife to say he would be picking up steaks for dinner. While driving on Albert-Prévost Avenue, he pulled over for a car with flashing lights that resembled a civilian police car. Instead, he was forced at gunpoint by two men into their car. After not arriving home by 3 pm, Renda's son-in-law decided to search for him by tracing his usual route and found Renda's vehicle parked with its windows down and keys in the ignition, with Renda nowhere to be seen. Renda is believed to have been kidnapped.

Renda's disappearance is believed to be part of a vendetta for the murders of brothers Paolo and Francesco Violi of the Cotroni crime family, who were both murdered in the 1970s. Renda's disappearance occurred almost a year after Nicolo Rizzuto's grandson Nicolo was murdered, and six months after his disappearance, Nicolo would be murdered at his home. His murder is generally believed to have been a lupara bianca, a practice describing a murder where the body is never discovered by the police. Edwards and Nicaso wrote: "Lupara bianca is perhaps the cruellest of Mafia murders and was generally saved for spies and traitors, who deserved nothing better than an anonymous end in a ravine, acid barrel or pit covered in lime. A lupara bianca means no ransom notes, no body, no answers, no sense of closure, no funeral or flowers on a grave. Nothing, but loss and fear". Renda's murder was a major blow to the prestige of the Rizzuto family, and the renegade faction led by Raynald Desjardins gained in strength afterwards. Supporting Desjardins were the 'Ndrangheta families in Ontario along with his brother-in-law Joe Di Maulo, who in turn was in contact with what was described as a "Hamilton Mafia family that hated the Rizzutos" (a reference to the Luppino family who were related via marriage to the Violi family).

Renda's family tried to have Paolo legally pronounced dead in 2013, though a judge turned down the request due to insufficient proof. On September 2, 2018, it was reported that the courts had declared Renda dead.