:format(webp)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/gta/2023/06/07/brampton-man-faces-murder-charge-in-death-of-daughter-in-law-of-late-montreal-mob-boss/rituzzo.jpg)
/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/columnist_logos/Edwards_Peter_logo2015.JPG){kind=logo}
A Brampton man has been arrested in the shooting death of a Montreal woman linked to the Mafia.
Joel Richard Clarke, 28, was arrested Tuesday night in Milton on a charge of first-degree murder for the May 16 shooting of businesswoman Claudia Iacono.
Her murder comes amidst several violent attacks in the Montreal underworld this year involving members of the old Rizzuto crime family.
The murder of a woman in a Mafia struggle is considered extremely rare.
Iacono, 39, was shot several times and killed in her car close to the hair salon she ran on Jean-Talon St. W. in Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges district. Police arrived at the scene to find Iacono in her car that collided with a building and was still running.
Iacono was the daughter-in-law of reported Mafia boss Moreno Gallo, who was assassinated in an Acapulco restaurant in Mexico in 2013.
Gallo, received a life sentence for the 1973 killing of a Montreal drug dealer.
Gallo was paroled in and deported to Italy in 2012.
Earlier this week, Montreal Mafia leader Francesco (Chit) Del Balso was shot dead near the Monster Gym Dorval. There had been two earlier attempts this year on Del Balso’s life. He was reportedly a suspect in a failed attempt to kill Leonardo Rizzuto, whose father Vito Rizzuto was considered the top figure in Montreal’s underworld before his death by natural causes a decade ago.
Laval police announced last week that Carlos Pena Torrez, 36, of Toronto faces separate attempted murder charges in the shootings in a 77-year-old man in Laval, Quebec.
The attempted murder charge in Quebec against Torrez comes after the Jan. 29 shooting of the man in broad daylight in a busy Laval parking lot.
That gunman also fired from a moving vehicle, police say.
That victim is also recovering, police say.
A Montreal police press release said the victim “is not known to the police community” and that an investigation confirms that the wrong victim was shot.
La Presse newspaper reported that the intended target in the Laval murder bid was Del Balso, who was shot dead this week.
Del Balso’s criminal record includes convictions for cocaine smuggling, gangsterism, possession of the proceeds of crime, tax evasion and threatening a reporter. He was considered by authorities to be a top member of the Rizzuto crime group, which has come under fire this year.
With files from The Canadian Press.