 Rizzuto was born in Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily, Italy in 1946 and immigrated to Montreal with his parents in 1954.His father Nicolo married into the mob, and later started his own crime syndicate in Montreal after overtaking the Cotroni crime family in the late 1970s.He had several run-ins with the law but was able to avoid conviction for any major offenses until 2004.