Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Vito Rizzuto's last deal

The legal dispute started in 2012 when billionaire Michael DeGroote filed a lawsuit claiming he is the victim of an almost $112-million fraud. He claims he lent the money to a company controlled by three Toronto-area men — two brothers, Antonio and Francesco Carbone, and Andrew Pajak — to fund gambling enterprises in the Caribbean. The partnership went awry. Security video from inside Dream Casino, the Dominican Republic casino that the business partners operated, show Vito Rizzuto being given a tour of the gaming floor in 2013 by Alex Visser. Rizzuto died of cancer shortly after. DeGroote seeks $200-million in damages for fraud and breach of trust.

Antonio Carbone
In 2015, Antonio Carbone was arrested in the DR and charged after a firebomb destroyed the car of a lawyer working as an administrator for the troubled casino firm. Carbone has been held in pretrial detention since.

Once a lion of industry — in trucking, waste management and school buses — Michael DeGroote has lost as much as $200 million in poor business deals, two-bit scams and frauds since 2007, court documents claim.