Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia family
Encyclopedia
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
Mafia
Mafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
or Cosa Nostra and held a key position in the illicit drug trade and money laundering
Money laundering
Money laundering is the process of disguising illegal sources of money so that it looks like it came from legal sources. The methods by which money may be laundered are varied and can range in sophistication. Many regulatory and governmental authorities quote estimates each year for the amount...
for Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian press baptized the clan as 'The Rothschild
Rothschild family
The Rothschild family , known as The House of Rothschild, or more simply as the Rothschilds, is a Jewish-German family that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century...
s of the Mafia' or 'the bankers of Cosa Nostra'.
Italian prosecutors described the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan as an "international holding ... a holding which secures certain services for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra as a whole: drug-trafficking routes and channels for money laundering." The clan is "a very tight knit family group of men-of-honour, not only joined by Mafia bonds, but also by ties of blood." According to the Italian Antimafia Commission
Antimafia Commission
The Italian Antimafia Commission is a bicameral commission of the Italian Parliament, composed of members from the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate . The Antimafia Commission is a commission of inquiry into, initially, the “phenomenon of the Mafia”...
the Cuntrera-Caruana clan played a central role in international drug trafficking, extending their interests from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
.
Prominent members of the clan are the brothers Liborio Cuntrera, Pasquale Cuntrera, Gaspare Cuntrera and Paolo Cuntrera. At the Caruana side there are Giuseppe Caruana, Carmelo Caruana and his son Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana family branch in Canada. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978....
, and Leonardo Caruana.
Origins
The Cuntrera and Caruana families originated from SiculianaSiculiana
Siculiana is a town and comune in the province of Agrigento, Sicily, southern Italy, 13 km. west from the provincial capital Agrigento.-History:...
, a small village on the south coast of Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
in the province of Agrigento
Province of Agrigento
Agrigento is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. It has an area of 3,042 km², and a total population of 454,370...
. They are relatives; they inter-married to strengthen their criminal alliance. Mafia tradition is old in Siculiana. On a map, made in 1900 by one of the first Mafia researchers Antonio Cutrera, a former officer of public security, Siculiana is mentioned as ‘high density’ Mafia territory. The province of Agrigento is, and has been so for the last century, the poorest and most backward region of Italy.
The Cuntrera-Caruana clan used to be armed guards for the local baron Agnello, who owned most of the village and the surrounding land. Everybody in the village depended on the baron for work and income. When land reform started in the 1950s the baron had to give up most of his holdings. The Mafia brokered the sale of the holdings. The power of the Mafia in those years was unchallenged, they entered the town council, and at one time the mayor was a noted mafioso.
In the 1950s the Mafia was not the multi-million dollar business it is now. In 1952 Pasquale Cuntrera and his brother-in-law Leonardo Caruana were indicted for a double murder, the theft of four cows and arson. Both were acquitted in 1953 per non aver commesso il fatto - not having committed the act - an almost ritual verdict where Mafia crimes were concerned in the 1950s and 60s.
A 1966 police report concluded Siculiana
Siculiana
Siculiana is a town and comune in the province of Agrigento, Sicily, southern Italy, 13 km. west from the provincial capital Agrigento.-History:...
had been ruled by mafiosi for years. Giuseppe Caruana, his brother Leonardo Caruana and Pasquale Cuntrera exploited every economic activity in the village and its surrounding communities. They had created an atmosphere of omertà
Omertà
Omertà is a popular attitude and code of honour and a common definition is the "code of silence". It is common in areas of southern Italy, such as Sicily, Apulia, Calabria, and Campania, where criminal organizations defined as Mafia such as the Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, Sacra Corona Unita, and...
: through violence and intimidation they made sure that nobody dared to denounce them. The Agrigento Court decided to ban them from the village.
Some returned, however. In the 1970s Leonardo Caruana became capo mandamento - after he was expelled from Canada - of the area under the leadership of the Mafia boss of the province Agrigento, Giuseppe Settecasi. The power base of the clan reached into politics. The influential politician Calogero Mannino of the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana) was a witness at the marriage of Leonardo Caruana's son Gerlando in 1977 in Siculiana.
Leonardo Caruana was murdered in 1981 in front of his house in Palermo
Palermo
Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...
on the day his other son Gaspare Caruana married. The killing occurred at the height of a second Mafia war, and stayed unavenged. Few members of the Cuntrera-Caruana family have remained in Siculiana. Leonardo Caruana’s son, Gerlando Caruana, is considered to be the head of the family in Siculiana according to the Italian DIA (Direzione Investigativa Antimafia).
Emigration
In the 1920s the village of Siculiana counted 8,000 inhabitants, now less than 5,000. In the 1950s many inhabitants emigrated for work and opportunities. Many moved to Germany and Belgium or crossed the ocean to go to the United States, Canada, Venezuela or Brazil. Among them was Alfonso GaglianoAlfonso Gagliano
Alfonso Gagliano, PC, FCGA is a Canadian accountant and a former Liberal Party politician.Born in Siculiana, Italy, his political career began in 1977 when he ran for a seat on the Montreal school board. In the 1984 federal election, he ran for Parliament for Saint-Léonard—Anjou narrowly...
, who in Canada became a cabinet minister in the government of Jean Chrétien
Jean Chrétien
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien , known commonly as Jean Chrétien is a former Canadian politician who was the 20th Prime Minister of Canada. He served in the position for over ten years, from November 4, 1993 to December 12, 2003....
.
Among the migrants were mafiosi as well. Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
is the first base outside Sicily for the Cuntrera-Caruana clan. Canadian immigration-records show Pasquale and Liborio Cuntrera arrived in 1951 and acquired Canadian nationality in 1957. They moved up and down between Sicily and Montreal setting up base at both sides of the Atlantic. According to the Cuntrera-Caruana's own story they worked hard in Canada, starting ploughing snow and as barbers, saving enough money to start their first shop and pizzeria. More likely is that some of them left Sicily to escape prosecution.
In 1966, most of the clan left the village, when they were banished by court order, as a result of a crackdown by Italian police after the Ciaculli massacre
Ciaculli massacre
The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia...
. The Agrigento Court banned several members of the clan to locations elsewhere in Italy, mostly in the North, but they chose to leave the country instead. Pasquale Cuntrera and Leonardo Caruana moved to Montreal in Canada, while Giuseppe Caruana preferred Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. The Cuntrera brothers moved on to Caracas
Caracas
Caracas , officially Santiago de León de Caracas, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela; natives or residents are known as Caraquenians in English . It is located in the northern part of the country, following the contours of the narrow Caracas Valley on the Venezuelan coastal mountain range...
in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
.
In the beginning of the 1970s the Cuntrera-Caruana clan redeployed, after Mafia persecution in Italy had slowed down. In Italy major Mafia trials ended in non-convictions for most of the Mafia bosses. Some of the clan went to the Italian mainland (Ostia Lido, a seaside resort near Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
); some went to the United Kingdom, to Woking
Woking
Woking is a large town and civil parish that shares its name with the surrounding local government district, located in the west of Surrey, UK. It is part of the Greater London Urban Area and the London commuter belt, with frequent trains and a journey time of 24 minutes to Waterloo station....
, the stockbrokers-belt near London; some remained in Caracas in Venezuela; while others remained in Montreal. They travelled up and down using their residences around the world for drug trafficking.
Venezuela became an important hide out. "Venezuela has its own Cosa Nostra family as if it is Sicilian territory," according to the Italian police. "The structure and hierarchy of the Mafia has been entirely reproduced in Venezuela." The Cuntrera-Caruana clan had direct links with the ruling Commission of the Sicilian Mafia, and are acknowledged by the American Cosa Nostra.
In the Second Mafia War
Second Mafia War
The Second Mafia War was a conflict within the Sicilian Mafia, mostly taking place in the early 1980s. As with any criminal organization, the history of the Sicilian Mafia is replete with conflicts and power struggles, and the violence that results from them, but these are generally localised and...
the Cuntrera-Caruana clan initially sided with the established Mafia-families of Palermo who were massacred by the Corleonesi
Corleonesi
The Corleonesi is the name given to a faction within the Sicilian Mafia that dominated Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and the 1990s. It was called the Corleonesi because its most important leaders came from the town of Corleone, first Luciano Leggio and later Totò Riina, Bernardo Provenzano and Leoluca...
headed by Salvatore Riina
Salvatore Riina
Salvatore "Totò" Riina is a member of the Sicilian Mafia who became the most powerful member of the criminal organization in the early 1980s. Fellow mobsters nicknamed him The Beast due to his violent nature, or sometimes The Short One due to his diminutive stature...
. However, they apparently were able to find some kind of agreement with Riina. The Cuntera’s and Caruana’s were necessary and irreplaceable for every other Mafia family, according to police investigators: "the others are allied with them."
Five decades in the illicit drug trade
The Cuntrera-Caruana clan almost certainly was involved in heroin trafficking networks since the 1950s. Their names appeared at investigations in such famous cases as the French ConnectionFrench Connection
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Turkey to France and then to the United States. The operation reached its peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when it provided the vast majority of the illicit heroin used in the United States...
in the 1970s and the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
in the 1980s. Several intertwining Sicilian networks were running heroin to the US. They had the same source – suppliers from the Corsican underworld in Marseilles with their high quality laboratories – and the same destination – the North American consumer market.
The repression caused by the Ciaculli Massacre
Ciaculli massacre
The Ciaculli massacre on 30 June 1963 was caused by a car bomb that exploded in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo, killing seven police and military officers sent to defuse it after an anonymous phone call. The bomb was intended for Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco, head of the Sicilian Mafia...
disarranged the Sicilian heroin trade to the United States. Mafiosi were banned, arrested and incarcerated. Control over the trade fell into the hands of a few fugitives: Salvatore Ciaschiteddu Greco
Salvatore Greco
Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco was a powerful mafioso and boss of the Mafia Family in Ciaculli, an outlying suburb of Palermo famous for its citrus fruit groves, where he was born...
, his cousin Salvatore Greco, also known as l'ingegnere, Pietro Davì, Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta
Tommaso Buscetta was a Sicilian mafioso. Although he was not the first pentito in the Italian witness protection program, he is widely recognized as the first important one breaking omertà...
and Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti
Gaetano Badalamenti was a powerful member of the Sicilian Mafia. Don Tano Badalamenti was the capofamiglia of his hometown Cinisi, Sicily, and headed the Sicilian Mafia Commission in the 1970s...
. All of them were acquainted with the Cuntrera-Caruana clan.
The famous "pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
" (turncoat) Tommaso Buscetta told Antimafia judge Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
in 1984, how he had met the clan in Montreal in 1969 during Christmas. Buscetta stayed at Pasquale Cuntrera's home recovering from a venereal disease. They were introduced to him as "uomini d'onore" – men-of-honour. When Buscetta met them they were already very rich. Pasquale Cuntrera told Buscetta they were trafficking heroin.
The Italian police finally got an idea of the role of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan in 1982-83 when they investigated the Italian end of what later was called the Pizza Connection
Pizza Connection Trial
The Pizza Connection Trial was one of the longest criminal jury trials on record in the district of Manhattan. It took place between October 24, 1985 and March 2, 1987-Scope of the trial:...
. The Italian police was following the movements of Giuseppe Bono, the middleman between the buyers of the Gambino
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia . The group is named after Carlo Gambino, boss of the family at the time of the McClellan hearings in 1963...
and Bonanno
Bonanno crime family
The Bonanno crime family is one of the "Five Families" that dominates organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Mafia ....
crime families in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and the Sicilian clans who organized the heroin traffic to the US. "Almost all the money of the Sicilian Mafia in North-America to purchase heroin and the resulting proceeds went through their hands," according to a police investigator.
In 1981, Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo is a Sicilian mafioso, also known as "Asparino". In 1992 he became a pentito . He was the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians...
, who would become a pentito
Pentito
Pentito designates people in Italy who, formerly part of criminal or terrorist organizations, following their arrests decide to "repent" and collaborate with the judicial system to help investigations...
in 1992, organized a 400 kilogram shipment of heroin to the US. The Cuntrera-Caruana clan received half of the load, while John Gambino
John Gambino
John Gambino , is an American mobster. He became a made member of the Gambino crime family in 1975 and a capodecina or captain, and head of the crime family's Sicilian faction, appointed by family boss John Gotti in 1986, according to Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano.-Transatlantic Mafia clan:Together...
of the Gambino Family in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
took care of the other 200 kilograms. The shipments were financed by consortium of Sicilian Mafia clans, who had organized a pool to provide the money to buy the merchandise from Thai suppliers. The system in the heroin-business was that every Mafia-family could invest in a shipment if it had the money. The Cuntrera-Caruana clan were the trusted buyers who supplied the market in North America.
In 1985, in a joint operation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
(RCMP) and British Customs and Excise, a heroin transport was seized in London and Montreal. Subsequent investigations revealed that the clan was picking up the heroin in Thailand since 1983. They replaced the supply line of Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo
Gaspare Mutolo is a Sicilian mafioso, also known as "Asparino". In 1992 he became a pentito . He was the first mafioso who spoke about the connections between Cosa Nostra and Italian politicians...
who had been arrested.
In 1988 the RCMP seized a 30 kilo load of heroin at a factory owned by Cuffaro's father-in-law in Windsor in Canada near the U.S. border. The same year Giuseppe Cuffaro and Pasquale Caruana were arrested in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. The German Bundeskriminalamt
Federal Criminal Police Office (Germany)
The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany is a national investigative police agency in Germany and falls directly under the Federal Ministry of the Interior...
(BKA) discovered an extensive network that tried to set up heroin trafficking from the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. Caruana and Cuffaro were supported by relatives and some of the many fellow-villagers who had emigrated to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s.
Brokering cocaine
Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana family branch in Canada. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978....
to supply them. Caruana organized a network that smuggled eleven metric tons of cocaine to Italy from 1991-94. Caruana brought together the cocaine suppliers of the Cali Cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...
with the Italian distributors from the 'Ndrangheta in Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
.
The pipeline fell apart when the Italian police seized 5497 kilo's of cocaine (a European record at the time) in March 1994 near Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
. A year later the Turin Prosecutors Office presented the indictment (the investigation was code-named Operation Cartagine). The operation neutralized the most important supply-line of narcotics to Europe, investigators claimed. The Cuntrera-Caruana family was labelled as "the fly-wheel of the drug trade and the indispensable link between suppliers and distributors." One of the suppliers was Henry Loaiza Ceballos
Henry Loaiza Ceballos
Henry Loaiza-Ceballos aka El Alacran was a Colombian drugdealer part of the Cali Cartel. Loaiza was in charge mainly of the military apparatus of the organization, but was also involved in the shipment of drugs...
of the Cali cartel
Cali Cartel
The Cali Cartel was a drug cartel based in southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca Department. The Cali Cartel was founded by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers, Gilberto and Miguel, as well as associate José Santacruz Londoño...
.
However, Caruana who was not arrested, simply moved the cocaine pipeline towards Canada, where the family took care of wholesale distribution with the consent of Vito Rizzuto
Vito Rizzuto
Vito Rizzuto , known as Montreal's Teflon Don, was alleged to be the leading Mafia boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Canada and heads the Rizzuto crime family.-Family:...
the leader of Cosa Nostra, who came from the same region in Sicily as the Cuntrera-Caruana’s. In July, 1998, Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana family branch in Canada. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978....
and his brothers Gerlando and Pasquale Caruana were arrested in an international police action called Project Omerta for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to Canada.
At one time Caruana claimed he was a simple car wash
Car wash
A car wash or auto wash is a facility used to clean the exterior and, in some cases, the interior of motor vehicles.- Categories :...
attendant. According to police, he controlled one of the largest drug dealing networks in the world. The Caruana’s pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to import and traffic some 1,500 kilograms of cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and was sentenced to 18 years by the Ontario Superior Court in February 2000.
Arrests and convictions
Just before he was killed by the Mafia, judge Giovanni FalconeGiovanni Falcone
Giovanni Falcone was an Sicilian/Italian prosecuting magistrate born in Palermo, Sicily. From his office in the Palace of Justice in Palermo, he spent most of his professional life trying to overthrow the power of the Mafia in Sicily...
warned of the international connections of Cosa Nostra. He initiated extradition requests for the Cuntrera-Caruana members in Venezuela. After the killing of the judges Falcone and Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino
Paolo Borsellino was an Italian anti-Mafia magistrate who was killed by a Mafia car bomb in Palermo, less than two months after his fellow anti-Mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone had been assassinated....
the Italian authorities stepped up prosecution. Pasquale, Paolo and Gaspare Cuntrera were arrested in September 1992 on Fiumicino airport
Leonardo da Vinci International Airport
Leonardo da Vinci-Fiumicino Airport , also commonly known as Fiumicino Airport, is Italy's largest airport with 36.3 million passengers served in 2010, located in Fiumicino, 35 km from Rome's historic city centre....
(Rome), after they had been expelled from Venezuela. Their explusion was ordered by a commission of the Venezuelan Senate headed by Senator Cristobal Fernandez Dalo and his money laundering investigator, Thor Halvorssen Hellum
Thor Halvorssen Hellum
Thor Halvorssen Hellum —commonly known as Thor Halvorssen—is a Venezuelan-Norwegian businessman who served as CEO and President of the Venezuelan state-owned telephone company, CANTV and later as Special Commissioner for International Narcotic Affairs in the administration of President Carlos...
.
In 1993 the Italian daily Corriere della Sera
Corriere della Sera
The Corriere della Sera is an Italian daily newspaper, published in Milan.It is among the oldest and most reputable Italian newspapers. Its main rivals are Rome's La Repubblica and Turin's La Stampa.- History :...
reported that the Cuntrera-Caruana clan owned 60 per cent of the Caribbean island Aruba
Aruba
Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km east of Guajira Peninsula...
, part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
. The first independent mafia state was born, according to the newspaper. That claim proved to be exaggerated, however.
In January 1996 Pasquale Cuntrera and Alfonso Caruana were sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for 'associazione mafioso' (mafia conspiracy) and drug trafficking. Gaspare and Paolo Cuntrera both received 13 years. The Italian prosecution office describe the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan as "a close wicker-work of blood-relations composed of family-nucleuses in different countries all over the world, joined with an equal wicker-work of economical and industrial connections, intended to improve their networks for international traffic in narcotics and money-laundering."
In May 1998 the sentences were confirmed by the Supreme Court: Pasquale, Cuntrera and Alfonso Caruana were convicted to 21 years in prison, Gaspare en Paolo Cuntrera to 15 years. However, due to an error in communication about expiration of provisional incarceration terms, Pasquale Cuntrera had been able to leave prison two weeks before. When Cuntrera’s getaway was reported in the news media, the opposition asked for the resignation of the minister Justice, Giovanni Maria Flick
Giovanni Maria Flick
Giovanni Maria Flick is an Italian, journalist, politician, and jurist.-Career:Flick was born in Cirié, Piedmont, to a Roman Catholic family, half-Ethnic German family, as the fifth of seven children....
, and the minister of Internal Affairs, Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano
Giorgio Napolitano is an Italian politician who has been the 11th President of Italy since 2006. A long-time member of the Italian Communist Party and later the Democrats of the Left, he served as President of the Chamber of Deputies from 1992 to 1994 and as Minister of the Interior from 1996 to...
. Flick offered his resignation but that was refused by Prime minister Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi
Romano Prodi is an Italian politician and statesman. He served as the Prime Minister of Italy, from 17 May 1996 to 21 October 1998 and from 17 May 2006 to 8 May 2008...
.
Pasquale Cuntrera was arrested some days later near Malaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...
in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, while he was waiting for arrangements to travel to Venezuela. The police picked up phone conversations while investigating Caruana’s cocaine trafficking network. Pasquale Cuntrera was expelled to Italy. In November 2004, a Canadian court ordered that Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana
Alfonso Caruana is a member of the Sicilian Mafia and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana family branch in Canada. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978....
be sent back to Italy to face jail time. In Italy, Caruana, faces a sentence of almost 22 years, likely to be served in solitary confinement. The sentence stems from a 1996 trial in Palermo and subsequent appeals. In June 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled Caruana to be sent back to Italy to face jail time. On December 20, 2007, Caruana's efforts to appeal were dismissed by the Supreme Court of Canada
Supreme Court of Canada
The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court of Canada and is the final court of appeals in the Canadian justice system. The court grants permission to between 40 and 75 litigants each year to appeal decisions rendered by provincial, territorial and federal appellate courts, and its decisions...
. He was extradited to Italy on January 29, 2008.