Alfonso Caruana
Encyclopedia
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...
and was the head of the Sicilian Cuntrera-Caruana
Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia family
The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan is part of the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra and held a key position in the illicit drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian press baptized the clan as 'The Rothschilds of the Mafia' or 'the bankers of Cosa Nostra'.Italian...
family branch in 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...
. He acquired Canadian nationality in 1978.
He was born in Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani
Province of Trapani
Trapani is a province in the autonomous island region of Sicily in Italy. Its capital is the city of Trapani.It has an area of 2,460 km², and a total population of 425,121...
on Sicily. His grandfather and father were already part of Cosa Nostra. The family originated from 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:...
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...
, and is closely related to the Cuntrera
Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia family
The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan is part of the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra and held a key position in the illicit drug trade and money laundering for Cosa Nostra in the 1980s and 1990s. The Italian press baptized the clan as 'The Rothschilds of the Mafia' or 'the bankers of Cosa Nostra'.Italian...
-family through several marriages. Alfonso Caruana married his niece Giuseppina Caruana and has a son and two daughters.
When the Caruanas and Cuntreras moved to 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...
in the mid-1960s they became affiliated with Nick Rizzuto
Nicolo Rizzuto
Nicolo Rizzuto , also known as Nick Rizzuto, was the crime boss of the Sicilian faction of the Italian Mafia in Montreal who later pushed out the Calabrian Cotroni family. Rizzuto was born in Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily, in 1924, and immigrated to Canada in 1954 when the family settled in Montreal...
and his son, 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:...
. They began to work together in drug trafficking activities.
Mafia career
In 1968 Alfonso Caruana arrived in Canada with $100 in his pocket pretending to be an electrician. Ten years later he was stopped at the international airport of ZürichZürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
in Switzerland with $600,000 in a suitcase. He was released after paying a fee.
In the 1970s Caruana, together with is brothers Gerlando Caruana and Pasquale Caruana had to leave 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...
for 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...
because of a conflict with the Cotroni crime family. They returned in 1978 after the boss of the Cotroni-family, Paolo Violi
Paolo Violi
Paolo Violi was an Italian-Canadian mobster and longtime underboss of the Bonanno crime family's faction in Montreal, the Cotroni crime family. The Violi and Cotroni families were from Calabria while the Rizzuto crime family, like the Bonannos, were from Sicily...
, was killed.
At the beginning of the 1980s Alfonso established himself near Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
in a luxurious villa, supervising the laundering of the proceeds of heroin-trafficking. The funds were deposited in Canadian banks and channelled through Swiss bank accounts. Two years later he moved to the stockbroker belt near London. From his £450,000 mansion, he supervised a heroin pipeline from Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, through England, to Canada. His partner in the UK was Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo
Francesco Di Carlo is a member of the Mafia who turned state witness in 1996...
. Caruana went to Thailand to set up the route. When the pipeline was dismantled in England in 1985, he managed to escape arrest, moving back to a 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...
suburb where he opened a pizzeria. Alfonso prepared the pizzas while his wife tended the pay-desk.
According to Di Carlo, who became 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...
(state witness) in 1996, Caruana was sentenced to death by the high council of the Mafia after he had fallen out of favour. Di Carlo was ordered to carry out the killing, but refused and in doing so saved Caruana's life.
Cocaine trafficker
Meanwhile, Caruana organised a network that smuggled eleven metric tonnes of cocaine to Italy from 1991-94. Caruana brought together the cocaine producers of the Colombian Cartels with the Italian distributors, six 'Ndrangheta families from CalabriaCalabria
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....
. At the time the Cuntrera-Caruana family was labeled as "the fly-wheel of the drug trade and the indispensable link between suppliers and distributors."
The investigation, code-named Operation Cartagine, started when the police seized 5497 kilos of cocaine (a European record at the time) in March 1994 in Turin. A year later the Turin Prosecutors Office presented the indictment. The operation neutralized the most important supply-line of narcotics to Europe, investigators claimed.
He was sentenced in absentia on July 30, 1997 by the 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...
court of appeal to 21 years and 10 months for Mafia association, conspiracy to traffic narcotics and aggravated importing, possession and sale of large quantities of narcotics for his involvement in heroin trafficking in the 1980s. At the same time he was prosecuted in 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...
for cocaine trafficking in the 1990s.
The Palermo court concluded that the network was "a further indication of the high criminal capability" of Caruana who had "escaped every judicial initiative during the last decades and succeeded in reaching the top of the international drug trade, adjusting his criminal contacts and showing such skill that he is to be considered as one of the most important exponents in this sector." In July 1998, he was arrested in Woodbridge, Ontario
Woodbridge, Ontario
Woodbridge is a large suburban community in the City of Vaughan, just north of Toronto in Southern Ontario. It was once an independent town before being amalgamated with nearby communities to form the city in 1971. Its traditional downtown core is the Woodbridge Ave...
in an international police action called Project Omerta for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to Canada.
Car wash attendant
At one time he claimed he was a simple car washCar 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 officer in charge of the investigation, 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,...
Chief Superintendent
Chief Superintendent
Chief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces organised on the British model.- United Kingdom :In the British police, a chief superintendent is senior to a superintendent and junior to an assistant chief constable .The highest rank below Chief Officer level, chief...
Ben Soave, said "If organized crime was a hockey game, Mr. Caruana would be [Wayne] Gretzky." Caruana 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.
In November 2004, a Canadian court ordered that he 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.
External links
- Last of 'untouchables' nabbed, by Adrian Humphreys, Hamilton Spectator, July 16, 1998
- A Raid In Woodbridge, by Tim Padgett, Time Magazine, July 27, 1998
- The Family Man, by Antonio Nicaso and Lee Lamothe, Toronto Life, March 2001
- Wary judge denies bail to Mafia kingpin, The National Post, July 4, 2003