Cuntrera Caruana family (Mafia clan)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Part of the Cuntrera family tree

The Cuntrera Caruana family from Siculiana is a Mafia clan of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra in the Free Community Consortium of Agrigento . The organization was founded in the 1950s, had its heyday in the 1980s and 1990s and is still active in drug trafficking and money laundering in Sicily, Ostia near Rome , Canada and Venezuela to this day. Their allies were the Bonanno family , the Rizzuto family and the Corleonesi . In the press they were often referred to as "The Rothschilds of the Mafia" or "The Bankers of the Cosa Nostra" because of their wealth . Italian prosecutors described the Cuntrera-Caruana-MafiaClan as an “international holding company” that secures certain drug trafficking or money laundering services for the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. The clan is described as "a very close family group of men of honor, to which not only Mafia ties, but also blood ties belong" . According to the Italian Anti-Mafia Commission, the Cuntrera Caruana clan played a central role in the international drug trade and expanded its interests from Italy to Canada and Venezuela . They also own substantial shares of the island of Aruba . Prominent members of the clan are the brothers Liborio Cuntrera, Pasquale Cuntrera, Gaspare Cuntrera and Paolo Cuntrera. Furthermore Giuseppe Caruana, Carmelo Caruana and his son Alfonso Caruana and Leonardo Caruana.

history

The two families Cuntrera and Caruana come from Siculiana, a small town on the south coast of Sicily, Agrigento Free Community Consortium. They are relatives. The two families married each other in order to strengthen their criminal alliance through cross-entanglements. The tradition of the Mafia is very old in Siculiana. On a map made in 1900, Siculiana is mentioned as high-density Mafia territory. The province of Agrigento has been one of the poorest and most backward regions in Italy since the last century . The Cuntrera Caruana clan used to provide an armed militia for the local Baron Agnello, who owned most of the village and the surrounding land. Siculiana was completely dependent on the baron's feudal conditions for work and income. When land reform began in the 1950s, the baron was forced to give up most of his holdings. The local mafia brokered the sale of the holdings. The power of the mafia was unchallenged in those years. They joined the city council and the mayor was a well-known mafioso.

In 1952, Pasquale Cuntrera and his brother-in-law Leonardo Caruana were charged with double homicide, theft of four cows, and arson. Both were acquitted in 1953, typical of mafia crimes that went on from the 1950s to 1970s. A 1966 police report concluded that Siculiana had been ruled entirely by the Mafia for decades. Giuseppe Caruana, his brother Leonardo Caruana and Pasquale Cuntrera used every economic activity in the village and in the surrounding communities. They had created an atmosphere of omertà . They used violence and intimidation to ensure that no resistance arose. Only a court in Agrigento decided to banish them from the village. However, some returned. In the 1970s, after being expelled from Canada, Leonardo Caruana became the area's Capo Mandamento under the leadership of Agrigento's Capomafia, Giuseppe Settecasi. The power base of the clan extended into politics. Influential politician Calogero Mannino of the Democrazia Cristiana (DC) was the best man at the 1977 wedding of Leonardo Caruana's son Gerlando in Siculiana. Leonardo Caruana was murdered in front of his home in Palermo in 1981 the day his other son Gaspare Caruana married. The murder occurred at the height of a second Mafia war and went unavenged.

In the 1920s the village of Siculiana had 8,000 inhabitants, today there are fewer than 5,000. In the 1950s, there was mass emigration. Many moved to Germany and Belgium or overseas to travel to the USA , Canada , Venezuela or Brazil . Among them was Alfonso Gagliano (born January 25, 1942 in Siculiana), who was cabinet minister in Canada in the government of Jean Chrétien . Mafiosi were among the migrants. Montreal became the first base outside Sicily for the Cuntrera Caruana clan. Canadian immigration reports show that Pasquale and Liborio Cuntrera immigrated in 1951 and obtained Canadian citizenship in 1957 . They then moved between Sicily and Canada. According to accounts from the Cuntrera Caruana clan's own family chronicle, they worked their way up in Canada through hard work, plowed snow, worked as a hairdresser and thus saved enough money to open their first pizzerias. More likely, however, that some of them left Sicily to avoid prosecution. In 1966, most of the Siculiana clan left when they were exiled by court order following action by the Italian police following the Ciaculli massacre . According to the Agrigento court ruling, several clan members were to be relocated to other places in Italy, mainly in the north. Pasquale Cuntrera and Leonardo Caruana moved to Montreal in Canada, Giuseppe Caruana to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the Cuntrera brothers to Caracas in Venezuela . In the early 1970s, the Cuntrera Caruana clan reorganized after criminal prosecution against the Mafia in Italy weakened. In Italy, the major Mafia trials ended without conviction for most bosses. Part of the clan relocated to mainland Italy near Lido di Ostia , a seaside resort near Rome. Others went to Great Britain , to Woking , the "London Stockbroker Belt" . Others stayed in Caracas or Montreal. Venezuela became an important hiding place. "Venezuela has its own Cosa Nostra family, as if it belonged to a Sicilian territory," said the Italian police. “The structure and hierarchy of the mafia was completely reproduced in Venezuela.” The Cuntrera Caruana clan had direct links to the Cupola and was recognized by the American Cosa Nostra as an important partner. In the Second Mafia War, the Cuntrera-Caruana clan initially sided with the established Mafia families of Palermo of the Bontade-Inzerillo-Badalamenti axis, who were massacred by the Corleonesi under the leadership of Salvatore Riina. Apparently they were able to reach an agreement with Riina to escape the carnage. The Cuntreras and Caruanas were necessary and irreplaceable for the business of most Mafia families, according to police investigators: "Everyone else is allied with them."

The Cuntrera Caruana clan had formed a powerful heroin trading network since the 1950s. You were key players in both the French Connection of the 1970s and the Pizza Connection of the 1980s. Several intertwined Sicilian networks exported heroin to the US . The sources were often suppliers from the Corsican underworld in Marseille with their high-quality laboratories and the destination was the North American consumer market. The chaos caused by the Ciaculli massacre has disrupted the Sicilian heroin trade with the United States. Mafiosi have been arrested, convicted and imprisoned. Control of the drug trade fell into the hands of a few Capomafia: Salvatore "Ciaschiteddu" Greco , his cousin Salvatore "l'Ingegnere" Greco , Pietro Davì, Tommaso Buscetta and Gaetano Badalamenti . They were all associated with the Cuntrera Caruana clan. The well-known " Pentito " Tommaso Buscetta told the anti-mafia judge Giovanni Falcone in 1984 how he had met wealthy members of the clan at Christmas 1969 in Montreal. Buscetta stayed at Pasquale Cuntrera's house and was recovering from an STD . They were introduced to him as “uomini d'onore” . The Italian police got an approximate idea of ​​the role of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan during the investigation of the Pizza Connection in 1982/83. The Italian police had followed the movements of Giuseppe Bono, the middleman between the criminal families Gambino and Bonanno in New York and the Sicilian clans that organized the heroin traffic into the USA. "Almost all of the money the Sicilian Mafia made for buying heroin and the resulting income in North America went through their hands," a police investigator found out about the importance of the Cuntrera Caruana family.

Important members of the Cuntrera Caruana family

literature

  • John Dickie: Cosa Nostra. A story of the Sicilian Mafia . London. 2004. Coronet. ISBN 0-340-82435-2 .
  • Pino Arlacchi: Mafia from within: The life of Don Antonino Calderone . S. Fischer Verlag
  • John Follain: The Final Godparents: Rise and Fall of the Corleones Fishermen Paperback. 2017. ISBN 978-359-6-31906-0 .
  • Lee Lamothe and Humphreys Adrian: The Sixth Family. Vito Rizzuto e il Collasso della Mafia Americana. Armando Curcio Editore. 2009. p. 672. ISBN 978-88-95049-67-0 .
  • Frederic P. Miller, Agnes F. Vandome and John McBrewster: Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia Clan. ISBN 978-613-0-60816-3 .

Notes and individual references

  1. ^ Families owned much of Aruba. The Globe and Mail of Canada. February 26, 2000.
  2. ^ The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba. Transnational Organized Crime. Volume 3. No. 2. 1997
  3. ^ Liborio Cuntrera in About the Mafia
  4. ↑ Storia del boss estradato dal Venezuela. Le prime indagini condotte da Falcone. Pasquale Cuntrera, il re della droga. La Repubblica. May 19, 1998 (it.)
  5. ↑ Un fantasma da 800 milioni di dollari. Chi è Alfonso Caruana, il banchiere dei narcos. Outsider News. January 23, 2020 (it.)
  6. ↑ André Cédilot and André Noël: Mafia Inc .: The Long, Bloody Reign of Canada's Sicilian Clan. 2011.
  7. ^ Quando tutto torna: da Rizzuto a Rizzuto passando per Settecasi. Grand Angolo Agrigento. November 28, 2016 (it.)
  8. ↑ Here's how a wiretap recorded a conversation talking about getting rid of Pat Musitano. The Hamilton Spectator. April 29, 2019
  9. ↑ "Pigliamuni Ostia" dopo la "Banda della Magliana" arrivarono i Triassi di Siculiana. Agrigento Notice. July 29, 2013. (it.)
  10. ↑ Men of Honor
  11. ↑ Canadian mob kingpins jailed. The Globe Mail. February 26, 2000
  12. ^ Mafia: Chi e 'Alfonso Caruana, L'ultimo degli intoccabili. Adn Agenzia 1998 (it.)