Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan
Pasquale Cuntrera arrested on Fiumicino airport near Rome in September 1992 after he was expelled from Venezuela.
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| Founded | 1900s |
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| Years active | 1900s-present |
| Territory | Siculiana, Ostia (Rome), presence in Canada and Venezuela |
| Ethnicity | Italian |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking and money laundering |
| Allies | Bonanno and Rizzuto crime families |
The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan is a Mafia clan (in English called "Crime family") of 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 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 the Cuntrera-Caruana clan played a central role in international drug trafficking, extending their interests from Italy to Canada and Venezuela.
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, and Leonardo Caruana.
The Cuntrera and Caruana families originated from Siculiana, a small village on the south coast of Sicily in the province of Agrigento. 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.
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Wikipedia