 Pasquale Cuntrera was arrested at Fiumicino airport near Rome in September 1992, after he was expelled from Venezuela. | |
| Founded | 1950s |
|---|---|
| Founding location | Siculiana, Sicily, Italy |
| Years active | 1950s–2000s |
| Territory | Siculiana, Ostia, presence in Canada and Venezuela |
| Ethnicity | Italian |
| Criminal activities | Drug trafficking and money laundering |
| Allies | Corleonesi Mafia clan Rizzuto crime family and numerous other Sicilian Mafia families |
The Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan (Italian pronunciation: [kunˌtrɛrakaruˈaːna]) was a Mafia clan of the 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".[1]
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."[1] 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.[2]
Prominent members of the clan are the brothers Liborio Cuntrera, Pasquale Cuntrera,[3] Gaspare Cuntrera and Paolo Cuntrera. At the Caruana side there are Giuseppe Caruana, Carmelo Caruana and his son Alfonso Caruana, and Leonardo Caruana.
- ^ a b "The Rothschilds of the Mafia on Aruba", Transnational Organized Crime, Vol. 3, No. 2, Summer 1997
- ^ (in Italian) Commissione parlamentare d'inchiesta sul fenomeno della criminalità organizzata mafiosa o similare, Relazone annuale, July 2003, p. 53-54
- ^ (in Italian) "Pasquale Cuntrera, il re della droga", La Repubblica, May 19, 1998