17 Facts About Alfonso Caruana

In 1998, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police amassed enough evidence, and Alfonso Caruana was arrested at his Woodbridge, Ontario, home.

Alfonso Caruana was born in Castelvetrano in the province of Trapani, Sicily.

Alfonso Caruana's family originated from Siculiana in the province of Agrigento and is closely related to the Cuntrera family through several marriages.

Alfonso Caruana married his niece Giuseppina Caruana and has a son and two daughters.

In 1968, Alfonso Caruana arrived in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with $100 in his pocket pretending to be an electrician.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Alfonso Caruana established himself near Lugano in a luxurious villa, supervising the laundering of the proceeds of heroin-trafficking.

Alfonso Caruana prepared the pizzas while his wife tended the pay-desk.

Meanwhile, Alfonso Caruana organised a network that smuggled eleven metric tonnes of cocaine to Italy from 1991 until 1994.

Alfonso Caruana brought together the cocaine producers of the Colombian cartels with the Italian distributors, six 'Ndrangheta families from Calabria.

At the time, the Cuntrera-Alfonso Caruana family was labelled as "the fly-wheel of the drug trade and the indispensable link between suppliers and distributors".

In March 1995, Alfonso Caruana filed for bankruptcy after declaring $250 worth of assets following a notice of assessment from Revenue Canada to pay $8.6 million in unpaid taxes, plus accrued interest and various penalties accounting for $21.2 million.

Alfonso Caruana claimed to be a carwash attendant who made $400 per week had Swiss bank accounts in his name, of which $21 million was moved through; he claimed most of the money belonged to his uncle Pasquale Cuntrera.

Revenue Canada was unsuccessful in recovering the amounts due, as Alfonso Caruana was officially bankrupt on paper; he was ordered to pay a mere $90,000 over a three-year period.

Alfonso Caruana was sentenced in absentia on 30 July 1997, by the Palermo 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.

Alfonso's brothers, Pasquale and Gerlando Caruana were arrested in the Project, receiving 10 and 18-year prison sentences respectively.

In June 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that Alfonso Caruana be extradited to Italy to face prison time.

In 2019, Alfonso Caruana was convicted of running a cocaine trafficking and money laundering empire between Italy and North America, and after the Supreme Court of Cassation dismissed his appeal in November 2020, he faces an additional 17 years in prison.