DRUG TURF UP FOR BIDS

Gangs might move in following Mafia arrests

With members of the country's biggest Mafia family now in custody, the race
is on for control of a major chunk of Canada's market for illegal narcotics.

RCMP Sgt. Guy Quintal said yesterday there are a number of gangs that might
try to fill the void, including Asian gangs and biker gangs like the Hell's
Angels that already import and deal in drugs.

There is also the question of how much territory the Cuntrera-Caruana
family, some of whose key members were arrested Wednesday, will retain.

``Some families are able to run the operation from prison,'' said Ron
Gentle, an Ontario Provincial Police detective and a member of Criminal
Intelligence Service Canada, which monitors specific types of crime. ``But
for the most part, they lose their status and reputation as people who do
business without attracting too much attention.

``Once the people who dealt with them learn that the authorities have been
on to them, they look somewhere else. Continuing to deal with them becomes
too much of a risk.''

Among those arrested Wednesday, in the culmination of a two-year police
investigation called Operation Omerta, the term for the Mafia code of
silence, were the Caruana brothers - Gerlando, 54, Alfonso, 52, and
Pasquale, 50.

With Alfonso at the top, the brothers are believed to have controlled a
major portion of the cocaine and heroin imported into Canada since the late
1970s.

The investigation came to light in May, when police in Houston seized 200
kilos of cocaine bound for Canada.

Ten of the people arrested in Wednesday's raids and charged with intent to
import and traffic in a controlled substance are expected to appear in
court in Toronto Tuesday. Four of them were arrested in Montreal, four in
the Toronto area and two were picked up by immigration officials in Mexico
and flown to Toronto yesterday.

A fifth person arrested in Montreal during the operation, Micheline
Robichaud, 40, was charged with intent to traffic. She is to be tried in
Quebec.

Two men arrested in Houston when the cocaine was seized - Richard Court,
31, of St. Laurent, and John Curtis Hill, 29, of Sault Ste. Marie - are to
be tried in the United States.

Two suspects at large, believed to be in Italy, are Anthony Larosa, 22, of
Montreal and Ignazio Genua, 30, of Toronto. Anthony Larosa is the son of
Nunzio Larosa, 50, who was one of the five arrested in Montreal and was
reported to be the weak link that allowed police to crack the case.

Alfonso Caruana, who made a brief court appearance in Toronto yesterday,
has hired defence lawyer John Rosen, who defended convicted sex-killer Paul
Bernardo.

Rosen wouldn't discuss his approach.

``I really can't say too much about the case except that it's gone over to
July 21 so that several of the accused can get counsel, and after that,
within about a week, there'll be a bail hearing,'' he said.

While law-enforcement officials say it is impossible to nail down a
percentage of how much the crime family controls, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation once estimated that in 1982 alone, the Cuntrera-Caruana
alliance organized deliveries totaling more than 3 tons - roughly 50 per
cent of the heroin smuggled into the U.S.

But Quintal said the arrests will hardly stop the flow of drugs into the
country. He said the street price of cocaine probably won't even go up.

``I compare it to the sale of cars. If a big car dealer stopped selling
cars, people would simply find another place to buy them.

``But we did put a dent in their operations.''

Gentle agreed that trafficking will go on. ``Their customers will have to
find another source,'' he said.

So who is set to fill the void?

The consensus among law-enforcement experts interviewed yesterday is that
there is a wide range of organized-crime families or gangs that will go
after the Cuntrera-Caruana customers.

Criminologists have said that in Montreal's turf war over the illicit-drug
market, Mafia families appear to be on the Rock Machine's side, because the
Hell's Angels control most aspects of their own drug dealing.

Law-enforcement experts also say the Cuntrera-Caruana family empire won't
necessarily disintegrate.

Quintal said the investigation indicated there are a number of younger
Caruanas potentially being groomed to take control. Gerlando Caruana's son
Giuseppe, 28, was arrested in Toronto along with his uncles Alfonso and
Pasquale.

``We noticed that Gerlando trusted Giuseppe with a lot of important
things,'' Quintal said.

The RCMP officer also said he doesn't expect young members of the
Cuntrera-Caruana clan to fight for top family positions.

``Internally, it has always been a peaceful family,'' he said. ``I don't
think we'll see the violence there was when people were looking to be the
replacement of Vincenzo Cotroni (the reputed Montreal crime boss who died
in 1984).''

Alfonso Caruana is believed to have complete control of operations in
Canada, while Gerlando is suspected of controlling drug shipments. But even
if they are placed behind bars for a long time, their presence will be felt.

``The Cuntrera-Caruana family has major control over the distribution of
drugs in Canada and also has influence over many of the other families
involved, including Colombians and South Americans,'' said Det.-Sgt. Pietro
Poletti, an ex-member of the Montreal Urban Community police
organized-crime unit who recently joined the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service in Ottawa.

He, like other police officers who have taken part in joint police-force
operations, said the Omerta operation ushers in a new era in law
enforcement. ``This is probably the most important bust in 10 years,'' he
said.

The most significant arrest to police investigators was that of Alfonso,
who so far has been able to avoid incarceration.

Gerlando did time from 1985 to 1993 after being caught with 37 kilograms of
heroin in 1985, and Pasquale was recently released from prison in Italy.
Alfonso, however, avoided serving time despite a recent conviction in
Italy, in absentia, for drug trafficking. Years ago, Alfonso was seen
driving a pickup truck with a load of small bills to the front door of a
bank in Dorval to make a deposit.

The OPP's Gentle, who participated in joint force operations for 12 years,
said international co-operative efforts like Operation Omerta are the only
way for authorities to get to the heads of crime families today.

``No one police force or country could have done this operation alone, and
it was the ability of the police forces to work together that made it
work,'' Gentle said. ``In the past, the biggest ally of organized crime was
the inability of police forces to work together.''

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski