14 HELD FOR PLOTTING TO SMUGGLE DRUGS

Police in four nations worked on Project Omerta

Last year, Alfonso Caruana described himself as a $400-a-week worker in a
car wash. Yesterday, police alleged he is a major organized crime figure.

Caruana, 52, his brothers Pasquale and Gerlando, and nephew Giuseppe were
among 14 people arrested in early-morning raids on their homes in
Woodbridge, Montreal, the United States and Mexico.

Police from four countries held a news conference at an RCMP building on
St. Clair Ave. to allege that Caruana, of Woodbridge, is a ``major figure
in the Cuntrera-Caruana organized crime family. This group specializes in
large-scale drug smuggling and money laundering.''

``This organization has been recognized as the largest, most powerful drug
smuggling and money laundering organization in the world that has been
successfully operating for the last 30 years,'' said RCMP Inspector Ben
Soave, head of the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit that took part
in the raids yesterday.

The organization is ``in a much bigger league, say, than the Gambinos,''
Soave said, referring to the top New York City crime family once run by
mobster John Gotti.

In a Montreal court last year, Caruana testified that he was a $400-a-week
car washer, although neighbours interviewed yesterday say he drives a
late-model Cadillac and Mercedes.

``If organized crime was the game of hockey, Mr. Caruana would be Wayne
Gretzky,'' Soave said.

Caruana was nabbed in a project code-named Omerta, the Italian word for
conspiracy of silence, which is appropriate for the tight-lipped man.

``He operates in the shadows,'' RCMP Staff Sergeant Larry Tronstad said in
an interview after the news conference. ``He's very, very, very cautious.''

And now Caruana and the other 13 face charges of conspiracy to import
cocaine, conspiracy to traffic in cocaine, and importing cocaine.

The bail hearing for Caruana and the others arrested here or brought to
Toronto from Montreal was set for this morning at old city hall court.

Despite his notoriety in police circles, Caruana enjoyed relative privacy
in his $400,000 home on Goldpark Ct. in Woodbridge until the arrests, the
culmination of a two-year joint investigation involving the RCMP, Toronto
police, Peel Region police, York Region police, the OPP, la Bret du Quebec,
Montreal Urban Community Police, and police in the United States and Italy.

He liked to frequent coffee shops along Highway 7 and Steeles Ave., Spadina
Village at St. Clair Ave. W. and Spadina Rd. N., and a nightclub on
Dufferin St., south of Steeles Ave., Tronstad said.

Caruana has no record of violence.

When arrested, Caruana held his head high, even when the police cruiser in
which he was travelling was surrounded by news photographers at 32
Division, near Bathurst St. and Sheppard Ave.

Caruana found himself in a Montreal courtroom in March, 1997, trying to
fend off Revenue Canada's demand for $29.8 million in unpaid taxes and
penalties.

At the time, Superior Court Justice Derek Guthrie said he didn't believe
Caruana's explanation of what happened to $21 million that went through his
bank account in 1981 - one of several years Caruana didn't file an income
tax return.

``I don't believe a word he said,'' Guthrie said in court last year, adding
that Caruana ``had almost no memory of extraordinary large sums of money
and what he did with it.''

But since Caruana declared bankruptcy, and at the time reported a net
income of $400 a week, Guthrie ordered him to pay only $90,000 of the tax
bill over the next three years.

During the court hearing, Revenue Canada lawyer Chantal Comtois asked if he
was the Mafia's godfather.

``If only it were true,'' Caruana replied.

``Is it true that you owned 160 square kilometres of land in Venezuela near
the Colombian border?'' the lawyer continued.

``Everything is false,'' the Woodbridge man replied.

Caruana was first noticed in the Toronto area in the mid-1990s, although he
and his family first came here in the mid-1960s, when he was a teenager.

He came here on a winding route, from the dusty Sicilian village of
Siculiana in southern Sicily to Montreal, South America and Britain.

The Caruana family married into the Cuntrera family of Siculiana in the
1950s, and continues the practice.

After getting into tax troubles in Canada in the mid-1980s, Caruana moved
to Venezuela, where he says he worked as a pig farmer.

After his quick exit from Canada, Revenue Canada seized some $800,000 in assets.

During his income tax hearing last year in Montreal, Caruana was
hard-pressed to explain who brought him the money, or what it was doing in
Switzerland.

``You went back and forth - Venezuela, Montreal, Switzerland?'' Guthrie asked.

``No, I had it brought to me,'' Caruana replied.

``By whom?'' the judge asked.

``By travellers,'' Caruana replied.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)