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Five Decades in the Narcotics Business

When and how the [BadWord]-Caruana clan became involved in drug trafficking is unknown. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) the family was part of heroin-smuggling networks to the US the 1940s onwards. Their names appeared at investigations in such famous cases as the French Connection in the 1970s and the Pizza Connection in the 1980s. (24)

A good guess would be that they were introduced by the notorious Sicilian-American gangster and associate of Lucky Luciano, Nicola Gentile. 'Zu Cola' had also been born in Siculiana, but moved to the US at the turn of the century. In 1937 he was caught red-handed trafficking in narcotics, but – on the order of his American bosses – had jumped bail and returned to Sicily. (25)

In Sicily Gentile rose to a position as 'capo'. After the invasion in 1943, He helped the military set up its civil administration (AMGOT) in the Agrigento province and became involved in intelligence and the Sicilian separatist movement. Later he became a important canvasser for politicians from the Christian-democratic Party, who quarrelled for his support. (26)

When Lucky Luciano was extradited to Italy in 1946 he once again teamed up with Gentile in organizing drug routes to the US. Gentile had very good connections with well-known drug traffickers on Sicily, which he may have organized himself. His son was married to the daughter of Pietro Davì, one of the leading figures in the illegal tobacco and drug trade in Palermo in the 1950s. (27)

Several intertwining Sicilian networks were running heroin to the US. They had the same source – suppliers from the Corsican underworld in Marseilles with their high quality laboratories – and the same destination: the North American consumer market. After the War the US expelled dozens of Italo-American Mafiosi besides Luciano. These so-called 'undesirables' became the inter-oceanic link, and stimulated the metamorphosis of the Sicilian Mafia from a backward rural power-system into a modern protection and smuggling industry.