Cosa Nostra News

SOURCE Liborio "Pancho" Cuntrera -- having returned from his Italian vacation -- is due to appear at the Montreal courthouse this afternoon, The Montreal Gazette just reported . Cuntrera, 47, of Laval, faces three charges related to Project Clemenza, an investigation into cocaine trafficking and smuggling. Cuntrera was in Italy when the RCMP was conducting arrests. "Pancho" was arrested yesterday, while in the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport. He was taken directly into custody the moment he stepped off the plan. His first court appearance is this afternoon (Monday, May 6, 2016.) Cuntrera was one of the six men who sat on the Montreal Mafia's ruling panel, which also included Leonardo Rizzuto and Stefano Sollecito, both arrested last November .

Rizzuto loyalist Marco Pizzi, 46, of Montreal North, was ar rested in the latest coordinated Montreal takedown. Last November, Montreal law enforcement busted up an alleged " unholy" alliance comprised of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, the Hells Angels and a number of street gangs. They followed that up with another raid, snagging 15 people following a probe into drug-smuggling. The focus was on a key member of the Montreal Mafia, Liborio "Pancho" Cuntrera of the Cuntrera-Caruana clan, in which most members are linked by blood. The Italian press dubbed them the "The Rothschilds of the Mafia." (The Rothschild family business of financiers is considered the wealthiest in modern world history.) The Cuntrera-Caruana clan were a major component of the Cosa Nostra's 1980s-1990s drug trafficking operations, playing a major role in laundering illicit cash proceeds.