http://www.tni.org/archives/tblick/aruba.htm
YOU HAVE TO GO READ THIS ARTICLE,,MIDWAY DOWN, IT IS VERY LONG, THERE IS AN ACCOUNT OF THE CROES FAMILY AND THEIR INVOLVEMENT WITH THE MAFIA.
This article is a long read but is a detailed account of the Mafia and Aruba,,it is breathtaking to read.
The Intercon Financial Bank on Aruba is represented by the law-firm Croes & Wever. One of the partners is former Minister of Justice Hendrik Croes. The firm's trust-company Arulex was implicated in setting up the bank. ""Yes, we are involved with that bank"," says Croes. ""We still handle all their legal affairs, but we don't know anything of their financial accounts"." (70)
Hendrik Croes – a brother of the island's legendary leader, the late Betico Croes who guided Aruba to its semi-independent status in the Dutch realm – is one of the leading political figures on the island. He led several election campaigns for the MEP, now in the opposition. The Croes Family has been accused of ties with Cuntrera-Caruana. The Sicilian mafiosi payed for a trip of another brother, Rudy Croes (who succeeded Hendrik as Minister of Justice in a previous MEP government) as party secretary to a meeting of the Socialist International in Turkey. This has not been denied.
Paolo Cuntrera visited the island regularly despite his expulsion in 1988. The government opposed his legal actions for re-admittance. But Hendrik Croes has to admit the procedures were not stainless. A blundering government lawyer, an official who signed a residence permit 'by mistake', meant that "de facto" Paolo Cuntrera was able to circulate freely on the island.
According to Canadian police reports, in 1978, Pasquale Cuntrera owned the Holiday Inn Casino – although the registers indicated otherwise. ""At the start of 1980s the Cuntrera's were often at the Holiday Inn casino"," says a croupier. ""In 1989 they were there again, although they were ostensibly thrown of the island"."
DEA agent David Lorino, the case-officer in Operation Wiseguy, claims that ""when the Cuntrera's moved to Venezuela they carried some 15 to 30 million dollars with them, which were invested in hotels in Caracas, but also on Curaçao and Aruba"." 71 The DEA had used the Miami-based Italian-born Venezuelan business man Raffaele Bellizzi to contact Pasquale Cuntrera. Before 1983 Bellizzi owned a shipping-company, but that year it went bankrupt because of the debt-crises in Venezuela. ""He told us that his ships transported narcotics and money from Caracas to Aruba and Europe","says Lorino. As mentioned before Canadian investigations show that the clan used Aruba as a trampoline for cocaine to North America. (72)
According to Lorino, ""the names Cuntrera and Caruana were well known on the island"." Now nobody on Aruba wants to know that these gentle and well mannered Sicilians ever existed. ""Oh, but a lot of people knew them then","says Bianca de Mey, who set up the company "Investeringen Tweehonderd en Tien", which was the holding for a nightclub and pizzeria for the Cuntreras. The company now has nothing to do with them any more, she adds.
The Cuntrera's must have felt at home on Aruba. The island has been a smugglers' paradise, since colonial times, when it was used to evade the Spanish trade monopoly. Whatever disagreements Arubans may have – and they have a lot – this is something they readily admit. Even Prime Minister Eman acknowledges ""it is an island of smugglers ... For years Aruba was the most important coffee exporter, while there is no coffee-plant to be found on the island"." Aruba is also the biggest exporter of Philip Morris cigarettes and every imaginable kind of whisky. On Aruba it is all imported and exported according to the rules. What they do at the other side on the South American mainland is not the problem of the islanders. Legal trade or contraband, the difference is thin. ""A lot of families became very rich with this trade","says Eman. ""This went on for decades and it is an eh... accepted fact"."
Part of this long article. The ARend family were also money launderers. Apparently the Mafia owned the island and the criminal enterprise is incredible.
This article is a long but important read.
OMG. Great find, cg.
suspects are safer in the pokey now. aruban authorities are probably being threatened hourly.
I read the site you linked, and I agree..."It is breathtaking to read." It certainly gives the lie to Aruba being an idyllic crime-free island for tourists, especially HS students.