A real life Tony Soprano who was an assassin for the Sicilian mafia passed himself off as a genial wine bar owner in suburban Surrey.

Francesco Di Carlo was a senior member of the Cosa Nostra and strongly linked to the murder of Italian banker Roberto Calvi. 

Calvi, known as ‘God’s banker’, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge.

The UK authorities were unaware that di Carlo, nicknamed the strangler, was secretly behind a conspiracy to export vast quantities of heroin from the UK to mafia families in North America.

The Sicilian lived in a sprawling home worth around £400,000 at the time, complete with swimming pool, sauna and landscaped gardens.

The neighbours in Horsell Rise, Woking, assumed Roberto was just another hard working businessman when they nodded to him over the fence.

In fact Di Carlo was a senior executive within Europe’s most dangerous criminal faction, the dreaded Sicilian mafia. But the criminality was concealed behind a web of import/export companies, and a wine bar.

Di Carlo’s double life in Woking is probed on Sky History series Ross Kemp: Mafia And Britain, which begins on Tuesday.

In the five-part documentary, former Eastenders star reveals how Sicilian mob bosses and even Italian American gangsters still have roots in the UK.

Ross says: ‘Undoubtedly they’re still here. They’re everywhere.

‘They operate in a very different way to the 1920s or 1980s. The most successful ones are the ones you never hear of.’

Back in the 1980s the closest most British coppers came to the Cosa Nostra was watching the Godfather on the telly.

International crime syndicates such as the mafia were not known to have any presence in the UK,least of all in Woking.

Former Senior Customs Investigator Jim Jarvie, who was on the taskforce set up to smash the gang, told the Mail how Di Carlo was similar to the mob boss made famous by James Gandolfini in The Sopranos. 

In the hit show Gandolfini played Tony Soprano, a New Jersey mob boss who organised murders in between the school run and family barbecues.

He said: ‘Di Carlo was a real life Tony Soprano. But we were told he was an assassin for the Sicilian mafia, so he was dangerous.

‘I think he wanted to come across as just another businessman. He was fairly low key, apart from the Ferrari.’

In the 1980s the British drug market tended to be dominated by traditional crime families. In London the feared Richardson brothers were dominant and in Liverpool Tommy Commerford, a larger than life character, was the city’s main importer.

While Di Carlo may have appeared to be just another wine bar boss living in the stockbroker belt, he was in fact moving drugs around the world, washing dirty money and wanted for murder back in Italy.

However, a routine cannabis bust managed to unravel not only a then unprecedented UK drugs plot but a secret cell of mafia bosses in the home counties.

Veteran detectives soon realised that the mafia had been based in Surrey for nearly a decade, and were behind the UK’s biggest ever drug plot.

The discovery shocked hardened coppers and their counterparts in Sicily were informed. Senior mafia investigator Nino Cassara, flew into London to exchange intelligence on the operation

However on his return to Sicily Mr Cassara, father of three, was later murdered in an AK47 attack. For the customs team back in the UK it was a timely reminder of what they were up against.

Jim said: ‘After Nino was murdered back in Sicily we were warned to vary our movements and not take the same route to the office.

‘I remember during the court case at the Old Bailey the translator was run over. It was a hit and run which was obviously troubling. The woman recovered from her injuries and was able to return to work.

‘Judge Hassan and the jury were then given 24-hour protection.

‘We were advised by the then Chief Investigation Officer, Richard Lawrence to vary our times and route into work.

‘And he advised us not to stand too near the platform at railway stations.’

British customs were determined to smash the mafia gang and bring down di Carlo. The operation was code named Devotion.

Di Carlo grew up in the village of Altofonte near Palermo and became known to police in the 1960s.

After robbery, firearms and perjury convictions he joined the mafia in the 1970s.

Backed by his brothers Andrew and Giulio, Francesco launched his own mafia family in Altofonte.

Francesco had close ties to the feared the Corleone family who inspired the Godfather movies, and quickly rose through the ranks of Cosa Nostra.

However in the 1970s the bosses began sending him him on trips to London to launch a fruit and veg import business, which was a classic front for drug smuggling.

In the summer of 1982 Di Carlo was sent to live permanently in the UK, along with Alfonso and Pasquale Caruana.

The mafia families decided to settle in the Woking area of Surrey, where a large Italian community would help them blend in.

Di Carlo and the Caruana brothers quickly went about setting up a web of front companies to import food and furniture into the UK. The imports all concealed large amounts of drugs, which were then exported to Canada before moving toward established mafia families in New York.

The new mafia clan in suburban Surrey also worked with established London villains to distribute heroin, coke and cannabis in the south east.

The complex drug and money laundering conspiracy worked smoothly until sniffer dog started barking on a winter’s morning in December 1984. When customs officers investigated the furniture at Felixstowe docks they found a haul of Afghan cannabis worth £3million.

Jim said: ‘Yes that was a key drug bust.’

The key front companies were Elongate, Canada Inc and Ital Provisions. Elongate Ltd was based in Batsworth Road, Mitcham, Surrey.

Jim said: ‘We looked at the previous importations for Elongate and the overseas company Shalimar Enterprises based in Kashmir. Research into Shalimar found that the company had previously sent a consignment to Ital Provisions.

‘We suspected that ended up in Montreal. We assumed after Elongate was busted Di Carlo used Ital Provisions. And we were right.’

In May 1985 a shipment of furniture arrived in Felixstowe docks.

The initial tests of the haul at Custom house in Lower Thames Street were negative. However a government chemist used x-ray equipment which revealed packages of drugs in the table tops. When team drilled down into the objects, they found white powder. Crucially the drug laden furniture was addressed to Ital Provisions.

They then chanced upon 60 kilos of heroin, which was a UK record at the time. They removed around 40 kilos but allowed 20 kilo to travel on to Canada where cops were waiting it for it to arrive.

After the Canadian police made their move, Operation Devotion reached its inevitable conclusion and the team made their move for Di Carlo at his luxury home in Woking.

In August 1987 he was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he was found guilty of drug offences following a trial at the Old Bailey.

Di Carlo later began cooperating with the authorities while serving his sentence, becoming what the Italians refer to as a pentito.

At one point he confessed to killing Roberto Calvi, although he later retracted.

In 2012 di Carlo claimed he was supposed to be the original killer assigned to the ‘hit’ on the ordered of orders of a Cosa Nostra godfather called Giuseppe ‘Pippo’ Calo.

He told the Sunday Mirror: ‘I will never forget the date: it was June 16, 1982, two days before Calvi’s murder.

‘I was told Pippo Calo was trying to get hold of me because he needed me to do something for him. In the hierarchy of the Cosa Nostra, I was a colonel and he was a general, my superior.’

However, he was in Rome at the time and by the time he managed to speak to Calo, the target was already dead.

He said: ‘When I finally spoke to Pippo he told me “not to worry, that the problem had been taken care of”.

‘That’s a code we use in the Cosa Nostra. We never talk about killing someone. We say they have been taken care of. It is obvious who the intended target was.’

In 2010 it emerged that Di Carlo attended a meeting between mafia bosses and Silvio Berlusconi in the 1970s.

A judgement handed down by an Italian court revealed how the industrialist met with mafiosi in 1975, in a bid to gain protection for his wife and children.

Di Carlo was said to have attended the meeting, which took place at Mr Berlusconi’s construction headquarters in Milan.

Di Carlo told the court: ‘Berlusconi said he was worried about his children, he was alarmed by all these kidnappings, and he wanted a guarantee that his family would be left alone.’

Mobster Vittorio Mangano was later seconded to protect the Berlusconi family.

Di Carlo died in 2020.

The full story of Jim Jarvie’s career as a customs officer can be read here –  https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-Life-Customs-JIM-JARVIE/dp/B0BNTWF6JQ/