Just before he was killed by the Mafia, judge Giovanni Falcone warned of the international connections of Cosa Nostra. He initiated extradition requests for the Cuntrera-Caruana members in Venezuela. After the killing of the judges Falcone and Paolo Borsellino the Italian authorities stepped up prosecution. Pasquale, Paolo and Gaspare Cuntrera were arrested in September 1992 on Fiumicino airport (Rome), after they had been expelled from Venezuela. Their expulsion was ordered by a commission of the Venezuelan Senate headed by Senator Cristobal Fernandez Dalo and his money laundering investigator, Thor Halvorssen Hellum.