Learn Italian: Che paura che ci ha fatto il doganiere! - What fear the customs officer caused us!

The first che translates to 'What' in the exclamation 'What a fear!' (Che paura!). The second che is the focus of this lesson: it is pleonastic, meaning it isn't grammatically required, but it is used to add strong emphasis. In spoken Italian, using this second che to link the exclamation to the rest of the sentence makes the emotional reaction sound much more intense than if you had simply said Che paura ci ha fatto il doganiere!

Why is the verb fare (to make/do) used here to talk about being scared?

In Italian, the standard phrase for 'to scare someone' is fare paura a qualcuno (literally, 'to make fear to someone'). The pronoun ci means 'to us', so ci ha fatto paura is the natural way to say 'he scared us'.

Since paura is feminine, why doesn't the past participle agree and become fatta?

In Italian, past participles with the auxiliary verb avere only change their endings to agree with direct object pronouns (like lo, la, li, le). The pronoun ci in this sentence is an indirect object pronoun, meaning 'to us'. Because it is indirect, the past participle does not agree with it and stays in its default masculine singular form, fatto.

Why is the subject (il doganiere) at the very end of the sentence?