'Cuban mafia' chieftain sentenced in Miami
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| Published on Saturday, March 17, 2007 |
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MIAMI, USA (Reuters): A leader of a "Cuban mafia" organized crime syndicate called The Corporation was sentenced on Friday to nearly 16 years in prison for racketeering and ordered to forfeit $642 million.
Jose Miguel Battle Jr. was convicted last year on various racketeering conspiracy charges including murder, gambling, arson and money laundering.
Battle Jr. is the son and namesake of the "Godfather" of a 40-year-old organization prosecutors likened to a Cuban mafia, and substituted as head of the crime family when his father was out of the country or in jail.
The elder Battle built the syndicate on illegal gambling in New York in the early 1960s after leaving Cuba, prosecutors said. It later branched out to south Florida -- a Cuban population center from those who fled the Cuban revolution -- and into drugs, contract killing, arson and money laundering.
Battle Sr. was sentenced in January to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to racketeering conspiracy last year.
Prosecutors said The Corporation was responsible for numerous murders, including those of a 3-year-old child killed in a fire and an ex-hit man who was gunned down in the 1970s after leaving the syndicate.
The younger Battle, who was sentenced to 15 years and eight months in prison, oversaw sophisticated money laundering operations in the Cayman Islands, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Spain and other locations, prosecutors said. | | | | Reads : 36 |
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