Puerto Rican Syndicates (North America)

Puerto Rican ethnic mafias (likely where operate)

The Puerto Rican Syndicates are Puerto Rican criminal syndicates in North America.

History

Fifth World

The Puerto Ricans had formed an ethnic mafia consisting of various Puerto Rican crime syndicates. The Puerto Ricans never established a long lasting criminal society or brotherhood, nor any nationwide criminal syndicates or networks. All of the major Puerto Rican syndicates in the United States were subordinate to the Italians.

The most famous Puerto Rican racketeer was Raymond Márquez (aka, Spanish Raymond) who was the numbers king of NY City from 1958 until he retired in 2001. Helping him in the gambling operation was his family, including his wife and nephews. In the 1990s, the Márquez Family's operation was handling $30 million a year in bets done at 41 parlors (which was a significant decline from the golden age of the numbers racket in decades earlier). In 1995, police raided 69 locations including 12 money banks (the headquarters consisted of four contiguous buildings which were in a row, connected by tunnels, doors, and trapdoors). When he publicly retired in 2001, he still owned significant assets including hotels in Florida and Long Island.

The most famous female Puerto Rican racketeer was Leanel Garcia (aka, Pancha/panchita La negra nana ) who was the numbers queen of NY City/miami from 1980 until she retired in 2007.[1][2][3]

In the American drug underworld there was the Camacho/Garcia Family, a tight-knit family-run drug trafficking organization in Miami,Florida which was active from the 1980s to 2000s. It worked with the multi-generational drug trafficking organization, the Herrera family Canada It was a multi-million dollar operation whose product was heroin and cocaine. They also ran a gambling operation involving cockfights.[4][5][6]

Down in the island of Puerto Rico, the greatest kingpin it produced was Jose Figueroa Agosto (aka Junior Capsula). Who earned the title of "Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean". In the 2000s, he was smuggling multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine into Puerto Rico (100s of kilos from Dominican Republic were imported via private vessels) which were then distributed within Puerto Rico and in the United States. He was one of the Caribbean's most powerful drug traffickers and had escaped from prison once.[7][8]

Sixth World

When magic returned to the world with a vengeance in the Awakening, the La Cosa Nostra took advantage of the chaos and opened its doors to the smaller criminal outfits. Most of the Puerto Rican syndicates joined the new multi-ethnic Mafia. They were either absorbed into one of the 12 major families or became one of the 100+ minor families and associated groups.

Note

Due to where Puerto Ricans were concentrated and the location of historically documented Puerto Rican syndicates (gambling syndicates and drug gangs), any independent Puerto Rican ethnic mafias which still exist or Puerto Rican crime families that are part of the American Mafia would most likely be located in the UCAS (NY City, Newark, Chicago, and Massachusetts and Florida).

Trivia

Historically, the Puerto Rican criminal outfits were focused on either the numbers racket (NY City) or the smuggling & distribution of cocaine for the Colombians in the Northeast (mostly NY city). They came to be eclipsed by the Cubans in the Latino gambling underworld in the New York-New Jersey area and by the Dominicans throughout the Northeast who turned out be better traffickers for the Colombians in both cocaine and heroin. They are still in the cocaine trafficking business due to the strategic location of Puerto Rico, mostly to the Northeast (specifically NY City).

Index

• o05084094Underworld Sourcebook, 28, 30, 73
• o33031982Vice, 86

Puerto Rican Mobsters in the Real World

• Wikipedia: Spanish Numbers King
• NY Post: Puerto Rican Drug Ring