When most people think of the Cuban mafia in the United States, they picture Al Pacino in Scarface or the cocaine cowboys whose wars turned 1980s Miami into a bloodbath. Far fewer recall Jose Miguel Battle and his gang, The Corporation, even though it was this organization that earned the name "Cuban mafia."
Battle began as the owner of a small underground lottery business in New York, the game known in the United States as the numbers game. He went on to lead an organization of some 2,500 members.
The Corporation pulled in millions of dollars a week, rivaled the Italian mafia, built casinos in Latin America, and became a major name in Cuban organized crime, even among drug traffickers. This is the story of the most powerful Cuban gang in America.
Jose Miguel Battle was born in 1929 in the Cuban town of Altonguito. He finished his schooling there and joined the National Police Force at 19. A year and a half later he was transferred to a unit in Havana, where he was assigned to investigate gambling crimes.
Havana's police force was deeply corrupt in those years. Officers lived not on their salaries but on money from brothels, gambling dens, nightclubs, and other entertainment venues, letting them operate in peace in exchange for cash.
Battle did not try to reform the system the way a heroic Hollywood cop might. Instead, he adapted to it successfully. Within a few years he went from collecting small-time payoffs to delivering money from luxury casinos to President Batista's palace.
That position gave Jose Miguel a place in the upper reaches of organized crime, where he built useful contacts. He befriended Martin Fox, then owner of the luxurious Tropicana nightclub, a man who had made his career through bolita.
For those unfamiliar with the term, bolita is an underground lottery similar to the numbers game that became popular in the United States in the early 20th century. Fox introduced Battle to Tampa mafia boss Santo Trafficante Jr., for whom Jose Miguel gathered gang information from secret police files. That connection would later help Battle greatly after he moved to the United States.
Battle's corrupt police career ended in 1959, when Castro's movement launched its socialist revolution. He was transferred from the gambling suppression unit to traffic enforcement. With the casinos closed, there was no more bribe money, and the new job was nothing like his dream. So by the end of that year he decided to leave for the United States.
He settled in Union City, New Jersey, bought a run-down bar, and began planning how to bring his wife and children over. His careful plans were interrupted by news that the CIA was recruiting Cubans for a military operation to overthrow Castro's government.
Battle had close contacts who helped him sign up as a volunteer. A few months later he was preparing at a secret camp in the mountains of Guatemala. The operation became known as the Bay of Pigs, one of the most humiliating military defeats in U.S. history.
The reasons behind that failure are complex and deserve their own telling. For Battle's story, the invasion matters because he later earned an informal reputation as a war hero, which made him especially well known in the Cuban-American diaspora.
What happened was this. After the brigade landed and pushed inland, one of its units was caught in a devastating ambush. A soldier managed to escape the encircled area and reached the unit Battle was in.
Hearing what had happened, Jose Miguel immediately climbed into his squad's only truck and set out with two other men, a machine gun, and some small arms to rescue the trapped group. Miraculously, they not only reached the battlefield intact but brought the whole group back. By then only 11 men were left.
Despite that bravery, the mission could not be turned around. The rebel brigade was defeated and its survivors thrown into Cuban prisons. They spent more than a year there, until Castro and Kennedy reached a prisoner exchange.
Cuba returned the prisoners and received agricultural equipment, medicine, and food in return. Many who took part in the invasion later devoted their lives to fighting Castro. Battle, though he would later fund such groups, was above all a practical man. Despite his intense hatred of Castro, he thought first about solving immediate problems.
When they were brought back to the United States, everyone was offered the chance to join the U.S. Army. Battle, seeing no other option, accepted, and eventually managed to bring his wife and children to the country. He stayed in the army about a year, then left the job and moved to Union City.
By then he had sold the bar and was looking for a new way to earn. That was when the chance to enter the bolita business arrived. His old friend Anel Muiga, who had served with him in the Havana police and in the same squad at the Bay of Pigs, offered Battle a share in a small bolita betting room.
With no other option, Jose Miguel accepted his old comrade's offer. Neither could have imagined that this venture would give birth to one of the most powerful Cuban gangs in the United States.
What exactly is bolita? Literally, the word means "little ball." The history of the game's name goes back to the first half of the 20th century and is tied to the Cuban national lottery.
It used many small balls bearing different numbers, kept inside a bag. One ball was drawn, and whoever held that number was the day's winner. Because low earners could not afford to play the national lottery, clever operators set up betting at a much lower cost. That is how bolita was born.
Anyone, even the poorest resident of Havana, could come to a "bolitero" and bet a few pesos. Over time, winning numbers were no longer based only on the Cuban national lottery. In most cases, boliteros relied on horse racing results.
Each bolitero decided how the winning number would be determined. Some used up to 100 numbers, some 500, and the wealthier ones used as many as 1,000. Accordingly, a winning bet multiplied your stake by the same figure as the number of entries.
Since the minimum bet equaled the lowest denomination of Cuban currency, almost everyone in poor neighborhoods played bolita, from street toughs to elderly grandmothers. With one peso you could hardly buy anything, so why not test your luck and turn it into 500 or even 1,000 pesos?
Bolita became the national entertainment of the poor. People devised all kinds of methods to pick the right number, and enterprising theorists produced special dream books to help bettors determine it.
In the 1960s, Cubans began fleeing Castro's government in waves for the United States. They brought many national traits with them, and one of them was a love of bolita. Sooner or later, that demand needed enough supply, and Jose Miguel Battle was the man who met it.
When he accepted his colleague's offer to join the bolita business, he saw that it was very small and had no room to grow quickly, because however trivial the matter seemed, everything depended on money and connections.
First, contacts with police and politicians were needed to avoid regular raids while the business expanded. Second, funds were needed to pay out winnings. The more people bet, the greater the chance of a huge payout on a winning number.
That was where Battle used his Cuban connections. He contacted Santo Trafficante Jr. and arranged a meeting. At the meeting he told the mafia don he wanted to build a large bolita business in the Cuban neighborhoods of New York and Union City, but needed the help of Cosa Nostra.
Battle offered a monthly percentage of his profits in exchange for protection from the authorities and help paying out large winnings. Santo Trafficante promised to speak with local bosses, though he said the final decision would be theirs.
Battle then held two meetings. One was in New Jersey with Sam Davocaante, then head of the local family. The other was in New York with Anthony Serno, a representative of the Genovese family. Santo Trafficante attended both and helped Battle negotiate a partnership. That is how The Corporation was founded with mafia backing.
Battle's organization grew rapidly. I say Battle's organization because the associate who had brought Jose Miguel into the business could not handle the pressure and gradually faded into the background. Not long after, he was pushed out of the business entirely.
Battle, meanwhile, built a vast bolita empire across the Cuban neighborhoods of New York and Union City within a few years. The operation was structured like a genuinely legitimate company.
At the very top was Battle. Below him were the bankers, who ran one or more betting shops. Under the bankers, many people worked.
First, there was a branch that handled the betting itself. This included runners, who took bets directly on the streets, and the so-called office workers, who sat in special apartments receiving the bets and money brought by runners.
Second, there were accountants who kept all the organization's financial records and distributed everything from gang members' salaries to bribes for politicians and police.
Third, there was the power block. These men handled security. They dealt with people who left the organization and handled any runner who was robbed. They guarded the offices and, most importantly, moved money from the offices to the accountants and then to secret locations.
This entire complex system earned its owners about $50,000 a day. Did all that money go into Battle's pocket? Certainly not. People had to be paid, the mafia's promised share had to be delivered, and most importantly, politicians and police had to be kept satisfied.
So Battle paid Union City police chief Herman Bolt, who protected him from the city's mayor, William Emto, who himself received money from The Corporation. Through such connections Jose Miguel became a very influential figure in the city, and he later went deeper into local politics by helping install various people in their posts.
Those connections could not save Battle from the authorities forever. As soon as the bolita business came to public attention, the FBI went after Jose Miguel and The Corporation. They built the case for nearly four years and finally handed it to the prosecutor's office in 1970.
The trial began that July. Battle and 14 others were charged with conspiracy to run illegal gambling. Jose Miguel was released on bail and fled to Spain. What he was thinking at the time is unknown, but Battle did not stay there long and eventually returned to the United States. Because of the pending sentence, a charge of flight was added against him.
He was incredibly lucky. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, was passed a few months after prosecutors filed charges. All told, Jose Miguel faced a maximum of six or seven years. Under RICO he could have gotten 30.
In the end, Battle was sentenced to 18 months, thanks to his lawyers, who struck an excellent deal in exchange for a guilty plea. Meanwhile, serious trouble was brewing inside his gang on the outside, trouble that would produce something the Cuban underworld could not exist without. Hundreds of gunshots and dozens of bodies.
Jose Miguel, as leader of The Corporation, was against the cocaine trade. He believed bolita, though it brought in less money, was far safer in the long run. Not everyone agreed with him, especially his two brothers, Gustavo and Pedro, who were running that business in Miami.
Then Gustavo went to prison and Pedro moved to New York, where, without his older brother's knowledge, he ran the business with another member of the organization nicknamed Ernesto. This character will matter later, so here is a brief introduction.
Ernesto was a young man who had barely reached adulthood. Battle first met him in Spain, where they were introduced through mutual acquaintances. El Padrino, as Jose Miguel later came to be called, was drawn to the young man, who by every measure was an ideal candidate to be a gangster.
Battle offered Ernesto work on his behalf. Ernesto agreed and, back in Spain, carried out his first killing for The Corporation. When Jose Miguel returned to New York, Ernesto was with him.
There he quickly found common ground with Pedro, and the two started a cocaine business. At first the partners did well. Product sold, money came in, and there was little competition.
But then a gangster named Palulu arrived in New York. He had clashed with the Battle brothers over territory while in Miami, and when he set up in Pedro's area in New York, old wounds reopened.
Open conflict began when Palulu's people started selling in Pedro's territory, and Ernesto killed those men and looted $20,000 worth of product. This happened just before Jose Miguel left prison, and when he learned of it he was furious.
It was not only that Gustavo was already in prison over this business. A few years earlier, in a similar clash in Miami, he and Pedro had nearly been killed. Battle ordered Pedro to quit the business immediately and lie low for a while.
Pedro stopped the business but could not stop partying, which ultimately brought his destruction. A gunfight broke out in a bar where Pedro ran into Palulu, and Jose Miguel's brother was killed.
El Padrino was devastated with grief and consumed by a thirst for revenge that gripped him for years, because Palulu was an extraordinarily lucky thug. The war of vengeance began when Battle contracted his two best hitmen, Ernesto and Chino Acuna.
For months the two men hunted Palulu. During that time they tortured dozens of his associates and sent an equal number to the other side. At last they learned where he was hiding.
Palulu met his remaining companions in a park on a set day. The killers went there. Palulu saw them coming and started to run. During the chase they managed to shoot him, but police arrived so quickly that they could not aim well. As a result, Palulu was taken to a hospital with multiple wounds and had to have his leg amputated.
Later he went straight from the hospital to prison for the murder of Pedro Battle, and Jose Miguel would make many more attempts to kill him, which we will come to later. For now, a new problem appeared before El Padrino.
After Pedro's death, Ernesto began to spin out of control. He was no longer allowed in the drug business, and the money he received as a soldier of the organization was not enough for him. So he began pestering Battle to promote him to banker.
Jose Miguel eventually gave in and appointed him. Ernesto, however, could not handle the banker's work and only lost money, so El Padrino removed him. Humiliated before Battle, Ernesto decided to make his own way and began using his reputation as a killer to borrow large sums from other bankers that he never repaid.
At one point he ran into someone who refused him outright. That was when a strange idea came to Ernesto. Kidnap the banker and demand a ransom from The Corporation.
The kidnapping plot failed. The banker saw Ernesto's face, and the planned killing to erase the debt also failed. The other bankers then called a meeting where they told Battle of their dissatisfaction with Ernesto.
Everyone knew he was like Jose Miguel's adopted son, so they were afraid to speak on their own. El Padrino listened to his people and agreed with them. Ernesto had to die.
The first attempt to kill him was made in New York but failed. Ernesto then fled to Miami. There he was shot at several more times, again without much success. The most serious wound was to his wrist.
That was when Jose Miguel decided he had to handle the situation himself. He went to Miami with the organization's best killers. With help from the local Cuban underworld, they managed to find Ernesto's new hideout.
Battle took part in the attack with his men and personally shot his adopted son between the eyes. During the attack Ernesto was in an apartment with his girlfriend Fernandez, who miraculously survived. Police found her covered in blood and rushed her to a hospital.
Daria became the first witness in the Ernesto murder case. The second witness was his friend Charlie Hernandez. He had been very close to Ernesto and was also involved in several robberies of bolita bankers.
Logically, he was supposed to be the next target. So to save his own life he began leaking everything to police. Charlie laid out the full background of the killing to investigators and identified Battle as the prime suspect. Daria identified one of the attackers as Chino Acuna. Out of fear, she said nothing about Jose Miguel's involvement.
During the investigation, more people were found who supported the testimony of the two main witnesses. They also provided evidence of Jose Miguel's personal participation. The case was resolved and Battle was sentenced to 30 years.
The story of the Cuban godfather would have ended there if not for one thing. His lawyers found a tiny loophole in the law. They appealed because the wording of the conviction was ambiguous.
Traditionally it read that the defendant "conspired with Chino Acuna or other unknown persons." Such wording was deeply confusing. It was unclear whether he conspired with Acuna or with someone else. Had the word been "and" instead of "or," there would have been no question.
Defense lawyers seized on the error to win a review of the case. They then approached the prosecution with a deal. They would drop the murder charge and Jose Miguel would admit to ordering the killing. Prosecutors agreed, but they still did not know the most important thing.
At the new trial Battle got a cooperative judge, if you take my meaning. So instead of the previous year's 30-year sentence, he received only probation. El Padrino escaped punishment, and these events changed him.
The bolita business was making him plenty of money. Politicians across the city were in his pocket, and whatever he did, the law could not touch him. All of this transformed the corrupt former policeman and Bay of Pigs hero into a ruthless crime boss. Soon every member of his organization began to feel it.
Battle was behind bars for more than two years during the Ernesto murder trial. Throughout that time on the outside, the organization was run by his son Miguelito and by Abraham Ryds, the organization's only Jewish banker.
Ryds had known Jose Miguel back in Havana and, as an old friend, had brought him into the bolita business. Ryds proved himself a very good manager with an excellent grasp of money. That is why, when Battle was arrested, he asked Abraham to help Miguelito run The Corporation.
Despite a roughly 20-year age gap, the two men understood each other perfectly. Both were eager to move the organization off the street and into legal channels. It was then that they began organizing a network of legitimate companies built on trade and the garment industry.
These businesses became the final stage where bolita's dirty money was turned into legal income. The whole system worked like this. Money from bolita was invested in shell companies opened in the names of third parties somewhere in Panama or the Antilles. These companies then lent money to Battle Jr.'s and Ryds's legitimate companies in America. The money then passed through the legitimate companies and came out completely clean. The loans held by the shell companies were, of course, repaid only on paper.
Yet even as the pair's finances held up, The Corporation's authority on the street began to be questioned. Robberies of runners, internal theft, and betrayal by members of the organization increased, and Miguelito often pretended not to see it.
As added trouble, one banker decided to break away from the whole operation. A man named Isleno Davila declared himself an independent banker and began operating under the protection of the Lucchese mafia family. Before long his organization became known as La Compania and grew into a second power in New York's Cuban underworld.
When Battle got out, he was not at all pleased with what he saw. Building the money-laundering system was good, but El Padrino was equally worried about what was being said about The Corporation on the street. So he decided to restore the reputation he had before his imprisonment.
At that time, besides Ernesto, several others were killed who had in one way or another crossed the organization's boundaries. This restored a respect based on fear that had badly eroded during the last few years of his absence.
Jose Miguel began expanding the organization's reach under the leadership of a killer nicknamed "Lo." He started assigning them punitive missions to restore The Corporation's authority. In the first three years of Lo's team's existence, at least dozens of people lost their lives.
Everyone who had ever stolen from The Corporation or dared to betray it had to be punished. Those who, for whatever reason, had not learned from the fate of earlier traitors followed the same path.
Did this power go to Battle's head? Undoubtedly. It was the 1980s. His organization had been earning millions of dollars steadily for two decades, and its membership had passed 2,000. Politicians and police were on his payroll. With a single call, his killers could remove the right person.
But people are strange creatures. Having gained what they dreamed of at the start of the journey, they want more. And in the case of gangsters, as dozens of biographies show, this hunger for more usually goes in two directions: more wealth or more power.
Jose Miguel was more interested in more power. The longer he held The Corporation's helm, the less he tolerated anyone's disobedience, and the consequences were unfortunate. Even the organization's oldest and most loyal members could come under attack.
The most notable example is the killing of Anel Muiga, the man who had brought Battle into the bolita business. In the late 1980s Muiga withdrew from the business with $300,000 for his shops. He then went to Spain and tried to open a legitimate business, but lost money and all his savings.
Muiga returned to New York and opened a small bolita den. Anel understood he would have to operate in Battle's territory, and to avoid trouble he went to his old friend to ask permission to return to the business. At the meeting Jose Miguel was extremely cordial and assured Muiga he could keep taking bets. But as soon as he left, Battle ordered his men to kill him.
El Padrino felt insulted because Anel had opened the shop first and only then come for permission. He saw it as a blow to his authority and had his old friend killed. At least five others who had started out with Battle met the same fate. They thought they deserved leniency, and he believed that thinking was a challenge to his authority.
The hunger for more power showed itself outside the organization as well. In New York City, The Corporation had to share territory with several criminal groups. On one side was La Compania under Isleno Davila, and on the other was Cosa Nostra, which ran a game much like the underground bolita lottery.
To avoid territorial disputes, an arrangement was set up among these organizations: a contracted member could not open a shop within a certain radius of another member's shop. The rule was followed perfectly until 1982.
Then police shut down a La Compania betting house. The area was officially empty, so The Corporation took it over. La Compania did not accept this and reopened its shop. The two betting houses were now practically neighbors, which inevitably caused friction.
A separate meeting was arranged to settle the dispute, and Battle and Davila appeared to reach an understanding. But right after it, a La Compania shop burned down and a Corporation joint opened in the area. Davila immediately responded in kind.
After that, another meeting was arranged with Davila. Battle and representatives of the Lucchese family attended. Then representatives of the Genovese family, who did business with Jose Miguel, also arranged a meeting to try to calm the Cubans.
Finally, in 1983, they all came together: the Genovese, the Lucchese, The Corporation, and La Compania. But no meeting produced the desired result. Moreover, right after the last meeting a member of The Corporation was killed, and the attackers were identified as members of the Lucchese family. Seeing the dispute among the Cubans, the Luccheses also kept quietly seizing Corporation territory after the peace meetings. All of this ultimately led to one arson after another at the illegal lottery dens.
Battle was not afraid to challenge Cosa Nostra and fought them for two years, from 1983 to 1985. The conflict killed dozens of people, including eight ordinary citizens, and is also known for the most arson in the history of American organized crime. At the time, more than 60 illegal lottery dens were set on fire.
The arsons eased only when a little girl was caught in one of the fires. The incident caused public outrage and the criminals pulled back somewhat. Whether any peace talks followed is unknown, but the conflict stalled after that.
By then Battle himself had moved to Miami. There he built a farm on 22 and a half acres, where Jose Miguel played the role of farmer. He hired people, some of whom worked the land while others raised fighting cocks. El Padrino, for his part, traveled all around the area. Surely he remembered the days of his childhood in his small Cuban town.
On top of that, Battle became embroiled in trouble with Oscar Alvarez, the biggest local don in Miami. El Padrino believed local bankers should give him a percentage now that he had moved to Miami. The local bankers did not agree, so Jose Miguel decided to send a message by trying to kill Alvarez's right-hand man, Herardo Jas.
Surprisingly, Alvarez did not retaliate. Instead he wound down his business and left Miami. After that, most of the remaining bankers joined The Corporation.
That was not El Padrino's main victory of this period, however. He finally managed to track down the killer of his brother Pedro, a man who had become a miraculous survivor. What follows sounds more like a dark comedy script than real events. Truly, life is the best writer.
When Palulu survived the first attempt on his life, Jose Miguel put a $100,000 price on his head. Men were found very quickly, and Palulu was stabbed in the back inside prison. Yet he survived even that.
After the incident he served the rest of his sentence among hardened criminals in a cell where inmates' lives were at risk. While in prison, Battle could not finish off his brother's killer. But when Palulu was released, he almost immediately faced trial for murder.
Lured by the $100,000, a hitman followed Palulu on the street and opened fire. A shootout erupted, and Palulu was shot in the chest. And yes, he survived again. He went back to prison for illegal possession of a firearm.
Two years later, released from prison, he was again caught in a gunfight with bounty hunters hoping for the $100,000. This time he came out unharmed, but went back to prison again for illegal possession of a weapon.
After his release, Palulu returned to New York once more. This time Battle completed the contract and gave the job to his chief enforcer, Lao Pans. He did everything perfectly. He hid at the entrance to Palulu's house, waiting for him to walk past. He came out of his ambush and shot him in the back of the head. Palulu fell to the floor, but again survived. The bullet, as if by magic, pierced his skull without striking the brain.
That was when Battle decided to take part in the operation himself. He caught Palulu outside his home with the organization's best killers and literally riddled him with bullets. Doctors removed 11 bullets from Palulu's body, but yes, he did not die even then. It was extremely difficult surgery. After days in a coma, he was still alive.
By then word had spread on the street that Palulu was impossible to kill and was in fact El Diablo. Fearing such talk could damage The Corporation's image, Battle took the risk of sending a killer to finish him inside the hospital. Entering the room, the man fired several shots at Palulu from very close range. Several struck his heart and several his head. This time no miraculous power could save Palulu. The murder of Pedro Battle had been avenged.
Jose Miguel then threw a party in Miami for nearly a week. He and his companions drank and celebrated, saying his brother could now rest in peace. That was probably the only reason to celebrate. The rest of the time Battle was under extreme pressure.
When he moved to Miami, he had left the organization in the hands of his relative Nene Marquez. He had gone not only to enjoy himself in a luxurious house away from business pressure, but also to distance himself from the ongoing war with the mafia.
The conflict with the mafia, the killings in the Cuban underworld, and the ever-growing bolita operation forced the authorities to think anew about the Cuban crime problem. And as the best-known face of that world, Battle drew the most attention. That was precisely why he wanted to play the role of a retired criminal in Miami.
But right after Alvarez was dealt with, the authorities learned from informants that Battle was continuing his activities there as well. The news soon reached El Padrino's ears. It was clear that trying to slip under the radar had failed and something else had to be considered.
Ultimately, that something else was opening the first casino in Peru and moving there. It began when some Peruvian businessmen asked Battle's acquaintance Devilars to help them find investors. They claimed they could secure permission to open a casino in the country's capital. They had no money of their own, but were ready to help with their political connections. In return, they wanted a small share of the casino.
Devilars brought the proposal to Jose Miguel, who gladly agreed. The only problem was that Battle had never run a casino. You might say, what is the big problem? Hire some experienced people and the job becomes easy. True, but only in theory.
In practice, Battle did hire experienced people. He paid them well and gave the manager a share of the profits. For a while everything went fine. The manager assembled a great team, and the casino was extremely popular because the country had never seen such an establishment before.
But then competitors began to appear, and Battle, who by then had lost control, arrived in Peru. He was becoming increasingly addicted to cocaine. Jose Miguel behaved in the casino like a medieval prince in his castle, doing whatever he pleased. He was constantly intoxicated, caused chaos, harassed women, and threatened to kill someone every day.
On top of that, his new girlfriend gained a say in personnel decisions, though somewhat capriciously. Then, instead of experienced staff, his numerous relatives began arriving. The manager was the first to quit. Then the head of security left. He had warned Battle that doing drugs in the corridor under the cameras was not a good idea. Jose Miguel accused him of spying and threatened to kill him.
After that there was a flood of staff coming and going, because no one wanted to work in such a chaotic environment. This ultimately created problems for the casino's attendance. People wanted to gamble in a good establishment with professional staff, which was impossible under such an incompetent owner.
The result was that the manager sued Battle. He became embroiled in a dispute over compensation for his share, and Jose Miguel refused to pay and threatened to kill him. An investigation began and revealed that Battle was living in Peru on a fake passport, so he was deported back to the United States.
The casino kept running for a while but eventually closed because of losses. Battle's return to America was a great gift for the authorities. Since he had gone to Peru on a fake passport, law enforcement had lost track of him. Theoretically, that is.
If Jose Miguel had not behaved like a bad version of The Godfather, he could truly have run the organization quietly from another country, out of sight, with no fear of prison. Now that he was back in the United States, his chances of going to prison multiplied, because the authorities had long been trying and had no plans to stop.
Several times they had come very close to catching him. First, they nearly caught him in a murder contract. They intercepted a phone call from one of his subordinates who was planning a killing for someone else. They then began listening to Jose Miguel's cell phone, waiting for the subordinate to call with a report on the outcome of the case. The whole thing fell apart just steps from completion. El Padrino somehow learned of the wiretap and stopped discussing business on the phone.
Battle likely had his own people inside the investigative team, because the same thing happened several more times, when Jose Miguel would halt all incriminating activity just before charges against him could be proven.
Another way to send Battle to prison was to try to get his hired killers to talk. Someone from The Corporation was always in prison, but none of them wanted to cooperate. While Jose Miguel was behind bars he took very good care of his hired killers. Their families lacked for nothing, and the men received regular money in their prison accounts.
The bolita bankers stayed equally silent. From time to time they were caught for illegal gambling, money laundering, or tax evasion. But none of them, even when they pleaded guilty, said a word about El Padrino. Everyone knew the consequences, and no one wanted to repeat the fate of Idalia Fernandez, a witness in the Ernesto case who was found dead on the floor of her own apartment.
So when Battle was expelled from Peru for entering on false documents, the authorities seized the opportunity. Document fraud was a federal crime, and it was a perfect chance to catch Jose Miguel.
A few months after his return, and after all the bureaucratic complications were resolved, police obtained an arrest warrant for Battle and a search warrant for his luxury home in Miami. There, among other things, law enforcement found a loaded shotgun and a pistol with no valid permits, along with indirect evidence that Jose Miguel was one of the financiers of a hardline anti-Castro group.
The latter had no effect on his fate, but it was a strong sign that he had never accepted the loss of his homeland. On the passport fraud charge, his lawyers managed to get Battle a suspended sentence in exchange for a guilty plea, but the illegal weapons case went to trial, where Jose Miguel received 18 months. He was released in March 1999.
At first glance, El Padrino looked like an ordinary 70-year-old man plagued by health problems, but within The Corporation he was still the unchallenged leader. To the organization's new, younger members he was practically a living legend. A man who had built an illegal business from nothing that earned millions of dollars a week, yet never served 10 years in prison over an entire career, always escaping punishment for his crimes.
That held until 2005, when law enforcement arrested him in a RICO case involving The Corporation. They had witnesses who could confirm Battle's link to a series of arsons at illegal lottery outlets.
Their witnesses included Vincent Gafaro, who served as the liaison between The Corporation and Tony Solerno and the Genovese family and could prove the existence of a multimillion-dollar illegal gambling conspiracy. There was also Robert Hopkins, who served as the liaison with the Lucchese family and could testify much as Gafaro could.
In addition, authorities found several instances of money laundering by members of The Corporation and uncovered a system in which Miguelito and Ryds were laundering bolita money into legal channels. The casinos, of course, were no exception. Law enforcement was able to prove they were used to launder cash brought in from America.
In 2006, more than 20 people, including Jose Miguel Battle, were due to stand trial in the case, but only nine faced trial. Some had already pleaded guilty, while others had gone over entirely to the witnesses' side.
The trial lasted six months. El Padrino pleaded guilty after two months of hearings and was sentenced to 20 years. His son Miguelito received 15 years. Abraham Ryds initially switched sides and became a witness, but after receiving insufficient benefit he was also given 15 years and ultimately took his own life.
After his trial, and in light of his deteriorating health, Jose Miguel was allowed to seek treatment in a hospital abroad. Colombia accepted him, and he spent the last years of his life there. By then he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, liver cirrhosis, and hepatitis B, as well as kidney and liver failure.
In August 2007 he died of liver failure. After his death and the sentencing of top gang members, The Corporation lost its former credibility. To date there is no evidence that it holds any major power in the American underworld.