Battle, Jose Miguel, Sr. (?-): Cuban-American godfather Much is made of the so-called Cuban Mafia as potent new force on the criminal scene in America. More correctly it should be viewed as an adjunct on franchise operation of organized crime. In the New York-New Jersey area the Cuban-American racketeers operate a $45-million-a-year illegal gambling syndicate that has been dubbed "the Corporation."
According to the President's Commission on Organized Crime, the "godfather" of the Corporation is Jose Miguel Battle Sr., a former Havana anti-vice officer—in the days when Meyer Lansky dominated the vice scene in Cuba—who was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency to play a major role in the Bay of Pigs invasion. Battle had lived in Union City, New Jersey, and since then has made his home in Miami.
Sworn testimony before the commission indicated that about 2,500 people in New York City worked for the crime group. One informer testified that the Corporation established a foothold in New York through Cuban and other Hispanic-owned groceries and bars. The Corporation's "enforcer" dealt harshly with competitors, assigning men to "kill the people and burn down their stores." He said 10 to 15 other people, not the targets of the hit men, died in such arson incidents.
A profile of the Corporation as sketched by the President's Commission showed it to control legitimate finance and mortgage companies, banks, travel agencies and real estate companies worth "several hundred million dollars." The value of such holdings is that they permit laundering of funds by creating non-existent sales to explain illegitimate income. The Corporation is also big in laundering money through the Puerto Rico lottery, buying up the tickets of big winners for more than real value and then cashing the tickets.
One of the more fanciful tales told by some journalists is that this new activity of the Cuban Mafia is part of the process of replacing and even killing off the traditional mafiosi. The President's Commission demonstrated this was nonsense, pointing out that the Corporation under Battle paid the Mafia a fee to run illegal numbers in its territory of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx and northern New Jersey.
Cooperation is the operative word in gambling deals between the Latinos and the mafiosi, as it is in narcotics. Organized crime, unlike big business, is not subject to "takeover bids." Only franchisees need apply.
See also: Cuban (or Latin) Mafia.
Bay of Pigs Invasion: Mafia's great disappointment The ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion on April 17, 1961—an attempt to topple Cuba's Fidel Castro—was a blackletter day not only for U.S. foreign policy and the CIA in particular, but also for the patriotic Mafia. Top mafiosi saw the success of such a campaign as a surefire method for their return to gambling eminence in Havana. After all, neither the U.S. government nor organized crime believed in expropriation of capital and that was what the mob had suffered.
Santo Trafficante Jr.—like his father long kept in check by Meyer Lansky, the top mob power in Havana under Batista—now saw his chance to become the new gambling czar of Cuba. Trafficante was rather fully knowledgeable about the invasion plans, a fact that might have disconcerted U.S. Intelligence but was inevitable since he maintained close liaison with Cuban refugee groups in Florida. (There has always been a sizable group within law enforcement and some organized crime circles that maintains that Trafficante had sold out to Castro, was informing for him and, thus, was playing both ends.)
On the assumption that the Bay of Pigs operation would be successful, Trafficante dispatched an aide to Nassau where the latter waited with a fortune in gold. The Trafficante man was to follow the victorious troops into the Cuban capital and get the roulette wheels and dice tables going immediately. In Syndicate Abroad, author Hank Messick cites a secret report of the Bahamas police as identifying the Trafficante operatives as Joe Silesi, better known as Joe Rivers, a veteran of the Havana gambling scene.
For his part, Meyer Lansky was also rooting for the success of the Bay of Pigs, certain that no matter what Trafficante did, he had the connections and knowhow to organize Havana anew.
With the failure of the Bay of Pigs, Lansky moved his action toward Nassau and the Bahamas. Trafficante remained a secondary force, a victim of flawed U.S. government policy.
Bender, Tony (1899–1962): Genovese lieutenant and murder victim Who'd have thought that Tony Bender's best man would have him bumped off? But when Bender (real name Anthony Strollo) married Edna Goldenberg, Vito Genovese, as Bender put it, "Stood up for me, and I stood up for him." For the next several decades Bender remained tight with Genovese—until the Mafia boss had him murdered.
Actually it was surprising that Bender lasted as long as he did. Within the councils of the underworld it was no secret that Bender's loyalty was always for sale to the highest bidder. He changed colors and sides like a chameleon. Early in the 1930s he stood with Salvatore Maranzano in the great Mafia War but transferred his allegiance to Lucky Luciano when Luciano looked like
