Jose Miguel Battle Sr. (September 14, 1929 – August 4, 2007) was a policeman and Cuban exile who served in the unsuccessful

Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called or after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by the United States of America and the Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front ...

to overthrow the communist Cuban government under

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

in 1961. He later became the nominal leader and founder of The Corporation, also known as the Cuban Mafia, and he invested in the gambling industry in the United States and Peru. He was eventually convicted of

racketeering Racketeering is a type of organized crime in which the perpetrators set up a coercion, coercive, fraud, fraudulent, extortionary, or otherwise illegal coordinated scheme or operation (a "racket") to repeatedly or consistently collect a profit. ...

and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Early life in Cuba

Battle was born on September 14, 1929, in Alto Songo, Cuba. His father was Jose Maria Battle Bestard and his mother, Angela Vargas Yzaguirre. He had five brothers: Gustavo, Pedro, Sergio, Hiram and Aldo. He was educated in

Santiago de Cuba Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana. The municipality extends over , and contains t ...

. Battle began his career as a policeman in Santiago de Cuba in 1949, and he was transferred to Havana in the early 1950s. He had been a vice cop, handling cases related to illegal gambling, alcohol, drugs and racketeering and acted as a go-between for the Mafia, as a police sergeant delivering cash bribes from the criminal enterprises of Meyer Lansky to President Fulgencio Batista and his government. He became a Freemason in Cuba. He emigrated to the United States in December 1959.

Bay of Pigs Invasion

Battle assisted the

Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

in the early 1960s in training Cuban exiles and commanded one of the landing craft in the Cuban liberation effort of the

at Playa Girón in April 1961. Battle also served as a soldier in the ground assault. The invasion result was disastrous after President John F. Kennedy aborted American air support just five minutes before the armed Cubans reached Cuban soil. Jose, along with the other surviving expatriate soldiers, was captured after three days of arduous battle and imprisoned for nearly two years in a Cuban prison.

Career

As compensation for his service in the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Battle was given an officer’s commission in the United States Army; he held the rank of second lieutenant in the

infantry Infantry, or infantryman are a type of soldier who specialize in ground combat, typically fighting dismounted. Historically the term was used to describe foot soldiers, i.e. those who march and fight on foot. In modern usage, the term broadl ...

. He did not earn high enough evaluations to merit promotion to first lieutenant and left the Army after a year. After being released from what many saw as the result of a betrayal from JFK, Battle settled in

Union City, New Jersey Union City is a City (New Jersey), city in the North Hudson, New Jersey, northern part of Hudson County, New Jersey, Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the city was List of municipalities in Ne ...

, and began establishing a presence as the leader of a family of Cuban-American criminals involved in

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

activities from loansharking and

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of Value (economics), value ("the stakes") on a Event (probability theory), random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy (ga ...

to drug trafficking and murder. He allegedly established good working relationships with the Italian

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

in the

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

area, but at other times the corporation is known to have had violent turf wars with various Italian mafia families. He made tons of his wealth from an illegal lottery racket known as ''

bolita Bolita ( Spanish for ''Little Ball'') is a type of lottery which was popular in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries in Cuba and among Florida's working class Hispanic, Italian, and black population. In the basic bolita game, 100 small numb ...

'' (little ball), which was popular among expatriate Italians, Cubans and

Puerto Ricans Puerto Ricans (), most commonly known as Puerto Rico#Etymology, Boricuas, but also occasionally referred to as '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borinqueños'', '':es:Anexo:Gentilicios de Puerto Rico#Lista general, Borincan ...

. It is estimated that his network was making up to $45 million a year in the 1970s from bolita in New Jersey, New York and Florida. Battles' reputation was such that he was known among the Cuban American community in Miami as El Padrino, or the Godfather. Battle was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to 30 years in prison in connection with the death of Ernestico Torres, an alleged hitman for Battle's organization. An appeals court overturned the conviction, but Battle later pleaded guilty to murder conspiracy in exchange for a sentence of time served – two years. By the 1980s Battle had built up an empire of crime and began investing heavily in legitimate businesses throughout the New York area. In the Spanish Harlem area of the city Battle had the Torres brothers Pancho, Enrique and Henry who ran all the numbers and Bolita for him in the uptown part of the city. The Torres brothers had a family affair using Pancho Torres' son in law Jose Castro and also his son Kiko Jr. to run the Bolita operation throughout the bodegas in the Harlem and South Bronx sections of the city. In the late 1980s, President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

's Select Committee on Organized Crime investigated the Corporation and estimated its membership, direct or loosely associated, at 2,500 members. Soon afterwards, Battle expanded to

Miami, Florida Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

, where there was a large population of Cuban immigrants and began to operate his East Coast empire from the

Little Havana Little Havana () is a Neighborhoods in Miami, neighborhood of Miami, Florida, United States. Home to many Cuban exiles, as well as many immigrants from Central and South America, Little Havana is named after Havana, the Capital (political), ...

area of the city. In 1987 Battle was listed as one of Dade County's wealthiest men with a net worth of $175 million. In the early 1990s Battle Sr. fled to

Lima, Peru Lima ( ; ), founded in 1535 as the Ciudad de los Reyes (, Spanish for "City of Biblical Magi, Kings"), is the capital and largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón River, Chillón, Rímac River, Rímac and Lurín Rive ...

, where he opened a casino in the Hotel Crillón. He eventually moved back to his $1.5 million Florida ranch, El Zapotal, in Homestead, Florida, south of Miami. The corporation was making hundreds of millions from gambling, racketeering, illegal lottery and loan sharking, and operated in the US, Central- and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Arrest, conviction and death

In 2004 Battle Sr, his son Jr., and 21 other key aid members and associates were indicted and charged with five murders, four arson attacks resulting in eight deaths, and more than $1.5 billion collected from drug trafficking, bookmaking, and numbers rackets. Of the 21, four were arrested in the New York and Union City, N.J. areas. One was in Puerto Rico and another in Spain; the rest were in the Miami area, including Battle's son. He was housed in the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Miami on more charges of

. Battle Jr and associate Julio Acuña attempted to appeal the decision but failed, with Battle Jr sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $642 million and Acuña sentenced to life and a $1.4 billion judgment. On May 6, 2006, Battle pleaded guilty to the racketeering charges due to his health. On January 15, 2007, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. On August 6, 2007, he died from various ailments in a

South Carolina South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...

medical facility while in Federal Custody awaiting transfer to another prison. He was 77.

Popular culture

In April 2016,

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation, commonly known as Paramount Pictures or simply Paramount, is an American film production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the flagship namesake subsidiary of Paramount ...

and

The Picture Company The Picture Company is an American entertainment company founded in 2014, by Andrew Rona and Alex Heineman, in Glendale, California. It specializes in film, starting off moderately in 2018 with Jaume Collet-Serra's '' The Commuter'' and Albert ...

announced plans to develop a biopic based on T.J. English's nonfiction boo
''The Corporation''
with

Benicio del Toro Benicio Monserrate Rafael del Toro Sánchez (; born February 19, 1967) is a Puerto Rico, Puerto Rican actor. List of awards and nominations received by Benicio del Toro, His accolades include an Academy Awards, Academy Award, a British Academy ...

attached to play Battle Sr. Battle is portrayed by Yul Vazquez in the third season of the TV series '' Godfather of Harlem'', which premiered in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Battle, Jose Miguel Sr. 1930 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American criminals 21st-century American criminals Cuban police officers Cuban gangsters Hispanic and Latino American gangsters American crime bosses American drug traffickers Cuban emigrants to the United States Brigade 2506 personnel People from Havana People from Union City, New Jersey Law enforcement officials from Miami Criminals from New Jersey Criminals from Florida American people who died in prison custody People convicted of racketeering People convicted of treason against Cuba Prisoners who died in United States federal government detention Cuban people imprisoned in the United States