The Corporation

by T. J. English

  Boyd, Shanks, and the assistant state attorney, LaVecchio, discussed their options. One possibility was to obtain a verbal court order from a judge, to be followed up with a written one after the fact, allowing the cops to break into Borges’s home and erase the message on his answering machine. They needed to do it immediately. LaVecchio was on the phone making the call to a judge when the surveillance team reported that Borges had already returned home.

  It took Borges about an hour to listen to his messages. At the listening posts, the cops picked up the bolitero calling his son in an agitated state. “I need you to come over here right away,” he said.

  “What’s up?” asked the son.

  “I can’t speak further on this phone. Just get over here.”

  Shortly thereafter, the surveillance team saw Borges’s son arrive at the house and enter. After that, the wire fell silent.

  The cops were angry. Clearly, somebody was tracking and sabotaging their investigation from the inside.

  The Internal Affairs (IA) Section was called in. Both Boyd and Shanks were interviewed by IA detectives about the situation. Who did they think was the culprit?

  Approximately twenty Vice and Tactical detectives had been separated from OCB to conduct the Battle investigations. The logical deduction was that the leaker was one of those detectives.

  Boyd and Shanks came up with a plan. They would compartmentalize the various detectives into smaller groups and release information on a need-to-know basis. That way, only certain groups would know certain facts about the investigation, so that if there was a breach, it would be easier to track down the likely source. The second part of the plan was to spread the word among selected detectives that the Borges investigation had been so compromised that the wire was being closed down. In reality, Boyd and Shanks secretly continued to monitor the wire.

  IA was never able to establish definitively who the mole was, but a few days after Boyd and Shanks spread the false directive that the wire had been shut down, something interesting occurred. Like a faucet that had been turned back on, Borges started using his phone again. Not tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure, but without hesitation, as if he had received an “all clear” signal. One of the first calls was Borges talking openly with his daughter, speculating about who it was that had given them the anonymous warning that they were being recorded.

  Boyd and Shanks had established that there was indeed a rat in their midst, but they still didn’t know who it was.

  The possibility that there were people in the police department on Battle’s payroll was disturbing but not shocking. Corruption of the criminal justice system in South Florida had become alarmingly commonplace. The commodity that made it possible was cocaine.

  DETECTIVE KENNY ROSARIO HAD AN INFORMANT HE CALLED “PEPSI COLA.” FOR months, Pepsi Cola had been telling Rosario that Battle and a few of his closest partners had made the jump from bolita to drug dealing. Pepsi Cola would know. He was himself a former high-end narco dealer whom Rosario had first indicted and then turned into an informant.

  Pepsi Cola was normally a reliable source, or at least a very interesting one. He had a habit of dropping bombshells on the Special Investigations Section with his tidbits of information. Years earlier, he had related an anecdote to Rosario that, when passed along to Shanks and others in his squad, blew everybody’s mind. Apparently, three Miami hoods— likely Marielitos who didn’t know any better—had stormed a cockfight that Battle was attending and robbed the place at gunpoint. “Tumbe” was the word Pepsi Cola used, Cuban slang for ripoff. The robbers made everyone get on the ground, including Battle. They individually fleeced everyone in the place. Pepsi Cola estimated that they must have made off with $300,000 to $400,000 from the twenty to twenty-five attendees at the cockfight.

  Afterward, everyone was angry—the spectators, the managers of the event, and probably the roosters. Who would be idiotic enough to rob an event that was being patronized by El Padrino?

  Battle put out the word that he wanted to know who had done the robbery. A few weeks later, a person was delivered to him at El Zapotal. He was alleged to be one of the robbers. Battle interrogated and tortured the man until he confessed and gave up the names of the other robbers. Then Battle killed the man and went after the other two.

  One week later, Battle had killed them all. Their bodies were dumped far out into the Everglades.

  It was one of those wild José Miguel Battle stories. The detectives were unable to determine if there had ever been a robbery at the cock-fighting arena because, of course, the crime was never reported. There was no record of the three men being murdered, but, again, it was no surprise that nothing was ever reported. As far as anyone knew, they might have simply disappeared. If they were Marielitos—in this case criminals—it’s likely they were undocumented or living under assumed names. No one knew who they were.

  The cops were able to verify one thing: three dead bodies, badly decomposed, their lives terminated by violent means and under highly suspicious circumstances, were found dumped on the banks of an Everglades canal. Three Latino males, bound and gagged, shot execution-style, directly between their eyes. The bodies were wrapped in black plastic garbage bags, and in the steamy heat and humid conditions, they had marinated in their own spilled blood and other bodily fluids. It was not possible to establish their identities.

  Early on, Pepsi Cola had been convinced that Battle was not dealing cocaine. He once related a statement that Battle had made to him, a comparison of the financial benefits of drug dealing versus bolita. “The way you people make money,” said Battle, referring to narcotraficantes, “it’s like a big faucet. Every once in a while a big rush of water comes pouring out, but then it shuts off for months or even a year. Me, I have a smaller faucet that runs all the time. In the end, my money is consistent and I make more of it. And sometimes I get a big rush like you do.”

  Apparently, Battle’s philosophy had changed. According to Pepsi Cola, El Padrino was now up to his nose in white powder.

  Pepsi Cola gave Detective Rosario the names of some prominent dope dealers who had been dealing with Battle. A number of them had recently been convicted on cocaine conspiracy charges and received sentences ranging from fifteen to seventeen years. Maybe some of them would be willing to talk in exchange for a reduced sentence.

  The Battle investigators set up a number of clandestine meetings at the federal Miami Federal Detention Center to speak with the imprisoned coke dealers. One of the inmates they spoke with was a smuggler named Roberto Garcia, who told them about his dealings with Battle:

  Garcia stated that he met Jose Miguel Battle around the year 1982. He met Battle in Key Largo at a cockfighting ring called “La Valla del Gallo.” Garcia said that he placed several bets against Battle ranging from $1,000 to $10,000. Garcia then stated that Juan Cortez and himself were partners in the drug business and owned approximately four powerboats. The boats were kept at Juan Cortez’s farm, located at 168th Street off of Krome Avenue.

  Sometime in late 1987 or early 1988, while visiting the Cortez farm to buy and sell roosters, Battle saw the powerboats. He told Garcia and Cortez that he would like to hire them to import a shipment of cocaine into South Florida. Said Garcia:

  The amount of drugs that was to be imported was approximately eight hundred to one thousand kilos of cocaine.

  Battle made a down payment of $3,000 to cover preliminary expenses on the shipment, which was later canceled for unknown reasons.

  The detectives separately interviewed Garcia’s partner, Juan Cortez, and the details checked out. Cortez added that after the cocaine shipment was canceled, Battle came to him again a few months later:

  Battle once again contacted Cortez and stated that he needed 25 kilos immediately. At this time Cortez introduced Battle to Ramon Sancerni, who had the 25 kilos for Battle. All three parties met at the farm so that this drug transaction could be executed. Cortez states that Battle paid Sancerni in his presence $400,000 for the 25 kilos of co
caine, at which time Sancerni gave Battle the narcotics. Cortez further states that he made $12,500 for being the middleman in this transaction.

  Garcia and Cortez also noted that they had seen Battle use cocaine, with Garcia relating an anecdote about a time El Padrino had a cocaine overdose at La Valla del Gallo. Luckily for Battle, there was a doctor among the spectators who administered CPR on José Miguel and saved his life.

  Garcia and Cortez were fascinating, but the detectives scored an even more substantial source when they interviewed Juan Pablo Alonso, a high-ranking cocaine trafficker who worked for the Medellín Cartel, led by Pablo Escobar. Alonso had expertise at arranging transshipment routes via the Bahamas, Jamaica, and other Caribbean locations for cocaine shipments coming from Colombia. Alonso was a major player: he met face-to-face with Escobar, but he dealt mostly with an Escobar lieutenant named Maximiliano Garces.

  In late 1989 or 1990, Alonso received a phone call from Garces saying that José Miguel Battle, whom he described as “a very serious man,” was in need of Alonso’s expertise. Battle, said Garces, was a semiregular customer. Normally he took delivery of his product in South America and made his own arrangements to have the product smuggled in to South Florida. Currently, he had a shipment of a thousand kilos on a mother ship headed for Cayo Arellano, in the Bahamas. Because of mechanical problems, he needed someone who could complete the delivery to Miami, and he needed the exchange to take place within the week.

  Alonso agreed to meet with Battle that afternoon. They met at a restaurant on Tamiami Trail and SW 64th Avenue. The name of the restaurant—the Covadonga—had a special meaning to Battle. Covadonga was the village in Mantanzas, near the Bay of Pigs, where Battle engaged in his heroic action that saved nearly two dozen men during the invasion.

  Battle arrived with a partner whom he introduced to Alonso as Pepe Moranga. The man’s birth name was José Gonzalez, but he had used the name Pepe Moranga ever since he first became involved in the bolita business back in the early 1970s. In New York, Pepe had operated mostly as an independent bolitero. Often, he was a pain in the ass to the Corporation. In Brooklyn, where the two-block rule had become an issue, he tested the limits by sometimes literally using a tape measure to determine the point at which he could open his own bolita hole. Like many independent operators, he frequently used the Corporation to lay off bets. When the time came to reimburse the Corporation, he stalled, hoping that he would win a subsequent layoff bet and not have to pay up at all. If he won a bet, he would demand immediate payment from his contact at the Corporation counting house.

  All in all, Pepe Moranga was an annoyance, but here he was in Miami, sitting with his old friend and associate, José Miguel Battle, with whom he was cofinancing a major cocaine deal.

  Juan Alonso already knew Battle’s problem; he’d been prepped by his people in Medellín. Alonso had contacts in the Bahamian government. Over a series of meetings with Battle and Pepe Moranga, Alonso delivered to José Miguel his entire cocaine shipment.

  For Shanks and the other detectives, the information from Alonso was a window into what appeared to be a phase of intensive cocaine trafficking by El Padrino. Many of these people had been arrested and convicted in the late 1980s, and, like Garcia, Cortez, and Alonso, they were willing to talk about Battle if it helped them with a sentence reduction.

  One of the men was even higher on the food chain than Alonso. Edith José Cabrera was serving a sentence of fifteen and a half years for his role as the Medellín Cartel’s main man in Miami. Cabrera related a story of being contacted by Pablo Escobar himself to handle a dispute with Battle, whom Escobar referred to as a “serious customer.” Apparently, a cocaine load from Colombia, on order by Battle, had been lost in the Bahamas, and Battle was alleging that he’d been ripped off. He’d never received the shipment and was refusing to pay. The Medellín people insisted that the product was Battle’s responsibility as soon as it left Colombia. He owed them $700,000.

  A special meeting was set up at El Zapotal. Cabrera arrived to find three officials from the Bahamian government already present. They had helped facilitate the shipment from Colombia. Cabrera worked out a compromise arrangement. Battle would pay the $700,000, but he would be given preferential treatment on future deals.

  The detectives were astounded. Here was information that linked Battle not only to a series of substantial cocaine deals, but also to Pablo Escobar, the biggest and most notorious cocaine dealer on the planet.

  The cops took the information to Larry LaVecchio, their prosecutorial liaison. LaVecchio informed them that if Cabrera, Alonso, and the others were willing to testify, what the cops had was strong—with one major caveat. Most of the cocaine deals they were receiving information about could not be prosecuted as individual crimes because of statute-of-limitations constraints. They could, however, be used as part of a RICO prosecution, where the rules of law on past criminal offenses were different.

  For Shanks, the very mention of a RICO case was exciting. He’d been dreaming of such a strategy ever since becoming involved in the Battle investigation.

  Sergeant Jimmy Boyd was less excited. A RICO prosecution meant sharing the case with federal agents. Boyd, a good ol’ boy Miami cop, had a natural aversion to working with federal agents, who tended to utilize the hard work of local cops without sharing the glory or credit.

  Nonetheless, Boyd could see where all this was headed. If ever there was a criminal career and organization that lent itself to a RICO prosecution, it was Battle and the Corporation. Boyd wanted to make sure that if there were to be a RICO case, Metro-Dade PD would be well represented. What this required was that the Miami cops finally undertake something they had been meaning to do for months—they needed to send a representative to New York to interface with cops in the New York–New Jersey area who understood the full scope of Battle’s operations before he ever came to Miami.

  There was never any doubt who that representative would be. David Shanks had proven himself to be unusually devoted to the Battle investigation. His knowledge of the Corporation in Miami was substantial, but he needed to extend his education to the Northeast.

  Sergeant Boyd, sensitive to the ethnic considerations of having Anglo detectives who did not speak fluent Spanish as lead investigators on a case involving Cuban Americans, assigned to Shanks a new partner. Humberto “Bert” Perez was a young, gung-ho Cuban American cop who had come on the job looking for action, specifically undercover work that would take him into dangerous situations. Shanks was concerned that the Corporation case—and particularly their fact-finding mission to New York—was more in the nature of an intelligence-gathering operation than an undercover sting, but Perez was certainly enthusiastic.

  The two cops packed their luggage and booked a flight. In the development of the case against Battle, it was a crucial step. Metro-Dade PD was going to the Big Apple.

  Part III

  “Lo Hecho, Hecho Está”/“What Is Done, Is Done”

  15

  OLD FRIENDS

  LIKE MANY GANGSTERS, PEPE MORANGA LIVED A LIFE OF CONSIDERABLE PARANOIA— with good reason. It is a fact that everyone dies eventually, but for a gangster the possibility of death is a constant presence.

  Moranga had partnered with José Miguel Battle on some major cocaine deals in Miami. At the time, it seemed like a great opportunity. The two men had a relationship that went back decades. It started with bolita, and then later, on a trip to Miami in 1987, Moranga met with Battle and learned that he was looking to get into the cocaine business. At first, Moranga was surprised. Battle had always been against the narcotics business. He more or less made his boliteros pledge that they would not deal drugs. But that was in New Jersey, back in the 1970s. In Miami, El Padrino had apparently succumbed to the temptation of the coke biz, where huge profits had transformed the city into an underworld mecca.

  At the age of forty-nine, born in Havana, Moranga was part of a generation of Cuban Americans who were living a life stretched between the fri
gid Northeast of New Jersey and New York and the urban tropicalia of Miami. Though he and his wife moved from the Bronx to Miami in 1988, Moranga traveled back and forth four times a month. He claimed to be a jewelry broker; he and his wife had opened a jewelry store in Miami in 1988, but it failed and went out of business one year later. Mostly, Moranga was a high-flying coke dealer. He had a cocaine trafficking charge hanging over his head that he’d been fighting in court since 1985. But that hadn’t slowed him down.

  In late 1990, Moranga had a falling-out with Battle. On the surface, it was over money stemming from their cocaine deal in Miami, but really it went back to Moranga’s having been a pain in the ass to the Corporation since the 1970s. Battle didn’t like Pepe Moranga. He had been willing to use his expertise to facilitate his branching out into a business he didn’t know very well, but that was where the relationship ended.

  In the winter many people, for health considerations, leave the frigid climes of the Northeast for sunny South Florida. In January 1991, Moranga did the opposite. He knew that Battle was upset with him. And so for health considerations—that is, to avoid getting whacked—he got out of Miami and traveled to New York, where he hoped to generate some gambling profits for himself.

  In the early afternoon of January 27, Moranga met a friend for a bite to eat at Villa Alegre restaurant, located at 178th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Washington Heights. Moranga felt comfortable in el barrio, where he had thrived as a bolita banker and hustler. Miami was great: you could close your eyes, breathe in the air, and believe you were back in Cuba. But the real money was made in New York, where the streets pulsated with energy and the nights were filled with an alluring kind of menace.