The United States sentenced a member of the so-called “Cuban mafia in Quintana Roo” to eight years in prison for money laundering, inciting the entry of foreigners, trafficking in stolen goods and bribing public officials.
A use of the Department of Justice reports that the Attorney General’s Office for the Southern District of Florida obtained a sentence of 95 months in federal prison against a Miami Beach man named Javier Hernández, 50, for his role in a violent transnational organized crime group that operated in Cuba, Mexico, Spain and South Florida since 2009.
The group is known as “The Cuban Mafia in Quintana Roo“and it is a criminal kidnapping and extortion organization that had reach in Miami.
A jury found Hernandez guilty “of conspiracy to encourage and induce aliens to enter or come to the United States without authorization, conspiracy to transport stolen vessels, conspiracy to traffic in certain motor vehicles, trafficking in certain motor vehicles, and conspiracy to launder money for the purpose of promoting trafficking in stolen goods and bribery of public officials in October 2023.”
The convicted man and his co-accused, Ramón Reyes Aranda, 38 years old and resident of Naples (Florida), stole boats on the west coast of Florida.
Reyes Aranda identified the boats and Hernández transported them to Mexico, where they were used to finance and facilitate illegal activities and even bribed officials in that country with these boats to let them continue operating.
Before trial, Reyes Aranda pleaded guilty to participating in a money laundering conspiracy to promote trafficking in stolen goods and bribery of public officials.
The U.S. and Mexican governments participated in a multinational operation to combat the activities of a violent transnational organized crime group known collectively in Mexico as the Cuban Mafia in Quintana Roo.
Through this operation, officials learned that José Miguel González Vidal, 36 years old; Reynaldo Abreu García, 56 years old; Yohismy Pérez González, 40 years old; Yosvani Carbonel Lemus, 43 years old; Reynaldo Crespo Márquez, 44, and Jancer Sergio Ramos Valdés, 37, all Cuban citizens residing in Mexico at the time of the charges, along with Maikel Antonio Hechavarría Reyes and Mónica Susana Castillo, both from Mexico, were part of an organized crime group.
They benefited from various corruption schemes, including illicit trafficking and extortion of Cuban emigrants held hostage in Mexico for payment of illicit trafficking fees.
According to the evidence contained in the court file, González Vidal introduced Hernández to Reyes Aranda so that they could work together in the transport of stolen boats for the mafia organization.
Likewise, the immigrant extortion network required victims to provide contact information for a family member from whom they would later ask for $10,000 in ransom.
“The men would contact the victims’ relatives, some of whom were in Miami, and threaten to torture, starve, and murder the victims if the relatives refused to pay. If a victim’s relative could pay the ransom, the organization released her and sent her by bus to the border between the United States and Mexico with instructions to request political asylum,” the publication highlights.
“Victims whose relatives could not pay the fee were beaten, threatened with knives and guns, and electrocuted with stun weapons until they were finally rescued by Mexican authorities. Members of the organization also tried to profit from drug trafficking schemes and fraud,” he details.
In 2016, the Government of Mexico began to hunt down the criminal network “The Cuban Mafia” that was not only responsible for the illegal crossing of immigrants across the borders from the Island to Mexico, but also traded with prestigious baseball players.
Baseball players were one of their main targets due to the amount of money they could earn by negotiating their entry into the United States, the Infobae news portal detailed last year.
Information from US authorities states that after the defendants were charged in the United States and detained awaiting trial, they continued to operate the organization in an attempt to obstruct justice.
While in prison, they paid bribes to a federal employee to introduce contraband and controlled substances for distribution at the Federal Detention Center (FDC) in Miami.
For their participation in the criminal scheme, González Vidal, Crespo Márquez, Abreu García, Pérez González, Carbonel Lemus and Ramos Valdés previously pleaded guilty to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) conspiracy and migrant smuggling.
The pursuit of this organization included the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the FBI’s International Violent Crimes Unit, and the Department of Justice’s Violent Crimes and Racketeering Section.
