The Corporation

In April of 1961, boats quietly approached the southern coast of Cuba. One of the Cuban exiles on board was José Miguel Battle, who had jumped at the opportunity to reclaim his country. But the Bay of Pigs invasion failed spectacularly, a betrayal that set in motion the creation of one of the most powerful and dangerous mobs in American history.

By the mid-1980s, the criminal underworld in the United States had become an ethnic melting pot; one of the most ruthless organizations was the Cuban Mob, led by Battle, known as El Padrino, the Godfather. Their primary criminal racket was a game of numbers known on the street as “bolita,” with coins wagered by average citizens adding up to billions of dollars for Battle. The organization’s power stemmed from a criminal culture embedded in Florida’s exile community and stretched to New York and New Jersey. It became known as “the Corporation,” and for decades it ruled supreme, even outstripping the Italian Mafia, until it all came crashing down in a crescendo of violence.

In The Corporation, T. J. English expertly interweaves the voices of insiders with a trove of investigative material to tell the story of this highly successful enterprise, setting it against the backdrop of revolution, exile, and ethnicity. Drawing on the detailed reporting and an impressive volume of evidence that drive his bestselling works, English offers a riveting inside look at this powerful and sordid crime organization and its decades-long hold in the United States.