casinos con slots machines in los angeles

Last March, a 29-year-old man was killed during a dispute inside one operation in Temple City.

Given the clientele - often gang members and drug users - casitas have been the scenes of impromptu assaults and shootings. “You open a smoke shop, you’re selling gaming software or you have a machine, some Southsider” - a gang member working under the Mexican Mafia - “is going to walk in there and say, ‘Hey, you can’t do this in our area without our permission, without our protection.’ ”

“The way I see it, the Mexican Mafia is not much different than the Italian mob,” Velasquez said. These men, nearly all of whom are incarcerated, collect a share of the gambling profits in exchange for allowing the casitas to operate in their territory.Īnyone profiting from illegal gambling - whether operating a casita or running online gaming from a smoke shop - is subject to being “taxed” by the Mexican Mafia, Velasquez said.Īn organization of about 140 men, the Mexican Mafia has harnessed its control over Latino street gangs in Southern California into extorting criminals who operate within those gangs’ territories: drug dealers, car thieves, credit card scammers and casita operators, among others.Īuthorities also have found instances of Mexican Mafia members taxing Asians and Armenians operating gambling parlors in the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, according to interviews and records obtained by The Times. The ultimate beneficiaries, authorities say, are members of the Mexican Mafia, the prison-based syndicate that oversees Latino street gangs in Southern California. Offering mostly electronic forms of gambling, casitas - Spanish for “little houses” - can bring in tens of thousands of dollars a week. Like modern-day speakeasies, they are hidden in homes, in warehouses, in the backrooms of smoke shops and behind storefronts that pretend to be legitimate businesses. She had worked at an illegal casino known as a casita. Whoever pumped four bullets behind her left ear didn’t touch the $1,000 in her purse, the bills clutched in her left hand or the diamond ring on her right index finger.ĭetectives eventually would learn the woman was part of an underground gambling circuit booming in Los Angeles. One thing was clear from the body lying in the Boyle Heights street: The woman was no victim of robbery.

Casinos con slots machines in los angeles