Trinitarios

The Trinitarios is a Dominican American criminal organization founded by Dominicans in New York City, New York in 1993.





== History ==

The Trinitarios were established in 1993 on Rikers Island, the New York City jail, by two Dominicans facing separate murder charges—Leonides "Junito" Sierra and Julio "Caballo" Marine. The Trinitarios on the East Coast was built in Rikers Island prison to protect mainly Dominicans and other Hispanic nationalities from African American gangs or other American gangs. This Dominican gang is considered to be the first Latino gang that originated in New York City and then later spread out to the whole northeastern region of United States. The group was named for three revolutionaries of the Dominican War of Independence; its slogan is Dios, patria y libertad (the official motto of the Dominican Republic, "God, homeland and liberty").Their colors are lime green, as well as red, blue, and white (the colors of the Dominican Republic flag).

The group suffered a major blow in 2009, as the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York dismantled the group through a series of prosecutions. In 2011, 50 members and associates of the Bronx Trinitarios Gang (BTG) were charged with federal racketeering, narcotics and firearms offenses. Forty-one defendants were charged with a racketeering conspiracy under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in connection to alleged participation in a criminal enterprise that included narcotics trafficking, murder and attempted murder.

In 2014, the Trinitarios' co-founder and former leader, Sierra, was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the racketeering conspiracy, to run consecutively with a 22½ year to life sentence in New York that Sierra was already serving as a result of his 1989 murder conviction. Some 140 other members, including Sierra's chief lieutenants, were also convicted and received lengthy prison sentences.