Police raid five 8-liner halls
In a two-day operation, Brownsville Police raided five suspected illegal gambling halls and seized more than $10,000 and 200 gaming devices.
Officers in the Special Investigations Unit were tipped off to several halls running gambling operations with 8-liner devices that pay out winnings in cash, Brownsville Police Sgt. Esteban Mendoza said.
“We sent some undercover agents in,” Mendoza said, in order to determine whether the establishments illegally paid out 10 times more than the wagers placed.
The halls are just a few of those contributing to a worsening problem in the city, as more illegal establishments crop up as police shut others down, Mendoza said.
On Thursday evening, police raided two establishments on Boca Chica Boulevard and one on MacIntosh Street. The raid, led by Lt. Kirk Massey and Sgt. Felix Sauceda, netted six arrests of employees at the unrelated establishments.
The next night, police hit gambling halls on Alton Gloor Boulevard and Boca Chica Boulevard and made one arrest.
Carlos Alberto Santana, 19, Cristian Adrian Aguilar, 18, Martin Villanueva, 46, Jorge Fernando Lopez, 25, Samuel Maldonado, 25, Edgar Vega, 25, and Leticia Lozano de la Garza, 53, face misdemeanor gambling charges.
Vega, an undocumented immigrant, also faces federal criminal charges for re-entering after being previously deported and illegally possessing a handgun.
Patrons at the establishments, about 15 in each, were cited and could face a $300 fine, Mendoza said.
The gambling charges against the suspects arrested Thursday and Friday are currently misdemeanors, but Mendoza said investigators are working to add a felony charge of engaging in organized criminal activity.
Investigations also indicated that the business owners are hiring undocumented workers. Those cases will be forwarded to federal law enforcement for investigation.
‘Getting worse’
The five illegal gambling halls, which are closed for now, were just a few of what police suspect are many illegal halls that populate the city.
“We’ve been doing this for over 10 years and it’s just getting worse,” Mendoza said.
The halls generate thousands of dollars not reported to the IRS, and often investigations reveal that the owners have ties to organized crime in Mexico, Mendoza said.
The arrests during the raids are just the beginning for investigators, he said. The true operators of the arcades aren’t often present at night when police raid the establishments, so lower-level employees are the first ones detained, he said.
Owners must obtain a commercial permit from the city to run the business, but names and addresses are often phony on the permits, presenting a challenge in tracking down the real operators, Mendoza said.
The city also does not necessarily revoke a permit once an establishment has been raided, enabling the owner to restart the business in the same location, he said.
The gambling halls are illegal when the payoff is 10 times the wager or when the establishment violates city codes on how many gaming units are available for play.
“We need stiffer penalties,” Mendoza said.
He said passing a city ordinance that would mandate the city immediately revoke the owner’s commercial permit to do business at the location could help stop the problem of the illegal halls simply starting up again in the same place after police raids.
Another potential way to curtail the spread of illegal halls, Mendoza said, is passing an ordinance that would allow Brownsville police to view commercial arcade permits before they are granted.
That way, police could look for signs of phony names and addresses and other red flags that signal the permit would be used for an illegal business.
“If anyone is going to open an 8-liner, 99 percent of the time it will be illegal,” Mendoza said. “BPD should be part of the streamlining process.”
