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Trinitarios

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

For Dominican revolutionaries, see La Trinitaria (Dominican Republic).

Founded

1993 (1993)[1]

Leonides Sierra and Julio Marine[1]

Rikers Island, New York City, U.S.[1]

1993–present

Predominantly Dominican American[2]

Over 3,000 in the Eastern area of the United States[1]

Drug trafficking, assault, murder, robbery, extortion

Crips[1]
Dominicans Don't Play[2]

History[edit]

The Trinitarios were established in 1993 on Rikers Island, the New York City jail,[3][4] by two Dominicans facing separate murder charges—Leonides "Junito" Sierra and Julio "Caballo" Marine. While on the West coast the Mexican Mafia and their alliances Barrio 18, la Mara Salvatrucha and the rest of other Sureños controls the prisons and los barrios of California and Southwestern regions along with the Aryan Brotherhood and other sets of Peckerwood street gangs who protect themselves from the African American gangs. 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 it 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").[1][3]Their colors are lime green, as well as red, blue, and white (the colors of the Dominican Republic flag).[1]


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.[1] 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.[5]


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.[6] Some 140 other members, including Sierra's chief lieutenants, were also convicted and received lengthy prison sentences.[1]


Later, however, the group had a resurgence. Internal factions of the Trinitarios have battled with one another, beginning in 2011, when a leader of a Sunset Park, Brooklyn chapter of the Trinitarios attempted to expand to the Bronx without authorization.[1] The gang war that ensued intensified in 2018, with several shootings.[3][1]

Membership, organization, and criminal activities[edit]

In 2011, a New York City Police Department estimated that there were 3,181 Trinitarios in the city, about 5% of the total number of members of New York gangs.[1] Their numbers grew rapidly around 2007–2008,[7] but later remained stabilized.[1] The gang operates mainly in New York and New Jersey,[8] with activities in Upper Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Albany and Long Island.[3] It also has a presence elsewhere in the Eastern Seaboard of the United States,[1] including Rhode Island,[1][8] Georgia,[8] Massachusetts,[8] Pennsylvania,[8] Maryland, Texas,[8] Florida,[1] as well as Tennessee.[1] In Spain, membership of the Trinitarios is predominantly Dominican, but also Bolivian, Colombian and Spanish.[9] Such Latin American gangs spread to Spain as a result of mass deportations from the United States of Latin American immigrants with criminal records.[10]


The Trinitarios are known for their high degree of organization, including a hierarchical structure,[11][12] as well as for their use of brutal violence.[11][12] Testimony given against Trinitarios in court indicated that "one needs a sponsor to join, and once in, new members receive a rule book, take an oath and swear to abide by the gang's constitution."[1] The gang's "weapon of choice" is the machete,[3] but members also carry baseball bats, guns, and knives.[11] Criminal activities perpetrated by Trinitarios include drug dealing,[3][11] in heroin and cocaine, as well as assaults and home invasions.[11] The Trinitarios have infiltrated schools as a recruiting ground.[11][7]