Javier Fleites was stunned when he saw on television, from his home in Miami, one of his lifelong neighbors from the La Pera neighborhood in Havana. The man, who prefers not to repeat his real name, was the protagonist of a news story where they said he was arrested this week for allegedly swindling several pawnbrokers, to whom he sold copper chains as if they were gold.
“Albertini el Ñáñara! Tremendous swindler forever,” exclaims Fleites, referring to the defendant by the nickname of the neighborhood. There, Albertini was well known for being a petty criminal. “He did not assault or rape, but he was always in trouble,” details Fleites, who adds that the Ñáñara was also in prison several times.
The first, for being a pimp for his own sister when she was about 18 years old. “She was looking for foreigners and forced her to prostitute herself,” says Fleites. “It was her own sister who pointed it out when they arrested her, and that’s why they put him in jail.”
“Albertini el Ñáñara! Tremendous swindler forever,” exclaims Fleites, referring to the defendant by the nickname of the neighborhood
Since then, he went in and out of jail as if it were his home. “The people in the neighborhood didn’t get along badly with him, but they all had their reluctance to get involved in any business where he was involved, because he used to swindle anyone,” continues Fleites. “Other times he borrowed money and when you lent it to him, you never saw that money again.”
Albertini’s mood was evident in what he said at the trial in Miami-Dade for the fake jewelry scam. When questioned about having misled businesses, he replied that “it’s their problem.”
“The goat always shoots for the bush,” Ernesto, another resident of La Pera, an emigrant in Florida, wrote to Fleites as soon as he saw Albertini’s face on the news. “That guy always was and will be prison meat.”
None of the old friends, then, were surprised to see the Ñáñara dressed in orange about to enter the Miami-Dade County prison. What did surprise them was that the lawyer was able to lower the bail of his client, alleging that he had no criminal record.
“Everything he did in Cuba does not appear in the United States,” laments Fleites, who recalls that when the legalization procedures are initiated, the US authorities do not require any judicial certificate, “nor do they ask if you have a criminal record or anything.”
For Juan Carlos, cousin of Fleites, the bad thing is that Cubans are associated with crime. “Most of them come here from Cuba with the desire to work and get ahead”
For Juan Carlos, cousin of Fleites, the bad thing is that Cubans are associated with crime. “Most of them come here from Cuba with the desire to work and get ahead, and yet this one arrived in the country of freedom and only thinks about stealing.”
“Between cabbage and cabbage, sometimes the worst in the neighborhood sneaks in,” another acquaintance, Tony, told Fleites. “And what can we expect from people like that, people don’t change overnight.”
The friends of La Pera lament that something similar to what happened in the 1980s could happen, after the Mariel boatlift, when the Cubans who left the island were the subject of bad press, in part because Fidel Castro himself opened the prisons and asylums and forced the yachts that came to load their relatives to take away part of those criminals and insane people.
“What kind of crazy Albertini el Ñáñara”, concludes Fleites. “Do you know what it’s like to come to Miami and do all the work? And all to end up in jail.”
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