The Latin Kings in Catalonia operated similar to that of a sect and recruited their new members from people with vulnerable or lonely profiles, who ended up believing that the band members were like their family. A recruitment system that has always worked very well in this profile of criminal organizations where membership in the group is sold as access to a “big family” that will take care of you and yours.
On April 17, the Civil Guard launched an investigation in Barcelona and Tarragona against the Latin Kings. The result, 34 detainees, including two minors. All were released provisionally with precautionary measures.
The investigation baptized as “Kamaleones” began a year and a half ago from various publications on social networks by members of the organization that raised the suspicions of the investigators.
In Catalonia, as in the rest of the adopted European countries in which the band has tried to establish itself, the Latin Kings had a very hierarchical and completely pyramidal organizational structure, with blind obedience that prohibited the departure of the group once it was inside. A behavior that included physical punishment if any of the members broke or skipped the discipline rules or any order issued by a higher position.
At the top of the pyramid would be M.C.R.H, with the category of ‘Queen’ or full female member, nicknamed ‘Star’ and in charge of directing and coordinating the ‘Chapters’ dependent on her. With the same rank, J.A.M.R, with the status of ‘King’ or full member, nicknamed ‘Trikimiki’, also in charge together with M.C.R.H. to direct and coordinate the ‘Chapters’.
One of these ‘Chapters’, that of Sagrada Familia which included Barcelona and l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, even planned a reckoning with firearms as revenge for the stabbing of one of its members by a rival group, a Mara. The fundamental activities carried out by the groups were drug trafficking, violent robberies and custom adjustments.
“It is a hierarchical and violent sect, which coerces you, imprisons you, because you have sworn loyalty,” detailed the general head of the Civil Guard in Catalonia, Pedro Pizarro, who also indicated that they took advantage of the vulnerability of many people to recruit them, to whom they knew how to give “affection” and trust, and once they were recruited, they exploited.
The head of information for the Civil Guard in Tarragona has stated that recruiting new members was “really simple”, since they were going to look for “vulnerable” and “lonely” people, “more marginalized people”, who were They offered “what they lack” in their daily lives. “They accept them, they welcome them and they make them think that it is a kind of family: they do not call each other friends, they call each other brothers,” he indicated.
Pizarro indicated that despite the major police coup, the Latin Kings have not been dismantled in the community, and he has assumed that sooner or later they will reorganize again. In fact, the band never dissolved, not even in 2010, when there was great police pressure and forced the members not only of the Latin Kings, but of all Latin gangs, to go on reserve for a time and keep the clothing that identified them.
