Raymond Márquez

Raymond Márquez (born 1930), a.k.a. "Spanish Raymond", is an American criminal. He was the "king" of the illegal numbers racket in Harlem from the 1950s until his retirement in 2001.

Early years Márquez's parents moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in the late 1920s and settled in the Harlem section of Manhattan. He was born and raised in Harlem; there he also received his primary and secondary education. His father was able to establish a grocery store; however, the family economic situation was not a good one and when Márquez graduated from Textile High School in 1947, at the age of 17, his parents were unable to send him to college.

Harlem numbers racket and legal battles

In 1947, Márquez looked upon people who were prosperous, well dressed and involved in numbers activities as his role models. Márquez acknowledged bribing the police in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent raids on his illicit network.

First conviction In 1969, Márquez was arrested by the FBI on Federal gambling and extortion charges. He was convicted and sentenced to concurrent terms of three and five years imprisonment. He served a total of five years from 1970 to 1975. In 1975

Márquez received attention in the late 1970s, when a New York State Supreme Court justice, Andrew Tyler, was convicted of perjury for allegedly lying about a meeting with Márquez in 1975. The conviction was overturned in 1978.

Controversial investments In April 1994, he was arrested on state gambling charges. Prosecutors claimed that he had amassed a small fortune by illegal means and that therefore said fortune should be confiscated. The indictment led to a legal battle over attempts by city authorities to seize $6.5 million from him in unpaid taxes from wealth that they say was generated by illegal activities from 1990 to 1993.

According to a law enforcement official, the operation was managed by his two nephews, Peter and Robert Márquez Jr., grossed between $25 and $30 million per year, and was headquartered in a row of four contiguous buildings on St. Nicholas Avenue and 113th Street which were connected by a series of doors, tunnels and trapdoors. Robert and Peter Márquez were arrested, along with their sister, Christine, and father Fernando.

Retirement

Márquez announced his retirement in 2001, saying that he was fed up of being targeted by the office of Manhattan's District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. In an interview with the New York Daily News, Márquez described the numbers game as "a source of entertainment to the people" and professed his innocence to the various criminal charges that had been leveled against him over the years. Prosecutors responded that Márquez's "saint act doesn't ring true" and that numbers rackets enforce their control through violence.