Carlos Gimenez, Rebeca Sosa and David Rivera Shower Favors On Ex-Cocaine Trafficker (Updated)

By Francisco Alvarado Mon., Oct. 15 2012 at 8:30 AM

Banah International Group

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez (right) hugs ex-marimbero Alexander I. Perez

On July 13, Alexander I. Perez stood underneath a new street sign christening a portion of SE 10th Avenue in front of his Hialeah warehouse as "Banah Sweet Way." A gaggle of local politicos -- including Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez, his Hialeah counterpart Carlos Hernandez, and County Commissioner Rebeca Sosa -- huddled around the owner of Banah International Group, a sugar-making company that boasts it will create 300 jobs in La Ciudad Que Progresa.

In addition to the street renaming, Perez's company has also received $400,000 in state and county tax breaks thanks to Gimenez, Hernandez, and Sosa.

The occasion capped a sweet turnaround for Perez, a 48-year-old Cuban American who was released from federal prison in 2007 after serving four years for moving a different type of ingestible white substance: cocaine.

Perez has even become a media darling at 1 Herald Plaza. In February, El Nuevo Herald trumpeted Banah's claims he will invest $32 million into its 300,000-square-foot sugar making and packaging facility. Last week, the Miami Herald's Business Monday chimed in with a mostly positive fluff piece.

For the last three weeks, Banana Republican has been investigating how this former marimbero schmoozed some of Miami-Dade's most powerful Cuban American politicos into giving him taxpayer money and a street to celebrate his new found career as a sugar pusher.

I found that the county mayor's office, when doling out incentives to companies promising jobs, doesn't do routine criminal background checks or cursory searches of the Miami-Dade civil court system, which would have easily turned up Perez's felony conviction, as well as a spate of lawsuits that raises serious doubts about Banah's financial ability to deliver the jobs promised to Hialeah residents.

Tags:

Alexander I. Perez, Banah International Group, Banah Sugar, Carlos Gimenez, David Rivera, Rebeca Sosa

We Recommend

bobjefferson

This proves the fact that the Herald is a rag being used by Democrats! Why doesn't the Herald investigate or report on the fact that Joe Garcia while working for the US Dept. of Energy under the Obama Administration gave $2 billion in taxpayer money to China to build solar pannels? Why doesn't the Herald report on the fact that Joe Garcia was lobbied by energy companies to raise our electric bills whille he was Chairman of the Public Service Commission? He did raise Floridians electric bills and when he left the Public Service Commission he got a cushy job as a political hack! Joe Garcia is the most corrupt politician in Miami-Dade County and has no business being a Representative of District 26! David Rivera was given a 100% voting record in favor of job creation. That's all I need to know, he's got my vote and my support.

JesusLovesMe

Jesus fucking Christ. Beacon council can't run a simple Miami Dade criminal background check? I wonder how much money the folks at The top of the beacon council take from taxpayers.

David

A primary rule of Business ownership: The business is an entity on its own. What does the man behind it have to do with how it will be run? How many lawsuits are pending for small business around the country who are still trying to get their basic structures firmly planted? Banah has promised a lot of things, but not a single one of those promises have been broken. The article is designed to smear the reputation of a man with a questionable past, by means of discriminatory language no less. What REAL wrong has been done here? Your links aren't functional, your language is derogatory, and all your really doing is provoking the easily influenced american public into believing that people cant possibly try to make something of themselves once they've made a mistake . As a well educated hispanic of cuban descent, id like to say that people like you, "tellyounow", are what has ruined this city. Better yet this society. What exactly do you do that contributes so much to the fabric of the culture we live in? Don't sit there and compare cubans to some sort of plague when your running around screaming your dimwitted idealisms out onto the internet with probably no real understanding of what it means to be living here as an immigrant.

There is no cooperative effort among congress and business owners to help each other excell just because of their heritage. Jesus, the man only gave $500 to the re-election campaign. Thats close to nothing. The people in county government don't do as thorough a job as they should have, and thats obvious, but that has nothing to do with where they came from. It also has nothing to do with them being taught to be thieves or hustlers in their home country. It has to do with the idiots that decided to bring them into power. The same idiots that are commenting on this article. Do me a favor, globalize your perspectives before talking. This country was built on people like the ones mentioned in this article. People who are proactively trying to make the most out of the country they live in. Not people like you.

tellyounow

these people are CUBANS not " liberals" cubans here are known to be the best at what they do rob , scam , and fraud they learn it where they were born at CUBA ! ingrates they come to this country as refugees get free medicare , free school money , free food stamps and then they rob peoples taxes this is not about republicans and democrats its about CUBANS being THIEFS get them out of this city ! they have ruined it all !