Source:www.coloniadelvalle.com.mx

I just came across an interesting article in the Mexican newspaper El Universal. It’s about the Julupesty family and the mafia gitana, or the Gypsy Mafia.

The article is four years old now, but I hadn’t heard anything about the Julupesty and didn’t know there was such a thing as the “Gypsy Mafia.”

The article explains that 100 Rromani families went public to denounce the Julupesty family in spite of their traditional silence within Gaje society.

The Mexico City Department of Justice began looking into the matter, but the days passed and nothing came of the Rroma’s petitions. At the time of the article, there was only one patrol car that sporadically rolled through the neighborhood. Pablo Luvinoff Arroniz, the community’s patriarch, tried stressing the seriousness of what was happening, but his words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

It seems that 40 years ago, the Julupesty family made a living off of killing other Rroma. Since that time, Rromani families in Mexico City have been forced to pay off the Julupesty family with outstanding amounts of money to ensure their own protection.

No one seemed to be too concerned and the story was soon forgotten.

Then I came across another story, from Televisa, that mentions that the patriarch’s son was killed one year later and his teenage daughter one year after that. There have also been numerous cases of robbery, arson and murder.

What most caught my attention was the lack of concern over what was happening. It seems that the Rroma are viewed as their own tribe with their own problems, not really a part of Mexican society. One spokesman for the Department of Justice even described them as “peculiar.”

Now, several deaths and hospitalizations later, no one is paying attention.

You can find the articles mentioned here:

Responsabilizan a gitanos de atentado vs. Luvinoff

Actúa mafia gitana en México