On a late summer evening in 1991, 26-year-old Juan J. Marin was among four people killed during a violent attack inside a Queens tavern. The massacre immediately drew a major federal investigation that concentrated on Dandeny Muñoz Mosquera, known as La Quica, a leading assassin for the Medellín cocaine cartel who had a reputation extending beyond New York.

Federal agents arrested Muñoz Mosquera in Queens shortly after the tavern killings. He was first convicted on charges of traveling with a counterfeit passport and making false statements, receiving a six-year sentence while investigators continued to develop a broader case. Later prosecutions charged him with conspiracy to import and distribute cocaine, racketeering, and the 1989 bombing of Avianca Flight 203; after a mistrial a second jury convicted him and a judge imposed ten consecutive life terms plus 45 years.

The later federal convictions addressed his role in cartel activity and the airline bombing; the Queens tavern murders of Juan J. Marin and three others were noted in the investigation but were not the specific murders proven in that major federal trial.