Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  In Chicago, their business was strictly US-based. But when they fled to Mexico in 2003, they hit the international stage. Within a few years, they befriended the major cartel heads and became responsible for hundreds of tons of narcotics crossing the border and being distributed throughout the United States and Canada. Then they funneled $2 billion in cash back into the hands of the Mexican cartels. In their five years living in Mexico, they weren’t in any cartel, but they were the only American drug kingpins allowed to work directly with the bosses of the Sinaloa Cartel—headed by El Chapo and Ismael Zambada Garcia (aka “El Mayo”)—and the Beltrán Leyva Organization (BLO), run by El Chapo’s relatives and sworn enemies, Arturo and Alfredo (“Mochomo”) Beltrán. They were wholesalers who bought vast volumes of narcotics from the cartels on credit and then arranged for its transport from Mexico to LA to Chicago. They took a business of tons and siphoned it into a business of kilos, then shipped the money back to their suppliers. Their operations didn’t stop once the drugs reached the United States, though; they kept men on the ground in Chicago to process the money and make sure the narcotics reached their destinations across the United States and Canada.

  No one in Mexico did what they did—or as well as they did—so El Chapo Guzmán, El Mayo Zambada, and the Beltrán Leyva brothers peacefully vied for their attention. What better way to move billions of dollars in drugs into the United States than with the genius of twins who’d already built an empire there, who had intimate knowledge of US drug trafficking, and who, best of all, were American citizens living in Mexico?

  In early 2008, though, everything changed. The Sinaloa Cartel went to war with the BLO, and the average number of drug-related murders per month in Mexico shot up from two hundred to five hundred. Junior and Peter were working in a culture where it became normal for heads to roll into neighborhood bars, right up to people’s feet, or to hear of entire families shot to death on the streets of Guadalajara. Our husbands saw men lying in the hot sun, strapped to trees, and skinned alive. Suddenly, the drug trade in Mexico had become a grudge match on a macro scale. Sinaloa and the BLO wanted to destroy each other, and that meant killing everyone who was on the opposing side. Unfortunately for our husbands, they were the biggest assets of both cartels and, as such, caught between the two of them.

  At this point—the height of their career—our husbands had warehouses, stash houses run by their many employees, and legitimate businesses—such as shipping companies—as fronts. Their financial ledgers were so sophisticated and extensive that when they turned them over to US authorities, the feds had to hire a team of forensic accountants to sort through them. An official said that they ran their business like a Fortune 500 company, and that if they hadn’t been drug traffickers, they could have been CEOs of legitimate corporations. In the years 2006 to 2008, their peak, they transported between two thousand and three thousand pounds of cocaine each month. If you consider that a kilo is 2.2 pounds, that’s almost $50 million worth of cocaine a month. That’s $600 million a year.

  But they were stuck between two warring factions, and they hated the example they were setting for their families. So they gave it all up.

  When they did, they spent most of 2008 acting as informants, recording every business conversation they had and handing over massive shipments of drugs that had crossed the border on their watch. After several months, they voluntarily turned themselves in to Drug Enforcement Administration officials at the Guadalajara International Airport and were immediately flown back to Chicago. Over the next six years, they were held in protective custody. Because of their testimony, the city of Chicago named El Chapo as public enemy number 1, a title previously only given to Al Capone. On January 27, 2015, they were sentenced to fourteen years in a maximum security prison, with credit given for the six years they’d already served.

  If we’re lucky—and alive—we’ll see them released in 2021, when our kids are practically grown up.

  While they’re behind bars, they can’t tell the world about the horrors we all witnessed and the redemption we’ve sought. But we can.

  We’ve remained silent in the eight long years since we kissed the beaches of Mexico goodbye, fleeing back to Chicago and toward our new, uncharted futures. Now, we can only trust each other, and we certainly can’t tell anything to our neighbors or families. We’ve considered granting interviews to the press, but we wanted to hold off until we could tell our full stories, without interruption. We want you to hear what our families have gone through in our own words.

  We’re not writing this book to become rich. We’ve been wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, and the truth is, we don’t miss it. If we’d wanted our lives to stay the same, we would have begged our husbands to stay in Mexico, where we drove luxury cars, lived in penthouses, vacationed on the beach in Puerto Vallarta whenever we felt like it, and had more cash than our families had ever dreamed of. But it was dirty money, with a trail of bodies behind it. Through it all, we would have done anything to have husbands with nine-to-five jobs like our fathers had. For different reasons, we fell in love with criminals, and we’re not here to justify it, but we’d like to tell you how and why it happened.

  Our lives are tarnished and secretive, and our pasts are shameful, but we have a story to tell. We’ve had greater access to the cartels than almost any other American citizen, so we can provide an unprecedented window into how they work, the damage they’ve caused, and why putting them out of business has proven so difficult.

  As for the personal side of this story, we want to provide an unfiltered look into why people enter a life of crime. Unfortunately, for many, especially poor Mexican workers, it’s the only choice they feel they have.

  You’re probably surprised we’re still with our husbands, and trust us, we understand why. The idea of one of our kids marrying someone involved in any kind of illegal activity—let alone drug trafficking—is unthinkable. We’re not asking that you like Peter and Junior, and, in fact, you may wish they could spend the rest of their lives in prison for all the harm they’ve caused. Neither of us is here to try to save our reputation. We just want to open up a window into our culture, show how it shaped us, and help you visualize a life we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies. Sometimes, stories don’t have heroes. We just hope to illuminate how and why people are pulled into the drug trade, how it ruins them, and what it’s like to live the rest of your life as a consequence of the mistakes you’ve made in the past.

  PART ONE

  THE AMERICAN DREAM

  CHAPTER 1

  Olivia

  I was born in 1975 in Pilsen, a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood in Chicago’s Lower West Side, about three miles southwest of the Loop.

  Pilsen was about as inner city as you can get, and growing up I thought it was normal to see crowds of gangbangers on the corner near my house. I just assumed everywhere was like that. But now that I’m an adult, I get it. My husband and I had a conversation recently, and he was like, “Pilsen is a low-income neighborhood.”

  I said, “No, it’s middle class.”

  “Babe, you were not middle class.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I hadn’t even realized it till he said something.

  In my mind, we lived in a great neighborhood because my parents did everything they could to make my older sister and me feel comfortable. My grandfather came from Mexico when my dad was seven or eight, then saved enough money to bring his family over, too. The immigration process wasn’t easy, and it took a few years because he chose to do it legally. But he was an honest, hardworking man, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Dad came to Pilsen not speaking any English, and as he grew up his mentality was the same as his dad’s: work hard, buy property, and save, save, save. Dad was determined to be someone who would make his family proud, so he got his first job at fourteen, put in overtime, went back to school, and became a US citizen. Then he became a Chicago police officer and patrolled the streets all day, bravely
wearing his blue uniform.

  He and Mom wanted us to have the very best, so they sent my sister and me to Catholic school. We got braces in middle school when no one else had them. They saved all year, and when there was enough in the bank, they took us on family vacations to Disney World. By all accounts, we were living the American dream.

  Like my dad, Mom always wanted more. She sold furs at Marshall Field’s, so she got a discount on designer furniture, and she filled our house with it. Our home was small, but Mom was a great decorator, so I felt like we had money. Mom was also super smart. She was very driven, very determined, and so strong and powerful that she usually got whatever she wanted. Coming from my neighborhood, she was unique. Mom was Puerto Rican, had a gorgeous body, and held her head high; when she walked into a room, everybody knew she was there. She was always glamorous and well dressed—makeup and heels and great jewelry, even if it didn’t cost much. Most importantly, though, she had a great heart to match. She always wanted something different from our neighborhood, and she dreamed of her family having a better life.

  At home I was so shy, and I wasn’t really able to be myself. My sister was my best friend and my biggest teacher; she had started going over multiplication tables with me when I was in kindergarten and she was in second grade. She took care of me, and I followed her around like her little shadow. I was such a daddy’s girl; I clung to my dad and just showed my mom what she wanted to see or told her what she wanted to hear. She was such a firecracker and so controlling that if I crossed her, I wouldn’t have heard the end of it. But outside the house, I was completely the opposite. I mimicked my mom—loud, impressive, and in charge. I was the cool girl in school, and I had my shit together.

  I met my first boyfriend in middle school, and even though he was sixteen, he didn’t mind that I was only fourteen. I had a great body and was so confident, trying to be all mature and sophisticated like my mom. I was a virgin, but I was so infatuated with him that I wasn’t all that scared when we became sexually active early on. What did I know at fourteen? I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with this guy.

  After a few months of being with him, I began throwing up and missed my period. I didn’t make much of it, though; I wasn’t keeping track of stuff like that. But when I found out I was pregnant, I was shocked. I remember thinking, How could this possibly happen to me? I came from a good family, I studied like crazy, and I’d always gotten straight As.

  Even though Mom pushed for open communication with her girls, I was too scared and embarrassed to open up to her. My sister always told her everything, but I was so shy I covered my ears every time Mom tried to talk about sex. That’s why it took me forever to work up the courage to tell her I was pregnant. When I finally did, she was so hurt and disappointed.

  “What do you mean?” she said. “You’re only fifteen! I put you through private school! I gave you everything!”

  When my dad found out, he hugged me tight, tears streaming down his face.

  “Olivia, your mom told me you’re pregnant. I love you, and I’d do anything for you. I don’t want you to be scared. Whatever you decide to do, your mom and I are here.”

  My sister, who was away at college, even got on a Greyhound bus to come home to be with me. Mom and Dad had always made it clear that family was everything, so all of them were going to support me, no matter what.

  In the back of my mind, though, having this baby was going to make me a woman. I was finally going to be my own person. My mom wasn’t going to be able to run my life, and I wasn’t going to have any rules. I was going to have my baby, finish school, and spend the rest of my life with my boyfriend. I was in love, I was mature, and my mom couldn’t tell me a damn thing.

  That didn’t happen. After I had Xavier, I hated how strict my parents were, making me follow the same rules and giving me the same curfew. My boyfriend would come over and see our son, and my mom would scream at me, “You can’t sit on his lap in my house! You can’t be in the same room together alone!” Not one fucking thing had changed.

  But thank God they hadn’t—thank God I still had the stability of home—because my boyfriend started to cheat on me. When I told him I wanted to break up, he punched me in the face. This was the first time anyone had ever put their hands on me. I lied to my parents and told them I’d gotten hit in the eye with a snowball, then I stayed with him for two more years because I thought I was doing the best thing for my son. Here I was, this supposedly strong, mature, teenage woman, and I was letting this man control me.

  The person who finally saved me was Xavier, who was all of two years old. I couldn’t let him see me falling apart, so I broke up with his dad and never looked back. I felt nothing but animosity toward my ex, but for the sake of my son, Mom always told me never to speak badly or negatively about him.

  “If you put Xavier’s father down, he’ll feel like a failure. As a mother, it’s your responsibility to always protect him.”

  My mom was really wise, and I respected her wishes. I didn’t want to influence Xavier’s feelings in any way, so I quickly learned to contain my feelings about his father. I wanted him to be the dad Xavier needed him to be, without my influence. It was the right thing to do.

  My parents were pretty much saints those first few years with Xavier. I was working at Dunkin’ Donuts or some other minimum wage job and spending my whole paycheck on diapers, trying so hard to be responsible, and Mom told me she’d put my son through private school once the time came. My dad became a real father figure to him, signing him up for T-ball and hanging out with him every chance he got. “He’s my little man,” he’d say, and then run off and put my son in his car seat so they could go to the park together. I’d always been my dad’s baby girl, and he was just as sweet with my son.

  Whether you’re fifteen or forty, every mom wants what’s best for her kids, but we’re not perfect. We all have our breaking points. Toward the middle of high school, I had mine.

  Just before I had Xavier, I’d begged my mom to enroll me in public school.

  “It’s a great high school,” I said. “It’s really changing. They have all these new programs, and I’ll be closer to home for the baby.”

  For the first time in her life, my mom just gave in and let me have my way. Maybe she actually believed me, or maybe she was just tired of fighting. Either way, I think it was the worst decision she ever made.

  That school was so ghetto. It was gang infested. It was drug infested. The Chicago PD patrolled it, and so many people brought knives to school that they installed metal detectors. Nobody ever went to class. Instead, they all went to daytime parties.

  During my freshman and sophomore years, I’d been so responsible and avoided all of that. I’d been the first girl in my high school to start freshman year with a full-on belly, and since then I’d been working my butt off to be a good mom. I’d gone straight from school to work to home so I could put my baby to bed, but after a while, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I’d always put my son first, but being young and selfish, I just wanted to make myself happy.

  I started hanging out with the gangbangers and drug dealers, and all of a sudden, I was around nice cars, money, and jewelry. I loved every single bit of it. But when I’d get home, all Mom and I would do was fight, fight, fight.

  “I raised you better than this,” she’d say. “Xavier needs you!”

  I’d turn it around on her and scream about how strict she’d always been with me. “What do you expect from me? I’m young, and I need to have a life, too. Besides, I’m still making straight As!” I might have had twenty absences from cutting school and hanging out at parties all day, but I was making good grades at that shithole school.

  I thought I was the bomb, and no one could tell me otherwise. I was voted “Smartest,” “Best Dressed,” and “Most Popular” in my class, and I graduated in three years, at the young age of seventeen. I got a full ride to the University of Illinois at Chicago, and my parents couldn’t have been happier. B
ut after my second semester, I threw it all away. There was no way I was going to wait four long years until I started making money, so I told my parents that I was enrolling in cosmetology school.

  “It’s my dream to open up a salon,” I said, trying to sell them on the idea of me dropping out.

  They were heartbroken. My sister was getting ready to graduate college and was figuring out where to go to get her master’s degree, and here I was, going to beauty school.

  Before it was all said and done, my nine-month cosmetology program turned into two years. It just wasn’t my priority; what I was seeing on the streets was too exciting for me to stay away. It wasn’t the drugs; it was the money. Gangbangers have nice cars with rims, and diamond studs and expensive watches. They were bringing home mad cash, and it wasn’t from Dunkin’ Donuts. It was from the great state of California.

  When I was seventeen, I started taking trips to California to smuggle weed. I’d hop on a bus and ride for two days out there, then a handful of guys and I would meet up with the connect. I’d watch them scoop up a few pounds of marijuana, put it into a potato sack, and then compress it with a machine. The weed would become a hard, square block, and they’d pass it over to me and let me put it into my suitcase. I’d get on a bus back home, and when I arrived, I’d collect around $10,000. I’m the hottest, richest girl in Chicago, I thought.

  I made a few trips like that and never had a problem. But on one trip back, I had to change buses in Denver. When I hopped off and tried to claim my suitcase, it wasn’t there.

  “It’s on a different bus,” the station agent said. “You’ll have it in two days.”