Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  Mia

  He concluded by asking the judge for a sentence at or near the low end of the plea agreement, concluding ten years would be best because their cooperation had been “unprecedented, extraordinary, historic, incomprehensible,” words hardly ever used in a federal courtroom by a US Attorney. A man who’d spent almost seven years working tirelessly to prosecute Peter and Junior practically begged the judge to go easy on them.

  Olivia

  Next, Junior and Peter addressed Judge Castillo, each taking turns. Junior went first, followed by Peter. Choking up, they both took full responsibility for their crimes, for the damage they’d caused, and for putting their families in harm’s way. “I know my actions deserve the greatest punishment,” said Peter, “and I’m grateful that the government has asked you to consider my work as a cooperator.”

  Mia

  Then it was Judge Castillo’s turn to speak.

  “I think growing up in Chicago under different circumstances, both of you gentlemen probably would have accomplished a great deal if you had been law abiding because there’s a lot of things you are, but stupid is not one of them.” Calling them “the most significant drug dealers that I’ve had to sentence in twenty years on the bench, and that’s saying a lot,” he didn’t skirt the fact that their crimes were “devastating” and “horrific.”

  Then Judge Castillo paused and removed his glasses, looking them in the eyes. Sounding as stern as you’d expect of a judge who’d gotten as far as he had, he pointed out that their cooperation was imperfect and cited the 276 kilograms they’d trafficked without telling the feds. He admitted that while it was terrible they’d lost their father because of their cooperation, tens of thousands of others had lost their lives because of drugs. Because of their drugs.

  Olivia

  Then, the judge gave them fourteen years and ordered them to forfeit more than $3.5 million dollars. He said he would have given them twelve years, closer to what the US Attorney had recommended, if they hadn’t trafficked the 276 kilos.

  The 276 kilos that had probably saved us our lives.

  My lawyer sent me a freakin’ text message with the news. It said, “14 years, sorry.” When I called Mia right away, she lost it. When I say she lost it, I mean all you could hear was her scream and fall to the floor.

  Mia

  I was devastated. I kept thinking to myself, This is not what we planned. This is not what we did everything for. Fourteen years is not what we risked our lives for.

  Olivia

  For one of the first times in my life, I shut my mouth and listened to Mia sobbing. I didn’t say a thing.

  In my mind, though, I was thinking, What are you upset about? Have you not been listening to me? I’d spent the last seven years fighting with Peter’s lawyer, obsessively calling Junior’s lawyer, spending money on a fancy Manhattan lawyer, and even picking lawyers up at the airport to drive them to Junior’s prison. All those miles and hours and money, and they’d all told me the same thing: “Junior and Peter might get sixteen years.”

  Yet Mia and Peter had acted like it was a given that they were going to get ten years. At one point, Mia had even said, “I think they’ll get time served.”

  I’d shot back, “You’re out of your mind! They’re going to get sixteen years because the attorney I hired from New York is sure of it. We really have to listen to what these attorneys are telling us. Mia, I want ten years just as much as you do, but I’m just trying to prepare you so you don’t fall apart if the worst happens. We’ve been consumed by this for too long, and we’ve been thinking with our hearts and not with our heads. We have to be logical.”

  She wouldn’t even discuss it. “No, that new lawyer is full of shit. They’re going to get ten.”

  Anytime I’d talk to Mia I wanted to shake her. I felt like she was living in the Twilight Zone. All I could think was, What planet are you living on? What are you telling my brother-in-law? What is he telling you?

  But on the phone that day, I shut my trap. I was done arguing, and I knew we just needed to be close. We were all we had in the world, on this little island together, just the two of us. No matter how differently we felt about sentencing or how we were dealing with it, all we could do was hold hands and get through this mess together.

  Mia

  The hardest part that day was pulling myself together so I could tell Peter’s daughter, Sophia. I knew she was waiting for good news, and I wasn’t sure how to break just the opposite to her.

  I decided all I could do was be honest, then encouraging. “We love you, sweetie,” I said. “Please be strong; this will be over soon.”

  When Peter’s lawyer called me later that afternoon, I realized how much I needed that kind of pep talk myself.

  “I’m not going to give up,” he said.

  “What?” I asked. I was genuinely confused; I felt so defeated I’d crawled into bed and expected I’d stay there for days.

  “I mean I’m going to keep fighting. There’s still hope. But you just keep supporting him. It’s all you can do. Be the wife you’ve always been, that he needs you to be.”

  He was right, and it was as true then as it is now: being a good partner is the best I can do. Peter’s done it for me, and I’ll do it for him.

  When Peter called me the next day—literally the first minute he could get to the phone—we couldn’t even speak. We just sat on the phone together and cried, feeling the exact same pain. For the first time we couldn’t hold each other up. We both felt so helpless that I started to wonder if my lawyer was all wrong. Maybe there isn’t any hope? I worried. Then I managed to choke a few words out.

  “I love you so much, Peter. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “I love you, too,” he said. “And I’m sorry I let you down.”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “I will always be proud of you.”

  Even as Junior and Peter have gone off to serve their sentences, Olivia and I have never stopped feeling honored by what our husbands did. Especially now, when we’ve seen their cooperation rewarded in the biggest ways possible.

  CHAPTER 31

  Bringing Down El Chapo

  Olivia

  When Judge Castillo sentenced Junior and Peter, he acknowledged the risks they’d taken, recognizing that even though they were getting fourteen years, they were actually leaving with life sentences. He said, “You and your family members… will always have to look over your shoulders and wonder every time you’re outside in a vehicle and you see a motorcycle come up behind you… if that is the motorcycle that is going to take your life.”

  Mia

  At the time, those words were cold comfort to me. But now, I realize that he wasn’t just stating the obvious: that what Peter and Junior had done was nothing short of putting their lives on the line. He was also recognizing our husbands—and by extension, us—as people, not criminals.

  Olivia

  He, as much as anyone, realized that we’d all be living the rest of our lives in grave danger. And because of that, Junior and Peter were going to be taken away to two of the most secure prisons in the country.

  Mia

  Under the umbrella of the Federal Bureau of Prisons there’s a little-known initiative called the Witness Security Program. Created in 1970 to protect informants who testify against drug traffickers, terrorists, members of organized crime, and other major criminals, it now serves only five hundred inmates, which is less than one half of one percent of the US prison population.

  Because they’re typically involved in ongoing federal investigations, these inmates are safeguarded with the highest levels of security and are kept at prisons off the radar. If there’s even the slightest risk to them—whether from the outside or the inside—they’re relocated to another prison immediately. Their identities are secret, their families are typically in hiding—as we’d be—and when they’re released, they enter the Witness Protection Program and are protected by the US Marshals.

  Olivia

  When J
unior and Peter left sentencing, they were taken almost immediately to these separate federal prisons to serve their fourteen-year sentences. For six of those years, however, they were credited for the time they served, meaning they’d see an additional eight years behind bars.

  Right now, they live with former mob bosses, drug traffickers, hitmen, and kidnappers. They’re surrounded by organized criminals, so in many ways, it’s not that different than the life they’d lived before, except that each of these men is now a federal witness.

  Mia

  Their cooperation didn’t stop when they went to jail, either. They’ve kept working with the feds and signing extradition papers, leading to the arrest and extradition of cartel members including Mayito Flaco, Mayito Gordo, Felipe “El Ingeniero” Cabrera Sarabia, Alfredo Vásquez-Hernández (aka Alfredo Compadre), Tomas Arevalo-Renteria, La Puerca, La Puerca’s sister Guadalupe “La Patrona” Fernández-Valencia, and El Mencho.

  Junior even almost testified in one of the drug trade’s biggest cases: Alfredo “Mochomo” Beltran-Leyva’s trial in February 2016.

  Olivia

  Before the trial date, the US Attorney from DC visited Junior with Mike because they wanted my husband to be one of the main witnesses. There were several other witnesses, but the difference was that Junior’s a US citizen, and not only does he speak English, but he actually trafficked 1,800 kilos of cocaine he received from Mochomo into Washington, DC. With Junior on the stand, jurors were going to be astounded how close the cartel boss’s drugs hit home.

  I did not want my husband to testify, and I told him as much.

  “Somebody might kill us all,” I said.

  He took me seriously, but he was firm. “Liv,” he said, “they might reduce my sentence because of my testimony. A few more years home with our children could make a world of difference for them.”

  That was just like Junior; there’s nothing he wouldn’t risk just to be there for his children.

  My worst fears came true before the trial, though: the witness list was leaked, and the family members of two cooperating witnesses were killed. One was the wife of Chino Anthrax, one of Chapo’s main hitmen, and the other was Rey Zambada, El Mayo’s brother’s son. Granted, these murders both happened in Mexico, but I knew the cartels could easily cross the border, so I didn’t feel safe.

  Still, nothing could change Junior’s mind about testifying. He was determined, and the US Attorneys from DC and Chicago even debriefed him to get him ready for the stand.

  It never happened, though. The morning of the trial, Mochomo’s attorneys learned that Junior was on the new witness list. We suspect he looked at his name and realized his case was sunk, that it was a slam dunk for the prosecution, so Mochomo pleaded out at the end of February 2016 and was sentenced in April to life in prison.

  Mia

  Olivia called me in April 2016 to tell me about a murder case she’d just seen on the news. She said eight members of an Ohio family had been found shot, execution style, at their rural home. The hitmen left three young children, including a four-day-old, alive, but the rest were pretty much slaughtered. Authorities found hundreds of illegal marijuana plants around the property, and a link to a Mexican cartel was suspected.

  “That poor family.” she said. “This is a nightmare.”

  “Yes,” I said, “And we can’t let it happen to us.”

  Still, this is our life, and it’s a real possibility, especially with the extradition of Joaquín Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo, the most wanted man in the world.

  Olivia

  During the first couple of years Junior was in prison, he’d sometimes get really serious, look at me, and say, “They’re going to find Chapo.”

  “There’s no way,” I’d tell him. “He’s too well hidden, too powerful.”

  Year after year, though, Junior insisted that would change. He’d say it to me, the feds, and his lawyers. Nobody believed him, and they’d laugh and say it would never happen. After a while, everyone was so sick of hearing him, they’d all tell him at the same time, “Shut the fuck up!”

  Mia

  Chapo had always been a ghost to me. When we were in Mexico I’d overhear conversations between him and my husband and Junior, but I’d never met him. All I knew was that he played a huge part in their business, and every conversation with him was full of personality and ended really pleasantly. If he was just some voice way off in the distance to me, I imagined he was phantom-like to the world as well. There was no way anyone would ever haul him in.

  Olivia

  But, sure enough, on February 22, 2014, it happened: El Chapo was captured by Mexican police at a beachfront hotel in Mazatlán.

  When Mia and I found out, you could have picked our jaws up off the floor. We knew it was almost unbelievable, but in this crazy life of ours, anything was possible.

  When the news settled in, though, the whole thing became nerve-wracking. I went to visit Junior that weekend, and we were sitting in the visiting room watching TV. Chapo was on every channel, with Junior and Peter’s faces plastered next to his. Every time the guard changed the channel, whether it was the Spanish channel or CNN or whatever, you’d see the same thing.

  It was terrifying, and as I held hands with Junior, trembling, I started to think once again, My life has been hell since the night we sat at the kitchen table and decided to cooperate. And it’s never-ending. Was this really worth all this stress and heartache?

  Mia

  Then on July 11, 2015, El Chapo escaped, like Houdini himself, from his prison cell through a mile-long tunnel that had been burrowed underneath his shower stall and led to a nearby house. I was visiting Peter in prison the next day, which was a Sunday, when a prison security guard walked up to the table where we were playing a game with our kids.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m going to have to cancel your visit.”

  “Why?” Peter asked, shocked. This hadn’t happened in years.

  “Chapo was captured. We have to lock you up for security. And we’re worried prisoners are going to start rioting.”

  My heart dropped. I kissed Peter goodbye and was escorted out of the prison, and as soon as I felt the cold air against my skin, I felt lost. Sure enough, that fear of the unknown that had haunted me for years crept up once again.

  I didn’t talk to Peter for almost a week, but I saw his face everywhere on the news, and it was heartbreaking. All I could think was, I want more than anything to talk to him about this, but I just couldn’t. Then I’d call his lawyer, who was encouraging and said lots of helpful things, but he still didn’t know what would come out of this situation.

  Olivia

  I called my lawyer, too, and he mentioned that Junior and Peter were going to have to testify against Chapo.

  “Because of that, it may be time for you to go into the Witness Protection Program,” he said.

  That was the last thing Mia and I wanted to do with Junior and Peter still locked up, so I wasn’t convinced.

  “If we do that, there’s no guarantee we’ll be close to them,” I said.

  “It might be smart,” he answered.

  For the first time ever, I was starting to get a bad feeling that he might be right.

  Mia

  Safety is always a concern for us. Olivia and I each have dozens of email addresses—one for our kids’ teachers, one for our families, one for corresponding with each other about this book. When we call the cable company to report a problem, we have to remember which phone number we’ve given them. We even hire private investigators every few months to make sure there’s no trace of us out there.

  In the weeks after Chapo escaped, Junior and Peter were all over the news, witnesses started coming out of the woodwork, and word about the case spread. People began playing songs called “Narco Corridos,” describing what the cartels would do to Junior and Peter if they found them. On blogs people began threatening our families. Average Joes who hadn’t known who Chapo was for most of their lives wore shirts and hats
with his face on it, and people dressed up like him for Halloween. I was disgusted. I couldn’t believe people were looking at the most dangerous man in the world—one who’d killed an obscene number of people, many of them innocent—as a celebrity.

  Needless to say, all of this put Olivia and me at huge risk. In 2014, we felt more exposed than we’d ever been.

  Olivia

  Chapo was in a Mexican prison for most of 2014. I’ve been to jail in Mexico, and believe me, it’s different than in the United States. Someone like Chapo could have anything he wanted. Money, his business, even women. In Guadalajara, we used to live near a drug kingpin named Caro Quintero, and our neighbors said he’d come home from prison to his mansion on the weekends.

  Mia and I knew people were going to help Chapo while he was locked up, and that’s why we weren’t at all surprised when he escaped.

  Mia

  Chapo got out through a hole in the shower floor of his prison on a Friday morning in the middle of July 2015. That weekend, Olivia and her kids were in town to visit me and Peter, and at first we all thought it was a hoax.