Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The law is not there to protect criminals. Is there
to protect the innocent. I was a criminal, so the
law wasn't there to benefit me. Is there the core?
So I have to respect that. You know, if I
was on the opposite side of the law, you know,
if I was on the right sad of law, maybe
that law would protect me. There's no one else who
were in our shoes. TA could sit next year and
(00:25):
tell you this. I'm alive, I'm here and where my family.
Things ain't the way I wish they were, But it's
like that for in every situation. Right, I'm sharing the
story with you. Right, Oh, I got me a chap couple.
Oh yeah, I can. I'm busy straight next Wednesday Night.
(01:09):
Now to the inside story of two Chicago brothers who
turned on El Chapo, Chicago's infamous drug trafficking twins Pedro
Flores and his brother Margarito. Growing up in Little Village,
the twins learned the drug trade at the age of seven.
Chicago is a wonderful place to become a drug distributor.
(01:30):
The two important more than thirty tons of cocaine from
El Chapo and sent close to a billion dollars in
cash from Chicago to the Sinaloa cartel. The two hid
the drugs in some of New York's best neighborhoods, and
the pantheon of drug prosecutions in the history of the
Northern District of Illinois, this case stands at the highest level.
(01:54):
Federal agents arrested twin brothers from Chicago's Little Village neighborhood,
Pedro and Mark Arrito Flores. We're El Chapo's biggest distributorsy
my name is Pedro Flores. I'm given this statement freely
and voluntarily. My name is Margarito Flores Jr. I was
born in Chicago, Illinois, and Julee tak One. I have
(02:17):
a twin brother named Pedro Flores. Since approximately m brother,
Argarrio Flores and I have been responsible for the distribution
of thousands of kilogans of cokine in Chicago, Illinois and elsewhere.
Thousands and thousands and thousands. We were distributing in Chicago, Illinois, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Detroit, Michigan, Cincinnati, Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, Louisa, Kentucky, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
(02:48):
New York City, Washington, Dunsey, Atlanta, Georgia, Los Angeles, California,
and Vancouver, British Columbia. Bargaryo and I have acted as
partners in the drug business, worked collectively with a cartel
known as a Federation. The federation was headed by Hawk Engles,
mat Laura White, Noise Chapel where Chapel was mine, and
(03:14):
members of his organization. Let me tell your story about
two brothers. If you think this is just another Knockos story,
you're wrong. Sure it's got all the action and drama
you'd normally expect, but at the end of the day,
it's about two boys born into a life they didn't choose.
(03:35):
It made me think about how my life could have
gone if not for music. I started dealing on the
streets of Queens at the age of twelve. At the
same time over in Chicago, seven year old identical twins,
Margolito Junior Flores and Pedro Flores, we're learning the family
trade these days. They go by Ja and Pete randomly.
(03:57):
I met these two after I had a necklace old
and in Chicago completely green projects June spinning piece the
young Bucks. Stupid ass was dumb enough to wear to
their neighborhood to us to completely Green projects when the
police don't go for no reason, he decided to go.
So after they recovered the piece and got it back
(04:18):
to me, we developed a relationship. I'm excited to share
this story. Which how would you describe Pete? I think
he's one wasn't touching person's like, why all offer me?
How would you describe Jay? The most intelligent personally? I know,
(04:40):
I mean that doesn't know. We're not all that people.
I couldn't tell the story I'm all so I called
the friend, Charlie Webster. She's one of the best journalists
I know in the person I could rely on to
do the story of some justice. Vifty called me up
and introduced me to the brothers over zoom. Because we
weren't allowed to meet in person. There's a condition of
that proble. The brothers aren't allowed to be together, and
(05:02):
to be honest with you, even if they were, it
would mean more danger for them anyway. Getting them in
the same room to be able to do this it
was not just a logistical nightmare, but also carried a
real risk of their lives. It took me around six months,
but eventually I managed to arrange a secret location for
(05:23):
us all to talk in. Imagine a safe house hidden
in plain sight. Inside the brothers Pete and Ja, their
entire families, me and outside a couple of bodyguards mine
the door. It's twenty one people crammed into this safe
house and if you walk past, you would never have known.
(05:54):
Tons of drugs going through to these two twins. They
create them distribution operation to send it to other parts
of the country. Certainly the Flower of his brothers cooperating
and providing all the information, uh literally in tons of
cocaine and billions of dollars, and then quite frankly getting
(06:15):
Chapel for the first time on a wire tap where
he's negotiating for Keelos of heroin secretly recorded the drug
lord before turning himself into the d e A. We're
not talking about kelos. We are talking about tons of
cocaine that went through their distribution system. There is never
a day in their lives where they won't have to
(06:36):
look over their shoulder. There's never a time that they'll
turn the ignition switch on a car and not wonder
to themselves is it going to start or is it
going to blow up? That's its own form of life sentence,
and that's a part of the extraordinary nature of this case.
There's a family drama regalis the how you look at
it because ups bringing your brother, your dad, and then
(06:57):
you got the significance is you really reationships. What obstacles
are in front of you obviously pulled you guys closer
to each other every time. And I always say people
were like plants, we gotta growth, and you guys managed
to do that. And it's tough to do that if
it's such a good business. Why they turned I'm Curtis
(07:18):
to st Jackson and I'm char Webster and then this
is surviving old chap that's once you brought down the
drug board. What happens when you decide to turn over
(07:57):
the most wanted man in the world. How do you
get close enough to even be able to do that
in the first place. Identical twins Peter and j Flores
have just spent the last fourteen years in secret prison locations.
Much of the time was spent on the twenty three
hour lockdown. The story made international news because they are
the reason El Chapel is now in prison, and they've
(08:20):
never spoken publicly until now. But their story doesn't start
or end without Chapo. So to understand how we get there,
we need to rewind to the beginning, to the streets
of Chicago, in the neighborhoods called Little Village. Our production
(08:48):
to to the drug business started at that seven years
old woman that came for prison. How long was he
in prisoned? Seven years? Pete and Ja were born on
June twelve. They're the youngest of seven children and the
only twins in the family. They often speak as one.
(09:09):
They were only really ever known as twin in the singular.
So we won't keep bothering you by identifying which twinnies
which unless we really need to. While they might look
the same, they are very different people. You'll soon start
to figure it out. My father ends up being arrested
and leader seven kids. Their father, Margarito Flores Sr. Was
(09:35):
a well known drug trafficker who married their mother at
the age of twenty two when she was just twelve
years old. Margharito Sr. Was arrested in March one, three
months before the twin boys were born. He was caught
selling a million dollars worth of heroin to an undercover agent.
(09:57):
He asked not to be handcuffed in front of his
pregnant wife, concerned she might miscarry the twins. At that time,
like Mexicans don't get divorced. They just deal with it.
They don't know what divorce is. What was like him,
It was your typical like Mexican relationship. I think, where
(10:23):
the man is the the head of the household and
the woman just holds the house together, cooking, taking care
of the kids. That's what she was supposed to do.
But when my dad was away, she became everything without
even knowing it. I still remember me my brother, like
(10:46):
when my dad came home, we're like, we knew we
had a dad right with COVID, but we didn't know
what it was like. So we thought we were getting
like a reward. Now we're gonna be like everybody else
in our life of change, but not for good comes home.
My older brothers are gang members. My mother doesn't know
(11:09):
what a gang is. We're talking about, you know, any right.
She she doesn't know that my brother's be King ganger,
but she thinks that's there's just something they do. At
the time, the Black and Gold of the Latin King's
Gang dominated the streets of Chicago, but it was little
village known as Mexico of the Midwest. That was the
(11:30):
main battleground for the bad blood between the Latin Kings
and their main rival, the Two Sixes. The rules of
the Latin Kings demand members engage in violence. They are
still the biggest and one of the most violent Hispanic
and Latino street and prison gangs in the world. And
(11:50):
Peter and Jay's older brother, Armando was their dope peddler.
He's a high ranking member Bland King's at the time
in the neighborhood, and he had like all this gang
graffiti all over the basement where they're going to take
pictures and and my mom would be like, oh, your
(12:12):
friends are here, like it was okay because she didn't understand.
But my dad came on from prison like what he's
like these these guys, I mean he's with them. He
was like up, said with my mom like what were
you doing? My mom like what are you talking about?
And kicked my older brothers at the house that week. Wow,
(12:32):
And now we had a new set of rules, which
was harsh because my dad, who's had that strong voice,
he would say that we're being raised to be almost
like women because we're being raised by women. And since
day one he said, I'm gonna change them. So that
(12:52):
came with chores and just be birmless stuff that me
and my brother weren't as a kid. I hate that
he came all right, this is James us being kids.
They're like got shifted, that got turned upside, you know down.
Then we gotta do chores, you know, throughout the garbage.
(13:21):
And he would make us do like clean up the
you know, pick up the garbage from the street. And
we were done too fast, but pick up the one
for the full block. Right, yeah, I'll tell you my
best friend growing up, Right, he looks very close and
street for away. Growing up, he had to be his
(13:45):
pops are very strict, right, he had to be on
his stoop as the street light came on. So at
certain days when you go to school early far in
the year, the street light would come on before it's
done outside. So we've been playing touch football. He run
(14:09):
like on the catch the ball and he would just
run past all the way back to the stool. We're like,
what the fun? But we he just his dad growing up.
I'd be like, man, I hate that mother kill him.
He was like looking at me like you're gonna do
it later. You do appreciate it because those things. Look,
(14:30):
he was three years older than me and he couldn't
leave the block. So when I came back and I
had all these experiences, I was talking to him about
it was a known drug location for twenty years that
I was up to block. To him back, this is
when I'm twelve seeing all of the ship you ain't
supposed to be seeing. And he didn't get a chance
to see it because he had to be on the block.
(14:51):
They went to become a lawyer. The way he was
studying for law, and very becose. It prevented the things didn't.
But your see the difference, you see, Like you said,
I was going there at our years old to see
some ship that he was in seat with me and
my brother. The ship we were seen was at home.
Where do you go from there? At that time eighties, nineties,
(15:21):
dang violence all the time high. My dad would tell
us like, don't be here on with these sucking bumps
all the time. You're not gonna be one of these bumps.
You're not gonna be one of these bumbs on the corner.
And uh, I guess we were not going to be
one of those bumps in the corner. I guess we're
gonna be something else, and which is weird. He would
(15:41):
say that at the same time and be like, now,
go get me those pounds, or go get me that
bag of money, and go go give me those guns.
You know. But I don't even think we thought marijuana
was like a bad thing, right, well, else it was
a plant that stunk. There's no Internet, there's no people
(16:01):
explaining to you about what drug dealing is. You know,
here we are in with this stinking in the middle
of Americans, in the big city metropolis like Chicago with
the drug business, right and I mean, you know, my
dad went from heroin f marijuana. I guess because it
was the easiest. Was like I could invest you know,
(16:24):
tan grand or five grand and come back and make
you know, a hundred grand. It was like, as soon
as he got home, he was like back at it
to that look we looked back when you didn't even
wait a year. Their father began the twins education at
the age of seven by taking them on his regular
runs from Little Village, Chicago across the Mexican border them
(16:47):
back again. All look, it was a three thousand mile
round trip when we first it. Mentally, I remember and
really he was like next, you know, we're in the
middle of a desert, a desert, and there there's other
(17:08):
cars and they're like all on the open and they're loading,
they're loading, they're they're compressing marijuana bills, they're they're drying
up the actually the drying up like it's a whole
little factory. Like we did everything that you could think
about when it came to drug did it from the
loading up or even the cultivating of the marijuana in
(17:29):
Mexico all the way to the last drop of who
was actually gonna receive marijuana back in the state. And
it was translating, if it was you know, transporting, if
it was counting the money, it was bagging up the
marijuana into pounds, every single thing that had to do
with Druggingly, he took us. He showed us he we
(17:52):
were there with him. Remember them compressing the bills. If
we have seen they had coke bottles when they were
fitting up these spray bottles. I mean, what's the quotable
quota for it? We spray that too, compressed the way
(18:13):
to make a stick together like Colca coola. Okay, it's
nice long drive through like thats a you know, coming
(18:34):
back from where we're from, and it would be like
a maybe ten hour drive to the border. You a
crossing border at Laredo. Oh, it was a learning experience
though every state. My dad was like he knew exactly
what every state did, what they cultivated, what they were
known for in the states and in Mexico. So it
was a learning experience. Yeah, who tell us about the cattle,
(18:57):
and we'll ask so many questions right the whole trip,
I was always learning, Ernie. So getting to the board,
I remember like I was getting sick on the way
back home because that marijuana wet Mary want to smell,
(19:17):
smells different than like smokes. It just had this ugly
like smell to it. Then we get you know, car sick.
You know that smell didn't help would draw up, you know,
it was just it was kind of hard. I remember
getting to the border. I remember feeling that anxiety and
(19:39):
dance and not understanding but knowing that just hearing the conversation,
that having that feeling where okay, we're next in line,
and the customer agent coming to the car, you know,
American citizens, where you guys head it. Remember pulling us
out the car and separating my brother and I from
(20:02):
my parents. But me and my brother knew exactly had
it played off. What could you guys go to who
are your parents? You know, just the question to make
sure that we were A market says, to make sure
that they were our parents. I guess we passed the test. Yeah,
I remember that later and we're like, let's just pretend
we're sleeping. And I think that because of most of
(20:25):
the time, we're pretty kind to be like I told
them that the kids are sleeping in the back. You
now go ahead, go through. We didn't notice that. My
(20:47):
dad he handled it pretty well, but I can't. It
would get nervous as well. I remember this time when
we have a car full of drugs and we pull
up h m h and everyone American Saysians. My dad said, yes, sir,
(21:13):
my dad Namerpans says, and my dad, you just told
him the Americans says that I did, and we're like, okay,
he's nervous. He was nervous. I see him here. Sometimes
he'll buy the hot pepper peppers for some reason, and
if he was nervous, he'll buy it. I started, He'll
started eating it just like that. He started. You don't
(21:34):
have to. I guess to get his mind up of
I don't know. I guess it helped him to kind
of calm the nerves. And I remember also thinking like,
once we're across those high stakes places, when we're at
our worst with anxiety, then he'll stop to rest, and
I'll be like this, he has to stop to rest.
(21:54):
Can we just get home. When we did make it across,
you would say we need steak, we need great state dinner.
I remember he orders these people's steaks like we could eat,
and he just wanted to make sure, like this is
(22:15):
what the reward is, like I guess, like a sign
to go, you're gonna eat good. Why do you think
he took you? I honestly, I think it helped him.
I don't think he was thinking like, oh, my teaching
kids a drug business. It was teaching us everything enough
the highway system. Oh he give us here, you know,
(22:43):
and usful to him to have us with him. Of course,
no doubt. At those times, people were like, yeah, he
wouldn't do that to his kids, and don't forget in
those eighties, you know, Twinson realized comment that's today. So
we were a big deal for a long time. It's
so easy to remember saying things for us. We did
just fifty times when I don't want one to three,
(23:07):
we did. Actually my dad take three cars at a time,
so we would go across the border because across the border,
get off, across the border, walking, go pick up the
next car, across the border again, because he didn't trust
the driver, like I don't want to cross the board
said some cars had double gas tanks. I got back up,
(23:49):
you know, because they took up a lot of gas,
and I keep those carder the easier wants to use
for a drug dealer. But there was an easier once
for police officers to be you have this car because
it has two gas things, what's in use? And I
think that my dad knew that he was to take
that chance. But his more successful trip roup with smaller cars,
(24:12):
compact cars that that's who were like trusts that he
could fit. The first he used it was like a
four temple, a four temple, a four or four temple,
like a two tone like blah, It was like eighty
and look for our first trip, eight hundred pounds and
you might think, well, eight hundred pounds and you're bringing
it from Mexico at that time, he probably spent a
(24:34):
thousand dollars. Yeah, made sixties seventy tholland dollars. I love money.
It's a lot of money from not all of them,
but now that money. He loves that marijuana business. He
was like, this business would mean you money. It grows on,
trade might go down trades and he's like, you don't
(24:55):
invest a lot, you don't lose a lot. You know.
All that start on what was that year that too
when our an was Radiobu chicaw put his department. The
(25:23):
Chicago police found two hundred pounds of marijuana at the
family home with the street value of over a million dollars.
My older brother took could blame the first time. The
second time they came, they're the ones that will take
the blame fame. That's where my dad was on human
un Eleven years old, j and Pete were pulled out
(25:45):
of school by their now fugitive dad and along with
them more and were forced to do one more trip
to Mexico. This time it was so Margarito Flores Sr.
Could live as a freeman. They wouldn't be returning to
America for only enough Mexico is also where he started
his cash that he built from thirty years and the
drug trade. We got to see my dad, you know,
(26:10):
and he was like having to gambling, you know. He
liked horse races and um. He liked to back up
his big mouth. You know, He'll say something and he'll
go through with it, like I'll bet you my car.
He introduced us to everyone and we knew exactly how
to speak to you. Nice to meet you. He's are
(26:31):
my sons, and we were here so many stories about
how rich my dad was back in the sixties. He's
the only one that had a car. He's not even
the governor to use his car or driving the governor.
And he owned more land in the state than anyone else.
I remember it was funny that I was a kid
and there's a big daddy on some marcles. It's called
(26:55):
the fat of some marcles and oscans. It's like the
biggest festivals, you know in Mexico, and gambing is huge there.
You have cock fights and gambles, tune dollars fight. Think
(27:19):
about that. Oh yeah, there's even at our age you
can go to a horse race and gamble a hundred
thousand with dollars you know, it's just weird, like would
tell me like that was like the big thing to do,
like gamble money, hundred dollars, game of poker, like one hand,
(27:41):
nothing to walk away from it. There was a kind
of introduction of Mexico right he's introductions. People were meeting people.
We understand the culture, we understand the respect and how
to treat people, how to talk to people and all
that stuff. And even though we looked in their views
like America in kids, those people started looking at a
(28:03):
little bit different when they went in school in Mexico.
The dad sent the twins to spend their evenings and
weekends doing hard labor on a chicken farm. They were
the youngest workers there, though not by much. The rest
of the workforce were also at varying stages of puberty.
(28:25):
Heavy machinery and trucks were being operated by twelve year olds.
It was almost the hardest thing I had ever done
as a kid. And I would see other kids like
my age, like working in man. There's there's strong they
need to do this, like notham, I'm dying. We will
(28:45):
be like this is so stupid. Do you want to
find a better answer? That was started to kind of
like to Mexico, we weren't happier. It's a big, drastic change.
They spent every chance they could on the phone to
the older brother, Armando. He was just twenty three himself,
(29:09):
begging to come home to Chicago. I'll never forget that
conversation he actually called. And at that we're like the
only house, one of all the house some towns. I
had a phone, Hey, what are you doing? I'mlike nothing.
I probably give him the side voice like board. He's like,
(29:33):
you want to come back home? He said, I'll bring
you back comb only if you agree that I'm not
gonna be a babysitting. You can come, you can go
to school, you can be out the way. I want
to hear. No, bs, I don't have time for that.
If you and p could promised me to get in
(29:54):
a comment and not give me a hard time and
do everything saying respect the rules, I'll buy your planet
because you come back home tomorrow. How would the twelve?
I was like, yeah, for sure, for sure? And what
about your parents? What did you? Oh? He said, let
me speak to my mom was and she understood. She
(30:16):
wanted to see us happy, and my dad was just like, well,
I can't go back, so like whatever, thank whatever, you know,
their mama's says, it's okay. After a year of complaining,
j and Pete were able to head back home to
Chicago and live with Armando, who was still active in
(30:37):
the Latin Kings. My dad actually, even though he was
on the run, he'd come back. He came back with
an alias and unexpectedly show up and and say, look,
I got a hundred pounds of my I wanna okay,
what was that right? When he showed up for us?
(31:00):
I mean, yeah, we will be like, oh my god,
can you just did this again? That would hurt us though,
that was like hurt us. Allowed my older brother he
brought us back and he build out the basement for us,
and because an apartment and your older brother's house. My
(31:21):
older brother actually bought my parents house in the neighborhood.
He said two rules for us. Don't get caught for curfew,
you know the city curfew, which was ten thirty in
the weekdays, eleven thirty the weekends. The city case you
because of the because again gangs, So stay out of
trouble and help out however you could. That was simple.
(31:44):
We're not telling me Kase, What was it like living
in his in the basement that he built you there
for you don't write we front God, right. You guys
into Catholic school and they've created they considers to be
like gang members. And I always like to have a haircut.
(32:09):
And they said, well, if you come to school with
your haircut, you can. We're gonna make you wear a
shower cat came to school. There's a shower camp was
a pink one with flowers, and give it to me.
I'm aware, no way. And everybody would laugh weekend week out.
(32:32):
I wonder because eventually they're like, he's not gonna give it,
like they should give you the shower cut. Bro. It
was for a long time. I did wor shower cup
every week. When my hair will start going out, I'll
take it off and now I'll go get another haircut,
wear it again. I could look back and see him
(32:53):
sitting there, you know, as shower and how he said
in eighth grade third um, I didn't mean to this
perspect to school. It was about me saying that's what
I like and that's what I'm gonna stand for. And
and it was a learning experience. Once I did it,
it gave me a little confidence to it, Okay, being
(33:13):
able to kind of stick up for herself and give
your plan name help help kind of start developing who
we were later and who who we're going to be,
and why we looked at in a certain way. And
it's gonna be like the foundation of I think that's
today right, why we actually say here kind of bag
(33:34):
for them to give us a chance because they thought
we were not the fait. I mean the principal knew
of like she could see who my brother was. He
knew who we were, and I don't think it that
was a good fair for the school. I remember being
so upset, like because I was thinking to my brother like,
oh man, they're gonna transfer your school. Man, I think
(33:54):
you said that they would you have to do. And
then because the final they transferred of us, I was like,
it's like my eighth crazy, Like it was upsetting. I
think it was the beginning of what I call always
being caught in this middle right, and this middle ground
is gray zone that here we're on Catholic school when
(34:18):
most of those kids were good kids, right, and here
we come to them. We were two street and in
the school we went, so there was young hood kids
there now here we are in this place where we're two.
I guess bad for the good kids. But yeah, we're
(34:39):
too good for the bad kids. We're gonna be stuck
in this zone. I think many times, even to this day,
my older brother he had people coming to the house
all day. B D. We started meeting all kinds of people,
(35:04):
you know, in his business. He would sell cocaine out
the house. It's a bag of cocaine. And he was
also selling ketoes at the same time. Around that time,
just we met Marron Thompson, who was ahead of a
streaking these big you know names in the Chicago in
(35:29):
the streets, like we've been knowing him since we were
ten years old. You know, he is up becoming like
the owning creator of the charter slide. He's fighting like
a case. You know. I think it was like some
kind of attempted murder and a police officer or something
like that. You know, we're marling like what everyone, that's
(35:51):
just him. That's when we start me a lot of
people from seeing a lot of for sure, miles from
the closest Mexican border. Even members of l Chapos in
a lower cartel would stop by the house. As teenagers,
they were already connected to the biggest drug lord in
the world without even knowing. KA nine, my older brother
(36:43):
to all like a lot two kilos on informat and
he was arrested by the d e A that left
us in her situation and we depended on him, you know,
he was our provider view them when he got arrested.
It was with him. He had this car lot it
was I was signing partner and that he used to
(37:04):
work at on the West side of Chicago. He used
that as a spot where it was convenient for him
to some drugs and at that time he was probably
he was probably moving, you know easy a the month.
I still remember that that day in the afternoon, he's
(37:25):
sitting down at the desk. He saw so many cars
at that time. Everybody loved my brother. He's just so
people presenting the car that held a big office for
surrounding windows. Man. I remember looking at the window and
I saw the Lincoln town car come inside, but you
(37:48):
can't see I couldn't see inside. They just like came
into a dry room like part like where the cars
come in and out, and I'm like looking out and
when I turned to my left. I saw a white band.
I saw a bunch of agents coming. Yeare at the
(38:13):
office door. Get down, get downe the the other one
down on the ground. They'd short of supremacism. They had
me handcuffed in for a little bit. Oh do you
that I had just turned seventeen. I remember being nervous,
(38:39):
like what's at the house or whatever the case is,
like what's going on? So they took him and I
remember they took him to that Tom Cark and they
put me to the garage. He said, what do you
know about your brother? Do you know where he had
(39:00):
his trugs? Of Like, no, no, no, no, I don't
know what you're talking about. And he said, we know
that you're always with your brother. He said, we hope
we don't find that that you're involved with his business,
me involved with him? This is like, what are you
talking about? Did you not see yourselves? I was like
seeing business? Yeah, And he just he just were his
(39:20):
brothers right when it's only been in the house and
you know, hey, and what are you talking about? And
and he was taken away. It was hard. I think
it was hard for all of us. You know. I
was worried about my brother just like wow, like it
(39:42):
was a shocker, Like damn, my brother got to go.
Was seemed like everyone wanted to take a spot right away,
some way, somehow, and everyone wanted to be him. I
guess not too long after that, a couple of months
was when we first got approached by his connect ye
(40:05):
drug supplier with opportunity to to get in the business.
I knew my brother were like, you know, we're in
theia really, I mean we we felt where we knew
some of like like to cook details, like a whole
different bargame. You know. It wasn't just that cocaine came
knocking on their door. Their older brother, Armando, might have
(40:27):
been an alright drug peddler, but he was not very
good at managing the family's finances. Their kitchen table was
covered not only were weeks of empty take our boxes,
but mounds of red inked papers. When Armando went to prison,
the twins were let to fend for themselves, and they
suddenly became responsible for years of unpaid household bills, mortgage, electricity, gas,
(40:55):
and an almost three thousand dollar phone bill. Yeah, I'm
sixteen years old, I'm ten years old, and you know
there's ten thousand dollars where four bills on the table.
I mean, working at Walmart wasn't going to cover that.
And it just felt like everything was settled. Like if
(41:18):
someone comes in, you know, and invites you to make money,
and you have the opportunity to make thirty tho dollars
enough day, it's hard when you're you know, seventeen years
old to pass that up. You know, your naturalistic kicks
and like what I learned to do kicks and you
(41:39):
go to doing what you and I guess we're bred
to do. You're going talk. But like I think what
you see the labras and retrievers, they go out and
they bring back. You fetch them a ball and they
will fetch you. They bring you back to you, you
throw the ball. They do it over and over again,
because that's what they're training to do, that's what it's
in there blood. They do it naturally. You don't have
(41:59):
to teach them. I felt like that, like we're just
on autopilot, just doing it and again, you know, feeling
that void and my brother left and taking care of
the family, you know, remb you said to me, and
it always sticks in my head. If we were from
a family of lawyers. We would have been lawyers. So
we went. My dad was sending drugs, my brothers are
(42:22):
selling drugs. Um in a way, it was a family business.
My mom and we all knew, you know, what was
going on in the family. And sadly I always say that,
you know, no one ever told me to stop. So
I felt like you've done the right thing. Three months
into our drug traffic careers, three four months, we're making
a million dollars. To be clear, we never count the
(42:44):
money we had spent. We kind the only we had saved.
When we say we made a million dollars, because we
had a million dollars saved, that we're spending a lot
that how much do we make by then? Who knows?
We're probably in a couple of million dollars. There was
times like in the Big Emmy where I used to think, well,
(43:08):
I go back to a regular dropt and you go
out at eighteen years old with you know, I didn't
know where to care. I have to be here here
care of this money for me because it didn't from
my pockets. This is before man bags and your influences
are the people that have done the best around you
(43:28):
have done it in this path. The path looked about it.
It looks like a route like and you said in
the early stages, you making decisions, when for me it
was girl hustle I was twelve. Is because everybody that
I saw it from my mom was it were from
my mom's life, and she had already chose to go
down that path to take care of me. And there
(43:49):
was always they had nicer things like you see things.
They were representing financial freedom. You don't see it represented
in the neighborhood growing up unless they're done. Mha. The
(44:12):
brothers are fascinating, at least to me. Their cooperation helped
to take down one of the world's most notorious criminals.
He and his brother visited l Chopo, where they saw
a naked dead man chain to a tree, a reminder
that those who crossed the cartel rarely live to talk
about it. I just imagine that that wasn't in that world.
(44:36):
That would have probably been a regular person, right, regular person.
And I am a regular person, just full of ideas,
full of you know, aspiration myself and once and just
I happened to add me born into this world. It's
part of my story. This is who we are. Just
(44:58):
in my life. Keep it here. The story is Just
Gets Started Surviving l Chapo, The Twins who brought down
a drug lad is hosted by Curtis fifty cent Jackson
and me Charlie Webster. Our producers are myself alongside Jackson mcclennan.
Research and editorial support is from Casey Hurtz. Edit and
(45:22):
sound design by Nico Palella. Original score by Ryan Sorenson.
Audio provided by Very Tone and Next Star Media, Inc.
Executive produced by Curtis fifty cent Jackson and myself Charlie Webster.
If you'd like to know more about this story, head
over to lions Gate Sound dot com. Curtis fifty cent
Jackson presents a lions Gate Sound and G Unit audio
(45:45):
production exclusively for I Heart Podcast