November 1, 2023 • 43 mins
With El Chapo finally captured, the Flores twins can now be sentenced. They are brought together for the first time in five years to discover their fate.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
My name is Pedro Flores.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I am giving this statement freely and voluntarily pursuing two
proper letters with the United States Attorney's Office for the
Eastern District of Wisconsin and the Northern District of Illinois.
Although no promises have been made to me regarding my
cooperation or the sentence I will ultimately receive. I am
(00:26):
cooperating with the government and the hope of receiving a
reduced sentence in a federal case where I have been indicted.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm federal narcotics chargers.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Do you believe in the justice system after what he's
put you through?
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, I remember the prosecutors telling me when we argue
certain things about our case, our chargers, and he said
to me, the law is not there to protect criminals,
is there to protect the innocent. So I'm going to
take that for the word, because I'm I was a criminal.
So the law wasn't there to benefit me, was there
(01:03):
to go against me. 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
side of the law, maybe that.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Law would protect me. And I hope it does, you.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Know, But do I agree with every part of it.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
No, but you see people get twenty they kill twenty
people and they just let them out because they got
who they wanted, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What they wanted.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, people, I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of
people are gonna think that our sentence was unfair.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Mhm.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
And I hope that in us talking about this, and
they're gonna get a breag picture of see you letting
me say what what's fair or not? But I'll take
responsibility with do I believe in just a yes, because.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm the one that put myself in that situation. If
I would never have done that, then I're gonna have
to deal with that. Right.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Hey, it's and I'm Charlie Webster. This is ivanel Chapeau,
the twins who brought down a Drugg Blood season two.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You ever played that game telephone?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
For five years, that's the only way Jay and Pete
were able to communicate with each other by sending messages
to their wives. So far, their time in prison had
been about cooperation, and they had no clue how much
longer they be in for. The twin sentencing was originally
put a hole until our chapel was caught.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Now that el Chapot had been arrested. The brothers could
get back together.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
But it wouldn't last long. Pete and j would soon
learn their fate, but first they had to get to
the courthouse in Chicago. Sat in a hangar and shackled,
Pete watched anxiously as a plane of approached, the plane
he hoped would have his brother on board.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I can see the plane touching the private plane, and
you know, it's sticky forever, like the land to spin around.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
But I remember, like they pull up and I'm sitting
in the in the in the truck stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I see him, you know, pull the doors open. When
they tell me come on, I rushed out. I remember,
I'm just looking down trying to peek over the corner.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I just I just see it's a great sweats and shoes,
you know, And you know my brother was sitting there.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
What did that feel like? That was beautiful feeling it.
You know that we got emotional right right soon we've
seen the showy start crank. And did you do when
you saw each other?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Well, we couldn't, you know, I was I was seeing
that we're tackle, so we couldn't do much.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So we just robed our head together, our big.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Head together, and and I like, bro, like after I
was like fans in here, like, bro, why did you
look like that?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Right away? I went to I've been in his shoe
and I know you don't think I get air cut
like whatever. And it didn't work out that way.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And you just, you know, like even the marshals that
which travel was, they're just they'll stay quiet for us.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I can just stare at him like what was that reaction?
You know, be like.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And then he sat in front of me and we
just tried to We forgot about everyone else in the
little three four hours. I felt like, you know, different things,
and he's sitting in front of me, and.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And then you know, I'm a nervous record of it.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I'm I'm going to get sentenced, and I'm looking at
my brother and I'm kind of why I'm staring at
because he has this different He's day back, he's standing back,
and he's like.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
You're hungry, bro, you know, give him something me Like
it was because I.
Speaker 7 (05:09):
Did.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Did you feel different to each other because you've not
seen each other for that long and also you're been
through so much in that period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I'm gonna say it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I noticed like, to me, he was too timid, he
was too like I feel like he was letting them
take a part of him. And it was in me
that I was not gonna let that happen.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So when I see my brother, he has this as
I'm coming in and he's like, hey, give him something, man,
he's gilt. What do you want to I'm like, day, bro,
this is not your jet. These are us marshalls. Like
they give two ships. What you said?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I'm just like, no, no, they didn't. And I remember
landing and I got sick. Remember you guys. Take you
guys when we were taking out, when you started feeling better,
I thought he looked hungry. So the marshals are there.
It looks like he needed food. So hey, excuse me,
bring me that food. Like you know they have fruit tree, it's.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A private jet mart. Bring them to food.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And then and what did they do? What do you
want here? Here's your stuff? I get them the fruit,
get them to drink, you know, like, hey, do you
want anything? Any girls like yeah, And I'm looking like
Jane disonergr jet and like, don't worry, you're good.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I'm gonna make sure you're good.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
It might seem uncommon for prisoners to be transported on
private jets, complete with fresh fruit and drinks. Even we
were surprised to find out that it's actually a thriving business.
On average, there's over six hundred flights a day shuttling
prisoners around the US. That's nearly the same amount of
flights that take off every day from Los Angeles International Airport.
(06:54):
It's not quite as looks as you would think, though.
The prisoners still have to be shackled on the plane.
Jay was concerned about Pete. He looked like a shell
of himself, timid, drastically underweight and broken. Eventually, after a
nearly four hour flight, the twins were taken to a
safe house in Chicago, expecting to be sentenced the next day. Instead,
(07:19):
they ended up living at the safe house for months,
continuing to cooperate on the El Chapo case, going over
the same things with the government again and again and again.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
So we're like, well, at least we're going to be
somewhere a little more comfortable for tonight, tomorrow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Right, and we get to the seafehouse in Chicago. It's
a secret location.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It's amazing where it's at you'd be surprised you put
it somewhere like that can.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, we can't discuss.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I wouldn't want to discussed. It's like a bunker, so
they take those backs. We were there for months. There's
no windows or nothing, but it's a big, old metal,
heavy door, and it's a room that looks someone like
a cheap It looks exactly like a holiday and back
in the day, exactly what everything.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
On holidays would have the same lamp, same set, no bathroom.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Door, no bath flows doors, and no bunch of cameras inside,
same televisions to old picks and old television. Same everybody
thinking that we're gonna, you know, they're gonna let us
be together, Like we're on the.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Jet together there when we get today separated.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And I remember at you know, asking the martian charge
like can we be together?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
No, you can't be together. I'm like, I just got
off the plane with him. Were just drove over together,
Like what's the big deal?
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
What did that feel like? I felt again that helplessness
of like thinking like he's my brother, we're on the
same case. We're gonna be charged to we got a
charge to get to the other.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Benefits that we had earlier on the simple things that
we took from Ghanda.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We took ends, they took it from us. So I remember,
just remember night. We right away, we didn't even care
to eat. We just sat.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We yelled at each other like it were in the
hole from you know, from the crack of the door.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Like we sat on the floor and he sent one
you know, his next door to me. So we just
yelled at each other.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Despite being brought together to be sentenced, the brothers were
still forced apart at every moment, separated into their own rooms.
The only way they could talk to each other was
to lie on the floor and shout through the crack
at the bottom of the heavy metal doors.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And the Martians come check on you ployment, even though
they had cameras, you guys go, okay, hear the keys.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's kind of you. Hear keys, you know. And we
had regular conversations.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
We were laughing, just different conversations about being nervous.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And then they come get us, come on, you guys
have a visit, and we walk into like a little
meeting room like the same thing, like like the rooms
that they make usweet. It's like two rooms which just
take the bed out of one and it's like they
got so fun and we come in.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
There's just the coverment, the agents and prosecutors, and we're like,
what's going on? Like we're gonna go over some stuff.
I mean, this cooperation stuff was heavy.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
It was work.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
If I got paid by the hour, I had to
get some pretty good checks, and I felt like I
was upset.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
To be honest, I was like, I'm done. I'm done
with this help me ship. I just want to get sentenced.
I'm over it. Dude, you gotta do I give you.
I'm giving you my soul.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Practically, to me, I felt like I was looking at
someone who was defeating, who was giving up.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That's what I looked at him. So I'm like, come on, like,
come on, be like be strong. I saw you being nervous,
and I saw you being that because you were I
had intend you were.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Confident enough, and I addressed that a couple of times
to I'm looking at that, I'm not confident.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
To me, it's a test. We're about to get sentenced
and they want help tomorrow they decide my future. What
do you need? I have a family at home. I
signed up for this. That's saying. So I was, you know,
(11:44):
to me, I'm just still fighting to get home.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I never stopped fighting, you know, if I were here
till the last day, I thought every day used.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
To training that my brother would call it a tantrums.
I call it fighting.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
I think for me to see us be alike so much,
even when it came to personality a little bit at times,
like energy or like whatever we give out. And for him,
I felt like I was going one way, he was
going the other. It was I think, trouble something for me,
and then if you could kind of tell like it
was trouble some for him to see me the opposite way,
(12:22):
I felt like more meekness set into me, a little
more humble, a little more like patient, and little more
like you know, maybe just I embraced the part that
I was like, you know, I'm just I'm.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Yelling on Jack when you're the twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
(13:03):
after months of cooperating sensusing day finally arrived.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I remember that morning I'm in the safe house night
channe out the news like I just channed the local
news in Chicago, and it's like that's the story.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Al Chapo's biggest distributors, Pedro and Margarito Flores used stash
houses in the suburbs off Chicago.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The Flores twins could be Chicago's biggest cocaine and heroin
traffickers ever.
Speaker 8 (13:32):
Chicago's infamous drug trafficking twins, Pedro Flores and his brother Margarito.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
They became the Cinelo Cartel's largest US distributors.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
To hit the drugs in some of New York's best neighborhoods.
Speaker 9 (13:51):
The twins, Pedro and Margarito Flores, have spent six years
cooperating with the fans.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
At person get it was the big deal bout me
getting sentenced. I also came to like like realize that
it wasn't gonna be a.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Like easy.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
It was, you know, the sentence he was gonna you know,
I'm looking with the media was saying like it changed
from us supposedly thinking we're doing something like good to
a change.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That we were still going to be the really no
matter what. And I understood that.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I was like, Okay, I just hope that the judge
understands this and seese my cooperation and understands the risk
we took and why we did this. I remember we're
in this hallway and it's like twelve marshals and my
(14:50):
brother side handkoff and he's behind me and the marshals
are there, and Peter took me like, yo, I'm nervous,
like and my people don't be nervous, like click, this
is what.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You're gonna say.
Speaker 10 (15:03):
And I'm like just trying to be the strong one right,
Like I'm nervous too, but I'm not gonna show them.
The marshals like, man, you guys said, you gotta just
stop already.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You're making a big deal about it. I said, I'm
not like this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
But that day, because I was worried about my brother,
I was like, mind your fucking business.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
What is it to you. You're here to transport me.
This is none of your fucking business. I said, you
take this job. You do this every day. Might not
be a big deal to you, but this is gonna change.
This is our life. You're taking this.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
I was like, and I went on this rank and
I'm and they're like, yo, just come out and come
out here. And the marshall think that he's like, you're right,
I apologize say for me. The heaviness of everything, we
come to feeling the way of it again, like you
know your your.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Feet lies in the hands of someone else, like a
psychological torture, as.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Probably going into that courtroom any thinking I was and
see a bunch of people that are gonna be staring
at me. I'm gonna have to admit, you know, be
sentien fell my wrongdoing. What's kind of heavy, you know,
and talk of everything like those thoughts are going to
my mind.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
My family.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I couldn't stop thinking of there, the kids, everyone, like
everything we've been through, you know, the unknown of the future,
what's around the corner.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
You know, what did it feel like on that day.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Like being kidnapped again, being like, you know, your life
open in the air, like anything could happen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That just could have decided whatever he wanted.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Those feelings have been like figuring for my life again
were real And anyone who has you know, come face
to face for the judge in a federal courtroom could
understand what I'm saying to you know, come up to
that to the bench of the judge where he's sitting
(17:05):
up like he feels like he's ten feet you know, high,
and the court room makes you feel so small. That
real thought that where it says the United States versus
you like, what chances does anyone have that fight the
(17:26):
United States government? You know, and you feel small, you
feel like vulnerable and weak.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
I feel like you're being brought out to the world
to see you. And that was a little like that
was not wreaking, like because my life had changed so much.
I'm going in front of people actually again right that
I can to decide your life.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
When a prisoner is sentenced, there is a guideline for
how long they will spend in prison. The guideline is
based on something called an offense level, which is determined
by how serious the offenses. The maximum level is forty three,
which would mean a life sentence. When the twins went
into their sentencing, they had an offense level of fifty nine.
(18:25):
That sixteen levels above the supposed maximum. Their cooperation meant
levels could be taken off. It was described by government
prosecutors as the most significant in a drug trafficking and
money laundering context in the history of the district. In
the end, the government recommended a sentence of a minimum
(18:46):
ten years maximum sixteen. US District Chief Judge Reuben Costillo
sentenced each of the brothers to fourteen years in prison
plus five years supervised release. Thee said that were it
not for their cooperation, he would have sentenced them to life,
but noted that they were already living with their own
(19:07):
life sentence.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
There is never a day in their lives where they
won't have to look over their shoulder, the judge said
in court this morning. 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 the part of the extraordinary nature of this case.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Judge Castillo said the twins operation devastated the walls of
Chicago and created a highway of drugs into the city.
J and Pete's corporation led to criminal charges against the
three bosses of the Cineloa cartel, El Chapo El Mayo,
and Otturo Beltran Lava. In addition, there were fifty one
(19:50):
other people charged as part of their cooperation, including their friends,
people like Musico, who you might remember from the Strip
Club Night in season one. He was the person on
the other end of the phone organizing for the cartel
to save the Florest family's lives when they were caught
by the Mexican federales. Even Tommy was charged. Jay's best friend.
(20:16):
He was the person who helped Jay get Pete back
when Pete was kidnapped by l Chapo and sat with
Jay that fateful night watching the John Gotti documentary that
first gave Jay the idea to cooperate. A total of
fifty four people had charges brought against them because of
(20:37):
the Flores twins. Judd Castillo said, it's never too late
to cooperate.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I wanted to have like the best news and feel like, Okay,
I'm going to be home in a year and a half.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It didn't happen.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Neil I was just halfway, had spent nearly seven years
in prison before being sentenced, and they now had another
seven years to serve. They were only halfway through.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I was disappointed. I mean I was disappointed.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
We're leave in some ways because I felt like I
was expecting like a lifetime supervision or something that would
have been hard. You know, it's something hard to live with.
I was given five years supervision.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
But again it wasn't for myself. It's just for my family,
my wife, my kids.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You know, we're just like halfway through at that point,
not just six years, you know of not just your
six years. It was six years of craziness. To be like, okay,
we're halfway felt hard, you know, like starting all over.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
After the spoke to you and gave you your sentencing,
and he he said, words to the effective you know,
you're always gonna have to look over your shoulder.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
What did that feel like? What was it like for you?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It's something already new, right, But when he said, I
think it was more powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Of course, it just feels bad because I know my
situation and I'm going to hear those words, he stated
over and over again, and I'm probably going to continue
to hear them. And I understood, like early on in
the situation, I put myself in ampuire me for like,
(22:56):
I'm always going to be in prison by the fact
of everything. And that's for in prison, for the fact
that I cooperated right for me, regardless if I was
getting benefits or not, it was for the good I
thought I was doing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You know. So it's two.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Different imprisonments, right, or two different life sentences in different ways.
It was with them it would have been death, and
here it was like a person and the life senses
of worries and you know, worry about threats and your
safety and your family safety. Even after all those years
(23:40):
of growing and thinking about my case and think about
everytiunity that just never going to say well with me
that I put my family in danger. And sometimes I
would think, like the fact that my wife and the
rest of my family would be like.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It's worth it, Like it kind of.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Showed to me like how much they love me, and
i'mous say wanted more that they were like, you know,
I didn't understand that sometimes we were making decisions for
our kids that they didn't get a chance to make
kind of like well my dad did to me, right,
And you know, I thought when I got sentence, I
(24:21):
wasn't come out feeling good. Does that understandable, right, besides
me getting rewarded with no matter what the sentence was,
that I was going to come out like.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Like feeling good. And I remember.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
That press conference were like, you know, they wanted to
set us as an example. I didn't feel that it
was going to be an example for other people to corporate.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I totally didn't feel like that. I felt like it
was just a reminder.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I guess a little more of an extra torture for
me and my family of what was lying ahead of me.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I think that I was broken back inside. No grateful
that it wasn't like longer, but I was broken, you know.
I felt like I was like, it's overwhelmed with daughter
Jana and everything she had been to already and the
(25:22):
kids and how hopeful they were. And I remember I
was sick, you know, I was throwing up like all
the way back.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I was sick that I was gonna have to stay
right of my brother and thinking that the next time
I'll see him again, was it's gonna be who knows?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Did you get to say anything to each other once
you were sentenced, before you put a parted?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I thought they were gonna like take us straight
back to our prisence, but they didn't. That night, we
we stepped back in the safe house again and we.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Talked and it was hard. I did feel like I
see my brothers like saying like.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Oh, well, what did we expect, like a little more
hard about it or stronger about it? And I felt
foken and it was hardly thinking that I was gonna
be away in my gay When the judge sentence was
sentence uh me and my brother to fourteen years.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
You know, I I.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Was hurt for my family because I did think about Samuelpool.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I guess I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I guess Chapel wasn't as a farm, you know, as
John Gotti.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
After they were sentenced, Jay and Pete were once again separated.
They were sent to different prisons at opposite ends of
the country to serve out the rest of their time.
Did it change anything for you when you did go
back to the prison.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Of course it did. I felt different that first day.
I'll never forget, Like riding back at the prison. There's
like three phone balls, like you know, and they're like
glass phone balls in the prison. I remember like sitting
in the middle one and I could see like the
courtyard kind like from the windows, like everyone knew. And
(27:47):
when I got back, like to court and they know
what's going on. Everyone just kind of like game in
my space. And I remember just breaking down on the
phone and feeling so like her for her, like yeah,
like what you say to your family when you say
to your wife they're doing waiting there for you to
come home and you can't come home. I can't explain
to your words what that feels like. Only did they
(28:10):
need you they're waiting for you, like literally like holding
their breath for you to come home. I remember just
thinking I could tell me about I tried my best.
I did everything I could, everything I could possibly do.
(28:30):
I did to make this easier house. And this is
as easy as it's gonna get. There's nothing else in
my mind I could have done at that time to
help my situation, you know, and I feel like I
had to live with that.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
It was a snowy, cold, snow dy so all the
kids were were home. I remember I took them out
in the morning and they wanted to go out and
build snowman. And there was a couple of kids on
the black that would come in and play with them
in the front. So it was like it was not
(29:13):
good that they were home that day. We we came
in and we had like a little a lunch and
then we played games, and a family member there was
with me, Thank God for her. And you know, I
remember Valerie texting me and telling me what was going on,
(29:37):
and my my husband's attorney was very much keeping me
updated and he didn't leave me in a dark at all,
So you know, I was grateful for that when I
heard that, you know, he got fourteen years. It was
it was it was it was hard.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
It was like.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
It was like someone like I took all the wind
out of me. Yeah, I felt I felt defeated, you know,
I felt I felt I felt very much defeated, and
(30:23):
I felt that I let down the kids too, and
I felt let down.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I felt.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
Angered and really regretful. I couldn't wait to talk to
him after I had my moment of madness. You know,
I kind of and I'm always good at that. I'll
(30:58):
be at I'll be super angried and then learn how
to just call myself and to soothe myself into back
into like reality. And I wanted him to call so bad.
When he got to the prison, he called me right
(31:20):
away and there was complete silence, like for five minutes.
It was just complete silence, and we were just crying
and incomplete silence. I think that we couldn't even think,
just the tears were just coming out. And when you
cry like that, I felt like that's just pain really
(31:42):
just built up inside. So you know, we did remind
each other, you know, I reminded him that we're going
to get through it, and we're going to be there
for each other. And you know this is not going
to change anything for us, and you know, I try
to reassure him as much as I could while I'm
reassuring myself, like letting myself know, like, yes, and you're
(32:07):
gonna get through it. You're gonna you're gonna be okay.
It's just it's just sad in that I just looked
at the kids and knew, like they're gonna be They're
gonna be teenagers by the time when I came home.
Speaker 8 (32:26):
I know, me and vib are very shocked by the
fourteen years. And I feel like, you know, when they
went to prison, they turned themselves in and they sacrificed
themselves to do the right thing and to go to prison.
I looked at them like they were so brave and
like they were like so courageous to do that, to
(32:48):
take a role that's never been walked before, and like
it's like a path to the unknown. And then all
of a sudden, it's like you know they're there and
they're in prison, and it's like we're like, okay, well,
I think in our mind we're like, okay, well, they
never killed anyone. They weren't violent, you know, they didn't
do drugs like they didn't drink like we would. You know,
(33:10):
they're they're justify we would justify like who they were
as men. They weren't womanizers. You know, they were great fathers,
they were great husbands. And I remember when Jay and
Peter coming back from sentencing, you know, I was devastating
with the fourteen years. I'm like, wait what And you know,
because I'm looking at it like other people who are
in the same prisons with them, you know, they have
(33:32):
all these bodies lined up, and I'm like, how does
that even like happen? Like how are they getting out?
And you got fourteen years? And Jay was like, you
know what, now we live in a bubble. We live
in a fucking bubble, Like this needs to stop. Like no,
When I was standing there in front of the judge
(33:53):
and he has his cloak on and he's sitting up
and you see the American flag in the background, you
see how power fool he is, he said, I felt
fear and I realized at that point, like, no, we
were selling drugs. What we did was wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I remember that everybody would always tell you these
prison stories about what they say about prison, and they'll
tell you that the old timers have been in there
for twenty five years and thirty years.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know that they would always explain to the.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
New inmates that that there's two kinds of inmates, the
ones who told and the ones who wish they told,
and that would think about it. And I thought that
I didn't leave nothing on the table, like I gave
(34:50):
it up my own. And it's weird because that was
a victory no matter what for me. You know, for me,
I couldn't have a release date.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
That weekend.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
They you know, they put me in the sugaring you know,
for safety reason, so I didn't feel gay.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Six months after the twins were sentenced, there was a
surprise in store for Jay and Pete, and it wasn't
a good one.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
I was leaning myself.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
They opened up the submorbers early that got five am exactly,
and one of the guys that messed with he came
and he was like I could tell he hadn't even
been to sleep.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
He like matting my door. He opens him. Hey, Pete, Pete,
wake up. You know it's like, hey, fool travel scape.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well yeah, manternal teens ill it like I see it
in the bottom line, and I'm like, get the no
fucking Way he escaped, Like you're like, like, for.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Real, man, turn the TV up.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I turned the TV on. It's a Saturday morning, and
I ain't seen the bottom line. This is fucking tumble.
It was in a drug lord or whatever last see then,
So at Friday night, at whatever time it just was,
(36:34):
it just didn't feel real that this was happening, like Norway,
And I remember getting up and they don't turn out
phones on til like it seven o'clock or something.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Try.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I had to wait till the phones around, and I
remember calling Dad and I waking her up.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Like, hey, he escaped? Shit? Who went in Chapel shait?
What I remember it just watching.
Speaker 9 (37:03):
The music late last night, Joaquin el Chapo Guzman broke
out of a maximum security prison about sixty miles from
Mexico City.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Everyone's watching, everyone's like coming back. You see chap escape,
And it was like unbelievable that they were really reporting that.
When you think about a situation, you know the story
behind these kind of people's that they do these crazy
(37:43):
things because they believe they could do it. They believe
they could do the impossible things. And evil genius is
still a genius. Like I don't care how you put
it like, and then they got he got the boss
that even attempt it, and you know, he got nothing
to lose, And I could see why he does that.
You know, you know, mindset, well, you got nothing to lose,
(38:04):
you're gonna you might as well, you know, take the
half court shot, swimming for the home run like you're down,
you know, you might as well try. You know that
little saying that comes to mind that they say that
you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take,
and when you have nothing to lose, And I've felt
like that before, like being your kid and and.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Like I have nothing to lose. What like, what's the
worst to get happen?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
You know, at that time, I was like, I'm younger,
i haven't really lived much, I'm naive, and I'm they're
probably the wisdom, you know, real wisdom at that time.
Speaker 12 (38:46):
You know, just when you said that it may have
been caught, right, you're right, But the majority of people
would think, now that's not one. It's not gonna workt
until I'm going to get caught, And they wouldn't even try.
The majority of people even try because they write themselves
off before they even try and do something and.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That's why I could relate to it because I feel like,
if you know, if I came to someone in my
own life and say, look, you know, i've sold over
one hundred thirty tons of cocain.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I'm a wanton person.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
My brother and I have been on the run for years, and.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What if I attempted to do this, this, this, this,
and that they would be like, you're fucking crazy for
even trying it. To see the genius of some of
the people we thought with and the things they do
to be successful, it's amazing, okay. And I feel like
(39:46):
those are the kind of people that make great things happen.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
I wish that they could be brought into some of
these legit the legit world, into the legitimate enterprises and
see what they could do.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
This is not the first time El Chapo has escaped
from prison, nor is it the first time he's escaped
from this particular prison, El Altiplano, a maximum security prison
east of Mexico City. Back in two thousand and one,
El Chapo bribed multiple prison offices to wheel him out
in a laundry cart. This time, he escaped through a
(40:23):
mile long tunnel, but it wasn't just any old tunnel.
Hiding below Chapo shower in his cell was a three
story deep hole and it was a ladder that he
used to climb down into the tunnel.
Speaker 13 (40:37):
You know, he was literally in a well fortified, constructed
prison designed to prevent such an escape. They didn't anticipate
him coming from underground, so.
Speaker 14 (40:49):
That's exactly what he did. Almost from the moment he
was delivered here to Altiplano Prison. In February twenty fourteen,
a construction crew from his Sena Low cartel began digging
a tunnel to free him.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
El Chappo's exact location was known because a smart watch
with the GPS was smuggled to him. The tunnel dig
was coordinated by el Chappo's wife, Emma Coronel Iesboro, and
his four sons, and it took around a year. It
was a well engineered tunnel that even included lighting and ventilation.
(41:25):
After el Chappo climbed down the ladder, he got onto
a motorbike attached to a track and was then pulled
to the end using an elaborate pulley system. Within a week,
he was back in Sineloa, relaxing in his palatial home
with his family and Almayo, the other leader of the cartel.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
As a time, close by Is said that he escaped
from my malon tunnel. You're like, what's like, what's next?
Speaker 4 (42:02):
My next thing is that they're really not going to
catch him next time, like that they they're not going
to catch up, Like look what he did to this game.
Speaker 6 (42:12):
Surviving l Chapo The Twins Who Brought Down a Drug
Lord Season two is hosted by Curtis fifty cent Jackson
and me Charlie Webster, Produced by myself and Jackson mcclennan,
Assistant producer and research support by Katie Hurtz. Edit and
sound designed by Nico Polella. Theme music and original score
by Ryan Sorenson. It's executive produced by Curtis fifty cent
(42:37):
Jackson and Me Charlie Webster. Curtis fifty cent Jackson presents
a Lionsgate Sound and G Unit audio production exclusively for
iHeart Podcasts
My name is Pedro Flores.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I am giving this statement freely and voluntarily pursuing two
proper letters with the United States Attorney's Office for the
Eastern District of Wisconsin and the Northern District of Illinois.
Although no promises have been made to me regarding my
cooperation or the sentence I will ultimately receive. I am
(00:26):
cooperating with the government and the hope of receiving a
reduced sentence in a federal case where I have been indicted.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
I'm federal narcotics chargers.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Do you believe in the justice system after what he's
put you through?
Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, I remember the prosecutors telling me when we argue
certain things about our case, our chargers, and he said
to me, the law is not there to protect criminals,
is there to protect the innocent. So I'm going to
take that for the word, because I'm I was a criminal.
So the law wasn't there to benefit me, was there
(01:03):
to go against me. 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
side of the law, maybe that.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Law would protect me. And I hope it does, you.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Know, But do I agree with every part of it.
Speaker 5 (01:15):
No, but you see people get twenty they kill twenty
people and they just let them out because they got
who they wanted, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
What they wanted.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Well, people, I'm gonna tell you there's a lot of
people are gonna think that our sentence was unfair.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Mhm.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
And I hope that in us talking about this, and
they're gonna get a breag picture of see you letting
me say what what's fair or not? But I'll take
responsibility with do I believe in just a yes, because.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I'm the one that put myself in that situation. If
I would never have done that, then I're gonna have
to deal with that. Right.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
Hey, it's and I'm Charlie Webster. This is ivanel Chapeau,
the twins who brought down a Drugg Blood season two.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
You ever played that game telephone?
Speaker 5 (02:21):
For five years, that's the only way Jay and Pete
were able to communicate with each other by sending messages
to their wives. So far, their time in prison had
been about cooperation, and they had no clue how much
longer they be in for. The twin sentencing was originally
put a hole until our chapel was caught.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Now that el Chapot had been arrested. The brothers could
get back together.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
But it wouldn't last long. Pete and j would soon
learn their fate, but first they had to get to
the courthouse in Chicago. Sat in a hangar and shackled,
Pete watched anxiously as a plane of approached, the plane
he hoped would have his brother on board.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I can see the plane touching the private plane, and
you know, it's sticky forever, like the land to spin around.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
But I remember, like they pull up and I'm sitting
in the in the in the truck stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
I see him, you know, pull the doors open. When
they tell me come on, I rushed out. I remember,
I'm just looking down trying to peek over the corner.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I just I just see it's a great sweats and shoes,
you know, And you know my brother was sitting there.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
What did that feel like? That was beautiful feeling it.
You know that we got emotional right right soon we've
seen the showy start crank. And did you do when
you saw each other?
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Well, we couldn't, you know, I was I was seeing
that we're tackle, so we couldn't do much.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
So we just robed our head together, our big.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
Head together, and and I like, bro, like after I
was like fans in here, like, bro, why did you
look like that?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Right away? I went to I've been in his shoe
and I know you don't think I get air cut
like whatever. And it didn't work out that way.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And you just, you know, like even the marshals that
which travel was, they're just they'll stay quiet for us.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
I can just stare at him like what was that reaction?
You know, be like.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And then he sat in front of me and we
just tried to We forgot about everyone else in the
little three four hours. I felt like, you know, different things,
and he's sitting in front of me, and.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And then you know, I'm a nervous record of it.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
I'm I'm going to get sentenced, and I'm looking at
my brother and I'm kind of why I'm staring at
because he has this different He's day back, he's standing back,
and he's like.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
You're hungry, bro, you know, give him something me Like
it was because I.
Speaker 7 (05:09):
Did.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Did you feel different to each other because you've not
seen each other for that long and also you're been
through so much in that period of time.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I'm gonna say it.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
I noticed like, to me, he was too timid, he
was too like I feel like he was letting them
take a part of him. And it was in me
that I was not gonna let that happen.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
So when I see my brother, he has this as
I'm coming in and he's like, hey, give him something, man,
he's gilt. What do you want to I'm like, day, bro,
this is not your jet. These are us marshalls. Like
they give two ships. What you said?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
I'm just like, no, no, they didn't. And I remember
landing and I got sick. Remember you guys. Take you
guys when we were taking out, when you started feeling better,
I thought he looked hungry. So the marshals are there.
It looks like he needed food. So hey, excuse me,
bring me that food. Like you know they have fruit tree, it's.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
A private jet mart. Bring them to food.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
And then and what did they do? What do you
want here? Here's your stuff? I get them the fruit,
get them to drink, you know, like, hey, do you
want anything? Any girls like yeah, And I'm looking like
Jane disonergr jet and like, don't worry, you're good.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I'm gonna make sure you're good.
Speaker 6 (06:31):
It might seem uncommon for prisoners to be transported on
private jets, complete with fresh fruit and drinks. Even we
were surprised to find out that it's actually a thriving business.
On average, there's over six hundred flights a day shuttling
prisoners around the US. That's nearly the same amount of
flights that take off every day from Los Angeles International Airport.
(06:54):
It's not quite as looks as you would think, though.
The prisoners still have to be shackled on the plane.
Jay was concerned about Pete. He looked like a shell
of himself, timid, drastically underweight and broken. Eventually, after a
nearly four hour flight, the twins were taken to a
safe house in Chicago, expecting to be sentenced the next day. Instead,
(07:19):
they ended up living at the safe house for months,
continuing to cooperate on the El Chapo case, going over
the same things with the government again and again and again.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
So we're like, well, at least we're going to be
somewhere a little more comfortable for tonight, tomorrow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Right, and we get to the seafehouse in Chicago. It's
a secret location.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
It's amazing where it's at you'd be surprised you put
it somewhere like that can.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yeah, we can't discuss.
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I wouldn't want to discussed. It's like a bunker, so
they take those backs. We were there for months. There's
no windows or nothing, but it's a big, old metal,
heavy door, and it's a room that looks someone like
a cheap It looks exactly like a holiday and back
in the day, exactly what everything.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
On holidays would have the same lamp, same set, no bathroom.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Door, no bath flows doors, and no bunch of cameras inside,
same televisions to old picks and old television. Same everybody
thinking that we're gonna, you know, they're gonna let us
be together, Like we're on the.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Jet together there when we get today separated.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
And I remember at you know, asking the martian charge
like can we be together?
Speaker 1 (08:46):
No, you can't be together. I'm like, I just got
off the plane with him. Were just drove over together,
Like what's the big deal?
Speaker 5 (08:51):
Now?
Speaker 1 (08:54):
What did that feel like? I felt again that helplessness
of like thinking like he's my brother, we're on the
same case. We're gonna be charged to we got a
charge to get to the other.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Benefits that we had earlier on the simple things that
we took from Ghanda.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
We took ends, they took it from us. So I remember,
just remember night. We right away, we didn't even care
to eat. We just sat.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
We yelled at each other like it were in the
hole from you know, from the crack of the door.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Like we sat on the floor and he sent one
you know, his next door to me. So we just
yelled at each other.
Speaker 6 (09:30):
Despite being brought together to be sentenced, the brothers were
still forced apart at every moment, separated into their own rooms.
The only way they could talk to each other was
to lie on the floor and shout through the crack
at the bottom of the heavy metal doors.
Speaker 4 (09:52):
And the Martians come check on you ployment, even though
they had cameras, you guys go, okay, hear the keys.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
That's kind of you. Hear keys, you know. And we
had regular conversations.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
We were laughing, just different conversations about being nervous.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
And then they come get us, come on, you guys
have a visit, and we walk into like a little
meeting room like the same thing, like like the rooms
that they make usweet. It's like two rooms which just
take the bed out of one and it's like they
got so fun and we come in.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
There's just the coverment, the agents and prosecutors, and we're like,
what's going on? Like we're gonna go over some stuff.
I mean, this cooperation stuff was heavy.
Speaker 7 (10:38):
It was work.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
If I got paid by the hour, I had to
get some pretty good checks, and I felt like I
was upset.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
To be honest, I was like, I'm done. I'm done
with this help me ship. I just want to get sentenced.
I'm over it. Dude, you gotta do I give you.
I'm giving you my soul.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Practically, to me, I felt like I was looking at
someone who was defeating, who was giving up.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That's what I looked at him. So I'm like, come on, like,
come on, be like be strong. I saw you being nervous,
and I saw you being that because you were I
had intend you were.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Confident enough, and I addressed that a couple of times
to I'm looking at that, I'm not confident.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
To me, it's a test. We're about to get sentenced
and they want help tomorrow they decide my future. What
do you need? I have a family at home. I
signed up for this. That's saying. So I was, you know,
(11:44):
to me, I'm just still fighting to get home.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
I never stopped fighting, you know, if I were here
till the last day, I thought every day used.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
To training that my brother would call it a tantrums.
I call it fighting.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
I think for me to see us be alike so much,
even when it came to personality a little bit at times,
like energy or like whatever we give out. And for him,
I felt like I was going one way, he was
going the other. It was I think, trouble something for me,
and then if you could kind of tell like it
was trouble some for him to see me the opposite way,
(12:22):
I felt like more meekness set into me, a little
more humble, a little more like patient, and little more
like you know, maybe just I embraced the part that
I was like, you know, I'm just I'm.
Speaker 6 (12:37):
Yelling on Jack when you're the twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
(13:03):
after months of cooperating sensusing day finally arrived.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
I remember that morning I'm in the safe house night
channe out the news like I just channed the local
news in Chicago, and it's like that's the story.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Al Chapo's biggest distributors, Pedro and Margarito Flores used stash
houses in the suburbs off Chicago.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
The Flores twins could be Chicago's biggest cocaine and heroin
traffickers ever.
Speaker 8 (13:32):
Chicago's infamous drug trafficking twins, Pedro Flores and his brother Margarito.
Speaker 9 (13:40):
They became the Cinelo Cartel's largest US distributors.
Speaker 4 (13:46):
To hit the drugs in some of New York's best neighborhoods.
Speaker 9 (13:51):
The twins, Pedro and Margarito Flores, have spent six years
cooperating with the fans.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
At person get it was the big deal bout me
getting sentenced. I also came to like like realize that
it wasn't gonna be a.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Like easy.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
It was, you know, the sentence he was gonna you know,
I'm looking with the media was saying like it changed
from us supposedly thinking we're doing something like good to
a change.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
That we were still going to be the really no
matter what. And I understood that.
Speaker 4 (14:29):
I was like, Okay, I just hope that the judge
understands this and seese my cooperation and understands the risk
we took and why we did this. I remember we're
in this hallway and it's like twelve marshals and my
(14:50):
brother side handkoff and he's behind me and the marshals
are there, and Peter took me like, yo, I'm nervous,
like and my people don't be nervous, like click, this
is what.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
You're gonna say.
Speaker 10 (15:03):
And I'm like just trying to be the strong one right,
Like I'm nervous too, but I'm not gonna show them.
The marshals like, man, you guys said, you gotta just
stop already.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
You're making a big deal about it. I said, I'm
not like this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
But that day, because I was worried about my brother,
I was like, mind your fucking business.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
What is it to you. You're here to transport me.
This is none of your fucking business. I said, you
take this job. You do this every day. Might not
be a big deal to you, but this is gonna change.
This is our life. You're taking this.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
I was like, and I went on this rank and
I'm and they're like, yo, just come out and come
out here. And the marshall think that he's like, you're right,
I apologize say for me. The heaviness of everything, we
come to feeling the way of it again, like you
know your your.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Feet lies in the hands of someone else, like a
psychological torture, as.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Probably going into that courtroom any thinking I was and
see a bunch of people that are gonna be staring
at me. I'm gonna have to admit, you know, be
sentien fell my wrongdoing. What's kind of heavy, you know,
and talk of everything like those thoughts are going to
my mind.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
My family.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I couldn't stop thinking of there, the kids, everyone, like
everything we've been through, you know, the unknown of the future,
what's around the corner.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
You know, what did it feel like on that day.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Like being kidnapped again, being like, you know, your life
open in the air, like anything could happen.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
That just could have decided whatever he wanted.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Those feelings have been like figuring for my life again
were real And anyone who has you know, come face
to face for the judge in a federal courtroom could
understand what I'm saying to you know, come up to
that to the bench of the judge where he's sitting
(17:05):
up like he feels like he's ten feet you know, high,
and the court room makes you feel so small. That
real thought that where it says the United States versus
you like, what chances does anyone have that fight the
(17:26):
United States government? You know, and you feel small, you
feel like vulnerable and weak.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
I feel like you're being brought out to the world
to see you. And that was a little like that
was not wreaking, like because my life had changed so much.
I'm going in front of people actually again right that
I can to decide your life.
Speaker 6 (18:02):
When a prisoner is sentenced, there is a guideline for
how long they will spend in prison. The guideline is
based on something called an offense level, which is determined
by how serious the offenses. The maximum level is forty three,
which would mean a life sentence. When the twins went
into their sentencing, they had an offense level of fifty nine.
(18:25):
That sixteen levels above the supposed maximum. Their cooperation meant
levels could be taken off. It was described by government
prosecutors as the most significant in a drug trafficking and
money laundering context in the history of the district. In
the end, the government recommended a sentence of a minimum
(18:46):
ten years maximum sixteen. US District Chief Judge Reuben Costillo
sentenced each of the brothers to fourteen years in prison
plus five years supervised release. Thee said that were it
not for their cooperation, he would have sentenced them to life,
but noted that they were already living with their own
(19:07):
life sentence.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
There is never a day in their lives where they
won't have to look over their shoulder, the judge said
in court this morning. 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 the part of the extraordinary nature of this case.
Speaker 6 (19:26):
Judge Castillo said the twins operation devastated the walls of
Chicago and created a highway of drugs into the city.
J and Pete's corporation led to criminal charges against the
three bosses of the Cineloa cartel, El Chapo El Mayo,
and Otturo Beltran Lava. In addition, there were fifty one
(19:50):
other people charged as part of their cooperation, including their friends,
people like Musico, who you might remember from the Strip
Club Night in season one. He was the person on
the other end of the phone organizing for the cartel
to save the Florest family's lives when they were caught
by the Mexican federales. Even Tommy was charged. Jay's best friend.
(20:16):
He was the person who helped Jay get Pete back
when Pete was kidnapped by l Chapo and sat with
Jay that fateful night watching the John Gotti documentary that
first gave Jay the idea to cooperate. A total of
fifty four people had charges brought against them because of
(20:37):
the Flores twins. Judd Castillo said, it's never too late
to cooperate.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
I wanted to have like the best news and feel like, Okay,
I'm going to be home in a year and a half.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
It didn't happen.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
Neil I was just halfway, had spent nearly seven years
in prison before being sentenced, and they now had another
seven years to serve. They were only halfway through.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I was disappointed. I mean I was disappointed.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
We're leave in some ways because I felt like I
was expecting like a lifetime supervision or something that would
have been hard. You know, it's something hard to live with.
I was given five years supervision.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
But again it wasn't for myself. It's just for my family,
my wife, my kids.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
You know, we're just like halfway through at that point,
not just six years, you know of not just your
six years. It was six years of craziness. To be like, okay,
we're halfway felt hard, you know, like starting all over.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
After the spoke to you and gave you your sentencing,
and he he said, words to the effective you know,
you're always gonna have to look over your shoulder.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
What did that feel like? What was it like for you?
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It's something already new, right, But when he said, I
think it was more powerful.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Right.
Speaker 4 (22:29):
Of course, it just feels bad because I know my
situation and I'm going to hear those words, he stated
over and over again, and I'm probably going to continue
to hear them. And I understood, like early on in
the situation, I put myself in ampuire me for like,
(22:56):
I'm always going to be in prison by the fact
of everything. And that's for in prison, for the fact
that I cooperated right for me, regardless if I was
getting benefits or not, it was for the good I
thought I was doing.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You know. So it's two.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Different imprisonments, right, or two different life sentences in different ways.
It was with them it would have been death, and
here it was like a person and the life senses
of worries and you know, worry about threats and your
safety and your family safety. Even after all those years
(23:40):
of growing and thinking about my case and think about
everytiunity that just never going to say well with me
that I put my family in danger. And sometimes I
would think, like the fact that my wife and the
rest of my family would be like.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
It's worth it, Like it kind of.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Showed to me like how much they love me, and
i'mous say wanted more that they were like, you know,
I didn't understand that sometimes we were making decisions for
our kids that they didn't get a chance to make
kind of like well my dad did to me, right,
And you know, I thought when I got sentence, I
(24:21):
wasn't come out feeling good. Does that understandable, right, besides
me getting rewarded with no matter what the sentence was,
that I was going to come out like.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Like feeling good. And I remember.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
That press conference were like, you know, they wanted to
set us as an example. I didn't feel that it
was going to be an example for other people to corporate.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
I totally didn't feel like that. I felt like it
was just a reminder.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I guess a little more of an extra torture for
me and my family of what was lying ahead of me.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I think that I was broken back inside. No grateful
that it wasn't like longer, but I was broken, you know.
I felt like I was like, it's overwhelmed with daughter
Jana and everything she had been to already and the
(25:22):
kids and how hopeful they were. And I remember I
was sick, you know, I was throwing up like all
the way back.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
I was sick that I was gonna have to stay
right of my brother and thinking that the next time
I'll see him again, was it's gonna be who knows?
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Did you get to say anything to each other once
you were sentenced, before you put a parted?
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I thought they were gonna like take us straight
back to our prisence, but they didn't. That night, we
we stepped back in the safe house again and we.
Speaker 1 (25:54):
Talked and it was hard. I did feel like I
see my brothers like saying like.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
Oh, well, what did we expect, like a little more
hard about it or stronger about it? And I felt
foken and it was hardly thinking that I was gonna
be away in my gay When the judge sentence was
sentence uh me and my brother to fourteen years.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
You know, I I.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Was hurt for my family because I did think about Samuelpool.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I guess I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I guess Chapel wasn't as a farm, you know, as
John Gotti.
Speaker 6 (27:03):
After they were sentenced, Jay and Pete were once again separated.
They were sent to different prisons at opposite ends of
the country to serve out the rest of their time.
Did it change anything for you when you did go
back to the prison.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Of course it did. I felt different that first day.
I'll never forget, Like riding back at the prison. There's
like three phone balls, like you know, and they're like
glass phone balls in the prison. I remember like sitting
in the middle one and I could see like the
courtyard kind like from the windows, like everyone knew. And
(27:47):
when I got back, like to court and they know
what's going on. Everyone just kind of like game in
my space. And I remember just breaking down on the
phone and feeling so like her for her, like yeah,
like what you say to your family when you say
to your wife they're doing waiting there for you to
come home and you can't come home. I can't explain
to your words what that feels like. Only did they
(28:10):
need you they're waiting for you, like literally like holding
their breath for you to come home. I remember just
thinking I could tell me about I tried my best.
I did everything I could, everything I could possibly do.
(28:30):
I did to make this easier house. And this is
as easy as it's gonna get. There's nothing else in
my mind I could have done at that time to
help my situation, you know, and I feel like I
had to live with that.
Speaker 7 (28:50):
It was a snowy, cold, snow dy so all the
kids were were home. I remember I took them out
in the morning and they wanted to go out and
build snowman. And there was a couple of kids on
the black that would come in and play with them
in the front. So it was like it was not
(29:13):
good that they were home that day. We we came
in and we had like a little a lunch and
then we played games, and a family member there was
with me, Thank God for her. And you know, I
remember Valerie texting me and telling me what was going on,
(29:37):
and my my husband's attorney was very much keeping me
updated and he didn't leave me in a dark at all,
So you know, I was grateful for that when I
heard that, you know, he got fourteen years. It was
it was it was it was hard.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
It was like.
Speaker 7 (30:01):
It was like someone like I took all the wind
out of me. Yeah, I felt I felt defeated, you know,
I felt I felt I felt very much defeated, and
(30:23):
I felt that I let down the kids too, and
I felt let down.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I felt.
Speaker 7 (30:35):
Angered and really regretful. I couldn't wait to talk to
him after I had my moment of madness. You know,
I kind of and I'm always good at that. I'll
(30:58):
be at I'll be super angried and then learn how
to just call myself and to soothe myself into back
into like reality. And I wanted him to call so bad.
When he got to the prison, he called me right
(31:20):
away and there was complete silence, like for five minutes.
It was just complete silence, and we were just crying
and incomplete silence. I think that we couldn't even think,
just the tears were just coming out. And when you
cry like that, I felt like that's just pain really
(31:42):
just built up inside. So you know, we did remind
each other, you know, I reminded him that we're going
to get through it, and we're going to be there
for each other. And you know this is not going
to change anything for us, and you know, I try
to reassure him as much as I could while I'm
reassuring myself, like letting myself know, like, yes, and you're
(32:07):
gonna get through it. You're gonna you're gonna be okay.
It's just it's just sad in that I just looked
at the kids and knew, like they're gonna be They're
gonna be teenagers by the time when I came home.
Speaker 8 (32:26):
I know, me and vib are very shocked by the
fourteen years. And I feel like, you know, when they
went to prison, they turned themselves in and they sacrificed
themselves to do the right thing and to go to prison.
I looked at them like they were so brave and
like they were like so courageous to do that, to
(32:48):
take a role that's never been walked before, and like
it's like a path to the unknown. And then all
of a sudden, it's like you know they're there and
they're in prison, and it's like we're like, okay, well,
I think in our mind we're like, okay, well, they
never killed anyone. They weren't violent, you know, they didn't
do drugs like they didn't drink like we would. You know,
(33:10):
they're they're justify we would justify like who they were
as men. They weren't womanizers. You know, they were great fathers,
they were great husbands. And I remember when Jay and
Peter coming back from sentencing, you know, I was devastating
with the fourteen years. I'm like, wait what And you know,
because I'm looking at it like other people who are
in the same prisons with them, you know, they have
(33:32):
all these bodies lined up, and I'm like, how does
that even like happen? Like how are they getting out?
And you got fourteen years? And Jay was like, you
know what, now we live in a bubble. We live
in a fucking bubble, Like this needs to stop. Like no,
When I was standing there in front of the judge
(33:53):
and he has his cloak on and he's sitting up
and you see the American flag in the background, you
see how power fool he is, he said, I felt
fear and I realized at that point, like, no, we
were selling drugs. What we did was wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I remember that everybody would always tell you these
prison stories about what they say about prison, and they'll
tell you that the old timers have been in there
for twenty five years and thirty years.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
You know that they would always explain to the.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
New inmates that that there's two kinds of inmates, the
ones who told and the ones who wish they told,
and that would think about it. And I thought that
I didn't leave nothing on the table, like I gave
(34:50):
it up my own. And it's weird because that was
a victory no matter what for me. You know, for me,
I couldn't have a release date.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
That weekend.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
They you know, they put me in the sugaring you know,
for safety reason, so I didn't feel gay.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
Six months after the twins were sentenced, there was a
surprise in store for Jay and Pete, and it wasn't
a good one.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
I was leaning myself.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
They opened up the submorbers early that got five am exactly,
and one of the guys that messed with he came
and he was like I could tell he hadn't even
been to sleep.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
He like matting my door. He opens him. Hey, Pete, Pete,
wake up. You know it's like, hey, fool travel scape.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well yeah, manternal teens ill it like I see it
in the bottom line, and I'm like, get the no
fucking Way he escaped, Like you're like, like, for.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Real, man, turn the TV up.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
I turned the TV on. It's a Saturday morning, and
I ain't seen the bottom line. This is fucking tumble.
It was in a drug lord or whatever last see then,
So at Friday night, at whatever time it just was,
(36:34):
it just didn't feel real that this was happening, like Norway,
And I remember getting up and they don't turn out
phones on til like it seven o'clock or something.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
Try.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
I had to wait till the phones around, and I
remember calling Dad and I waking her up.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Like, hey, he escaped? Shit? Who went in Chapel shait?
What I remember it just watching.
Speaker 9 (37:03):
The music late last night, Joaquin el Chapo Guzman broke
out of a maximum security prison about sixty miles from
Mexico City.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Everyone's watching, everyone's like coming back. You see chap escape,
And it was like unbelievable that they were really reporting that.
When you think about a situation, you know the story
behind these kind of people's that they do these crazy
(37:43):
things because they believe they could do it. They believe
they could do the impossible things. And evil genius is
still a genius. Like I don't care how you put
it like, and then they got he got the boss
that even attempt it, and you know, he got nothing
to lose, And I could see why he does that.
You know, you know, mindset, well, you got nothing to lose,
(38:04):
you're gonna you might as well, you know, take the
half court shot, swimming for the home run like you're down,
you know, you might as well try. You know that
little saying that comes to mind that they say that
you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take,
and when you have nothing to lose, And I've felt
like that before, like being your kid and and.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Like I have nothing to lose. What like, what's the
worst to get happen?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
You know, at that time, I was like, I'm younger,
i haven't really lived much, I'm naive, and I'm they're
probably the wisdom, you know, real wisdom at that time.
Speaker 12 (38:46):
You know, just when you said that it may have
been caught, right, you're right, But the majority of people
would think, now that's not one. It's not gonna workt
until I'm going to get caught, And they wouldn't even try.
The majority of people even try because they write themselves
off before they even try and do something and.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That's why I could relate to it because I feel like,
if you know, if I came to someone in my
own life and say, look, you know, i've sold over
one hundred thirty tons of cocain.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I'm a wanton person.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
You know.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
My brother and I have been on the run for years, and.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
What if I attempted to do this, this, this, this,
and that they would be like, you're fucking crazy for
even trying it. To see the genius of some of
the people we thought with and the things they do
to be successful, it's amazing, okay. And I feel like
(39:46):
those are the kind of people that make great things happen.
Speaker 7 (39:49):
You know.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
I wish that they could be brought into some of
these legit the legit world, into the legitimate enterprises and
see what they could do.
Speaker 6 (40:01):
This is not the first time El Chapo has escaped
from prison, nor is it the first time he's escaped
from this particular prison, El Altiplano, a maximum security prison
east of Mexico City. Back in two thousand and one,
El Chapo bribed multiple prison offices to wheel him out
in a laundry cart. This time, he escaped through a
(40:23):
mile long tunnel, but it wasn't just any old tunnel.
Hiding below Chapo shower in his cell was a three
story deep hole and it was a ladder that he
used to climb down into the tunnel.
Speaker 13 (40:37):
You know, he was literally in a well fortified, constructed
prison designed to prevent such an escape. They didn't anticipate
him coming from underground, so.
Speaker 14 (40:49):
That's exactly what he did. Almost from the moment he
was delivered here to Altiplano Prison. In February twenty fourteen,
a construction crew from his Sena Low cartel began digging
a tunnel to free him.
Speaker 6 (41:04):
El Chappo's exact location was known because a smart watch
with the GPS was smuggled to him. The tunnel dig
was coordinated by el Chappo's wife, Emma Coronel Iesboro, and
his four sons, and it took around a year. It
was a well engineered tunnel that even included lighting and ventilation.
(41:25):
After el Chappo climbed down the ladder, he got onto
a motorbike attached to a track and was then pulled
to the end using an elaborate pulley system. Within a week,
he was back in Sineloa, relaxing in his palatial home
with his family and Almayo, the other leader of the cartel.
Speaker 2 (41:48):
As a time, close by Is said that he escaped
from my malon tunnel. You're like, what's like, what's next?
Speaker 4 (42:02):
My next thing is that they're really not going to
catch him next time, like that they they're not going
to catch up, Like look what he did to this game.
Speaker 6 (42:12):
Surviving l Chapo The Twins Who Brought Down a Drug
Lord Season two is hosted by Curtis fifty cent Jackson
and me Charlie Webster, Produced by myself and Jackson mcclennan,
Assistant producer and research support by Katie Hurtz. Edit and
sound designed by Nico Polella. Theme music and original score
by Ryan Sorenson. It's executive produced by Curtis fifty cent
(42:37):
Jackson and Me Charlie Webster. Curtis fifty cent Jackson presents
a Lionsgate Sound and G Unit audio production exclusively for
iHeart Podcasts
Hosts And Creators
Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson
Charlie Webster
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