- 1 year ago
The Twin Brothers Who Betrayed El Chapo And Caused His Arrest - Robbers informative, crime, thief, trou story,
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00They have fed some of their victims dead and alive.
00:05December 2019.
00:07The world watched as Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman Lora,
00:11better known as El Chapo,
00:13was sentenced to life in prison.
00:15But even behind bars,
00:17his name echoes across Mexico
00:19and the United States,
00:21a reminder of the brutal empire he built.
00:24For years, he ruled the drug trade,
00:26evading authorities time and again,
00:28most famously after escaping from prison in 2001.
00:33With billions at his disposal,
00:35it seemed like no one could touch him.
00:38Until two brothers,
00:39who El Chapo trusted like sons,
00:41turned the tide.
00:43The Flores twins.
00:45Rising swiftly in the underworld,
00:47these brothers not only earned El Chapo's favor,
00:50but also became the key to his downfall.
00:53But how did they gain El Chapo's trust?
00:56And what led them to betray the man
00:58who treated them like family?
01:00Born to Mexican immigrant parents in 1981,
01:03Pedro and Margarito Flores were known as
01:06Pete and Jay or Junior
01:08among their family and friends from an early age.
01:11The twin brothers were born 17 minutes apart
01:14and spent the first 14 years in a one-story home
01:17in an area known as Little Village among Chicagoans.
01:21The area was known for gang and drug violence.
01:24The Flores twins were quiet and polite in their childhood,
01:28a trait that would fool many
01:30when they entered the drug world
01:31in the later years of their lives.
01:33But they also had another trait
01:35that helped them stay off the authorities' radar
01:37for several years, intelligence.
01:40The twin brothers were extremely intelligent
01:42and were exposed to narcotics dealings
01:45from a very young age.
01:47While their parents were factory workers,
01:49only their mother returned home from work in the evening.
01:52By day, their father, Margarito Flores,
01:55drove a forklift at a local candy factory.
01:58But as soon as the sun set,
02:00he turned into a narco-trafficker.
02:03Pete and Jay were used by their father
02:05as a load cover to smuggle drugs
02:07from Mexico to the United States.
02:09They sat on top of multiple kilos of marijuana
02:12and other drugs while their father
02:14drove the car back and forth
02:16between the U.S. and Mexico.
02:18Bringing his kids with him
02:20helped Margarito prevent suspicion while on the road.
02:23Since they were looking for their father
02:25from a very young age,
02:27the Flores twins became familiar
02:29with the ins and outs of the drug trade
02:31while still in their childhood.
02:33Although they had some close encounters with police,
02:36Pete and Jay stayed clear of serious trouble
02:39during their early years.
02:41In 1989, when the twins were just eight,
02:44one of them was caught hanging out
02:46with the members of the Latin Kings,
02:48the gang that controlled the drug distribution
02:51and ruled their neighborhood in Chicago.
02:53But the charges were dismissed.
02:55In the mid-1990s,
02:57their father moved back to Mexico.
02:59But the Flores twins didn't go with him
03:01to where their family had originally come from.
03:04Rather, they decided to stay in the United States
03:07and try their luck in something they had known
03:09and seen for as long as they could remember.
03:14Pete and Jay used their father's contacts
03:16and formally entered the narco world.
03:18Their father had used the old methods
03:20to smuggle and distribute drugs.
03:22But the Flores twins weren't like their father in this regard.
03:26They were innovators.
03:28They came up with new and unconventional ideas
03:30to distribute drugs on the streets of Chicago.
03:33And these ideas soon started paying off handsomely.
03:37Before the twin brothers emerged on the scene,
03:40the Cardells used gangs in the United States
03:42to get their products on the streets.
03:44Cities were divided among different gangs,
03:46like the Latin Kings,
03:48and each gang was responsible for guarding their territory,
03:52even if it meant spilling blood.
03:54The Flores twins didn't want to get involved
03:57in shooting bullets and taking bullets for their territory.
04:00So they devised a new strategy.
04:03They made alliances with different gangs,
04:05regardless of their territory,
04:07and did the wholesale business of drugs with buyers
04:10who were interested in the same thing as them,
04:12making money.
04:14From African Americans to Puerto Ricans and Mexicans,
04:17their clients included people of every color and background.
04:21This is why, just a few years into the drug business,
04:25the Flores twins became extremely successful,
04:28racking up millions of dollars in profits every month.
04:32By the early 2000s,
04:34the twin brothers had established a huge customer base
04:37and were buying as much as 10,000 kilos of cocaine per month.
04:41This is when they caught the eye of their biggest supplier,
04:44El Chapo Guzman.
04:46While he had been involved in the drug trade for several years,
04:49El Chapo rose to prominence when he broke out of jail in 2001.
04:54After that, he became a mythical figure in Mexico.
04:58Like the Flores twins, El Chapo was also an innovator.
05:03He was known for being creative with ways to smuggle drugs
05:06across the U.S.-Mexico border
05:08and deliver them throughout the United States.
05:11From tunnels to homemade submarines,
05:13El Chapo had ways to transport hundreds of tons of drugs
05:17to the United States without getting noticed or caught.
05:20El Chapo was running the biggest and most dangerous Mexican drug ring,
05:24the Sinaloa Cartel,
05:26and was seen as untouchable in his home country.
05:29No one except a few honest politicians and law enforcement officers
05:33dared talk about him,
05:35let alone try to catch him.
05:37This was also because he had the police
05:40and the majority of decision-makers in his pockets.
05:43El Chapo's drug empire had grown to nearly $3 billion by 2004,
05:49but he wanted more,
05:51and the Flores twins were perfect for the expansion he envisioned.
05:54To make his dream a reality,
05:56El Chapo dealt directly with the Flores twins
05:59and was quickly impressed by their intelligence
06:02and approach to the business.
06:04They became his family and received the most favorable pricing structure
06:08the Sinaloa Cartel was willing to offer at the time.
06:11Chicago became the hub of El Chapo's drug trade in the United States
06:15for several reasons,
06:17such as being located at the heart of the United States
06:20and hosting a diverse community.
06:22But the biggest reason was the Flores twins,
06:25who, over the past few years,
06:27had established a sophisticated network of drugs
06:30in the city and across the country.
06:32El Chapo could easily hide his gang members
06:35among the large Mexican population in Chicago
06:38and run his operations in collaboration with the Flores twins.
06:42Soon, the teams were moving nearly $145 million worth of cocaine from Mexico
06:49and distributing it in the United States
06:51through their highly efficient and effective network.
06:54This saw Mexican drugs as far north as Canada,
06:58besides the major U.S. cities like Washington, New York, and Boston.
07:02In 2003, the Flores twins had flooded the streets of Chicago with drugs.
07:08El Chapo already knew how good the brothers were at drug distribution,
07:12so he summoned them to a meeting in Sinaloa.
07:15Opioids were slowly becoming popular in the United States.
07:19The Mexican cartels were quick to realize
07:22that they would make much more by selling heroin than cocaine.
07:26This is because they had to import cocaine from Colombia
07:29while they could produce their own heroin in Mexico
07:31without having to rely on the Colombians.
07:34Although the drug was deadlier than cocaine,
07:37the financial aspect was lucrative.
07:39The heroin cost the Mexican cartels just a few hundred dollars per kilo,
07:44but its market price in a place like Chicago was $55,000 per kilo.
07:49The customer base was there to tap, and profits were off the chart.
07:54This saw the demand for opioids in the United States skyrocket by 2005,
07:59with people looking to get their hands on the drug
08:02that fulfilled their cravings like none other.
08:04But when they couldn't get their hands on cocaine,
08:07the next best thing on the street was heroin.
08:10And as soon as the new drug hit the U.S. market,
08:13law enforcement agencies began noticing the changes.
08:16Jack Riley, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency official at the time,
08:21described it this way.
08:23We began seeing tremendous amounts of high-grade, cheap heroin hit the streets.
08:28So we really began to see the heroin use go up, overdoses go up,
08:33a different population using heroin.
08:36Virtually every walk of life, every social, economic level,
08:40from the affluent white suburbs to the inner city,
08:43we began seeing high school-age kids using heroin, overdosing,
08:48and all of the things that are associated with narcotic trafficking.
08:52Violent crime, shooting.
08:54There were 19 homicides in one weekend, almost 200 shootings.
08:59And all of that, in my mind, was narcotic-related,
09:03and Chappo was calling the shots, sitting on his mountain in Sinaloa.
09:07And he didn't care. He didn't care who died.
09:11El Chappo was sitting in Sinaloa,
09:14where he was beyond the reach of American federal authorities.
09:17However, his main distributors were in Chicago,
09:20carefully managing drug operations to avoid getting noticed by the Drug Enforcement Agency.
09:26By 2005, the Flores twins had become the biggest drug traffickers in Chicago's history.
09:33But the level at which they were operating was prone to weak links,
09:36and that's exactly what happened in 2005.
09:40During a raid, the authorities busted one of the twin brothers' wholesale customers,
09:45and after a few rounds of interrogation, he gave them up.
09:49The authorities quickly moved against Peter and Jay,
09:52indicted them on felony drug charges, and issued a federal warrant for their arrest.
09:57The Flores twins knew staying in the United States was dangerous,
10:01and they could end up spending decades in jail.
10:04So, to avoid their biggest nightmare,
10:07they decided to move to their ancestral land, Mexico.
10:11In the summer of 2005,
10:14Peter and Jay moved to Guadalajara along with their wives,
10:18While their families thought this would be the end of their drug distribution career,
10:22it was actually the beginning of something far more serious and bigger for the Flores brothers,
10:27since they were now in Mexico.
10:30The twin brothers worked closely with El Chapo and his cartel partners.
10:34What had made the twins so successful at such a young age was their strong bond with each other
10:40and a clear distinction of responsibilities according to their skill set.
10:44While in Mexico, Jay Flores was responsible for negotiating contracts
10:49with Sinaloa Cartel and its partner organizations
10:53and then getting the agreed-upon shipments of drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.
10:58Once the drugs crossed the border and reached their destinations in the United States,
11:03it was then Peter's responsibility to handle their distribution.
11:07They had as many as 200 people working for them in different cities across the United States
11:13who took care of selling drugs to customers and collecting cash.
11:18The business had grown even more since the Flores twins had moved to Mexico
11:22and it showed in their lavish lifestyle.
11:25From luxury condos to the latest sports cars and ranch full of exotic animals,
11:30the brothers were living a dream life.
11:33But bigger operations and a more successful business also meant attracting bigger problems.
11:39After a few months of living in Mexico,
11:42one of the Mexican federal police officers recognized Peter Flores as a wanted American fugitive.
11:48Knowing that the brothers are in hiding in Mexico,
11:51he demands a huge amount of bribes in exchange for not arresting them
11:55and handing them to the relevant authorities for their extradition to the U.S.
11:59The Flores brothers refused to fulfill the officer's demand for a bribe to stay in the country.
12:06As a result, they and their wives were kidnapped from a club at gunpoint.
12:11The next thing they knew, they were in a police station in front of the same officer.
12:16But the twin brothers weren't some ordinary drug distributors
12:19whom the Sinaloa cartel and El Chapo could afford to lose.
12:23They were their biggest money-making machine.
12:26And El Chapo made sure they were safe while in Mexico.
12:30The police officer let them go when El Chapo himself called him
12:34and told him about the consequences if he initiated any legal proceedings against the Flores brothers.
12:40The twins were set free because no one wanted to mess with El Chapo Guzman.
12:45But this problem was nothing compared to what was about to come.
12:49By 2008, the Flores twins had become too valuable for the Mexican drug lords.
12:55And when the fight broke out between the Sinaloa cartel and Beltran Liva organization,
13:01Peter and Jay were faced with the toughest decision of their lives up until that point.
13:06Choose whose side they were on.
13:08Both the cartels knew the success of their business depended on the Flores brothers,
13:13so they wanted them on their side.
13:15But the drug lords were also clear that they couldn't let the other party have the Flores twins,
13:20so they were willing to kill the brothers in case they didn't choose to be on their side.
13:25The Flores twins, on the other hand, wanted to stay clear of any trouble
13:30as they always had ever since they entered the drug business.
13:34All of a sudden, Garda Jala had become a bloodbath and the Flores twins were caught in the middle of it.
13:41Although they told both sides that they didn't want to choose as this wasn't their war to fight,
13:46they didn't have the luxury to do so.
13:48Now there was only one way left for the Flores twins to avoid getting killed by the cartels in Mexico.
13:54Go back to the United States.
13:56Although the twins were desperate to go back to the United States to save their and their families' lives,
14:01they knew they would be arrested the moment they landed on U.S. soil.
14:05So they made another intelligent move to save themselves.
14:09They made a deal with American law enforcement.
14:12In October 2008, lawyers of the Flores twins reached out to the DEA and the United States Attorney's Office
14:20and asked them to show leniency towards the brothers in exchange for valuable information
14:25that could help gather solid proof against El Chapo Guzman and lead to his arrest.
14:30The U.S. authorities agreed and the team started giving details about the Sinaloa cartel's operations in the United States.
14:38Soon after they signed the deal, an undercover agent took control of two of the drug shipments from Mexico.
14:45The Flores brothers pretended to have a problem with the quality of one of the shipments to get a chance to talk to El Chapo directly.
14:52And they did get the chance.
15:09Peter asked El Chapo for a discount on the shipment that was low quality.
15:15Do you think you can give me a discount of $5?
15:22How much do I pay you?
15:25I'm paying you $55.
15:29How are you going to pay me?
15:33I told him that if he does me a favor, I'll pay him $50, but I have the check ready.
15:40El Chapo was ruthless to the world, but he had a soft spot for the Flores brothers because of how much they had helped him expand in the United States.
15:56It was the first time ever that the U.S. government had the most credible and undisputed evidence against one of the biggest drug lords in the world.
16:05El Chapo was extremely careful who he talked to and what he shared with them.
16:10But he trusted the Flores twins so much that he didn't imagine in his wildest dreams to be betrayed by them one day.
16:17That is the reason why the twin brothers were able to secretly get El Chapo admitted to his drug business.
16:23In November 2008, after giving valuable information and recorded calls with El Chapo, the Flores twins surrendered to the DEA in Guadalajara.
16:34When the news of their cooperation reached their father, he didn't believe it and called them cowards for deciding to quit the drug distribution business.
16:42Despite being critical of the path his sons had chosen for themselves, the father was kidnapped just as the Flores twins landed in the United States.
16:51The note on his car was a clear indication that the Santa Lua Cartel knew about what the Flores twins had been up to.
16:58It read, tell those two dumbers to stop talking or we will send you his head.
17:03The father disappeared and it was assumed that he had been murdered.
17:07As soon as the Flores twins arrived in the United States, a detailed interrogation started in Chicago.
17:14They told the authorities everything about the Santa Lua Cartel and their own distribution business in the United States.
17:22Santa Lua Cartel mainly used to smuggle drugs into the United States through the hidden compartments in cargo trailers.
17:29The drugs would then be unloaded from trailers and go to the Flores twins who had a vast network of houses, warehouses, and safe houses spread throughout Chicago and its suburbs.
17:41They rented homes in upper class neighborhoods of Chicago to avoid raising any suspicion.
17:47In those apartments and houses, the drug money was counted without having to worry about the police.
17:52When the drugs were sold and money was counted, the next task was to send it to Mexico, and it normally followed the same route and shipping method as the drugs.
18:03The Flores twins had become so good at their job that according to the U.S. government, Peter and Jay Flores moved $1.8 billion from the United States to Mexico just during the time they were dealing with El Chapo Guzman.
18:17Following the concrete proof against El Chapo in the form of recordings, cases were filed in as many as seven U.S. courts in different cities, including Chicago.
18:27While the U.S. and Mexican authorities were in the hunt for El Chapo Guzman, the Flores twins' case concluded.
18:34In normal circumstances, anyone with the crime that the twin brothers had committed would have received lifetime imprisonment.
18:41But their smart move to cooperate with the U.S. authorities helped them in their legal battle, and the Flores twins were sentenced to 14 years in prison.
18:51One of the major points in their deal with the U.S. authorities was that the Flores twins would testify against El Chapo when he was captured, but getting their hands on the infamous drug lord was the toughest job the law enforcement agencies had to do in a long time.
19:06The authorities were on a constant hunt for El Chapo in the mountains of Sinaloa, but he was a Mexican Robin Hood.
19:14He was adored among common people. Kids idealized him and wanted to either be like him or work for him when they grew up.
19:21Ever since his breakout from prison in 2001, the drug lord had been living in the mountains of Sinaloa, where reaching him would be impossible, if not extremely difficult.
19:33People living in the Sinaloa mountains didn't have enough opportunities to feed themselves and their kids, so mostly people opted to work in the poppy fields and make ends meet.
19:43El Chapo was less an employer and more of an owner of everybody living in his area.
19:48This is why he was always a step ahead of the authorities, and several manhunt missions failed between 2000 and one in 2014.
19:58Mexican cartels used an encrypted communication system and Blackberry phones to exchange information with each other and make deals.
20:06They thought their digital system of communication was safe and often let their guard down during conversations.
20:13Little did they know that the authorities could hack the system to get to them.
20:17This is exactly what happened to El Chapo.
20:21On 22 February 2014, the Mexican authorities received a signal from El Chapo on Guzman's phone from a condo building in Sinaloa.
20:29Mexican authorities sent in their elite force, the Mexican Marines, to storm the building and arrest El Chapo.
20:37When the soldiers broke open his door, El Chapo ran to the bathroom first, but then silently surrendered.
20:45El Chapo was taken to Mexico's maximum security prison while he awaited trial.
20:50But considering his track record, the U.S. authorities sensed it would be too difficult to keep him incarcerated in Mexico for long.
20:58And that's exactly what happened.
21:00A little over a year after he was arrested, El Chapo escaped from the Federal Social Redaptation Center, NOAA.
21:08He escaped through a tunnel that opened in his shower area at one end and into a house construction site 1.5 kilometers away from the prison at the other end.
21:18It wasn't a usual incident.
21:20Considering his previous escape, it was expected that he would be subject to greater monitoring.
21:26However, him fooling everyone and running the way he did shocked everyone.
21:30His escape in 2015 also showed the level of connections he had in the Mexican government, and he was untouchable as long as he was in Mexico.
21:40This embarrassed the Mexican authorities and the government, and they began searching for him even more carefully.
21:46Six months following his escape in 2014, the authorities once again pinpointed a location where they thought they would find El Chapo.
21:55The infamous drug lord once again escaped through a tunnel when the place he was staying at was raided by the Mexican Marines.
22:02He carjacked a vehicle to run away from the authorities, but the car soon broke down, and authorities caught up to him.
22:10This time, Mexican authorities didn't want to take any chances, so they expedited the process for his extradition.
22:18The reason was simple.
22:19The corruption in Mexico was so deep-rooted that the decision-makers knew keeping him in a Mexican prison for long would be impossible.
22:27On January 19, 2017, El Chapo was extradited to the United States, and his trial began in November 2018.
22:37The prosecution prepared a detailed case against him in which he was accused of some of the serious crimes, like drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder, kidnappings, and whatnot.
22:48However, Guzman's lawyers argued that he wasn't the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and had stopped all his drug-related activities in 1985.
22:58The case seemed to be hanging in the balance when the prosecution brought out 14 cooperating witnesses against Guzman, and two of those witnesses are the Flores brothers.
23:08El Chapo wasn't surprised at knowing other people had turned against him as much as he was surprised to see the Flores twins as witnesses against him because he could never imagine the brothers turning against him.
23:20But just when he was wrapping his head around the fact that the two boys he once considered his sons had turned against him, the recording of the phone call between Peter and El Chapo was also played in the court.
23:31On February 12, 2019, the jury sided with the prosecution and handed El Chapo a life in prison plus 30 years.
23:40And just a year after that, in December 2020, Peter and Jay Flores were released from prison after serving 12 out of their 14 years jail time, marking an end to their story as the twins who helped put El Chapo behind bars after making billions for him.
Comments