Cartel Wives

How an Extraordinary Family Brought Down El Chapo and the Sinaloa Drug Cartel

Mia Flores, Olivia Flores

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781782399865
• eBook ISBN:
  9781782399834
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

An astonishing and revelatory memoir by two women who escaped the glamorous yet deadly international drug trade. Mia Flores and Olivia Flores live under assumed names. To their neighbours, they are typical single mothers, their days filled with school runs and PTA meetings. But Olivia and Mia are anything but ordinary. They live in fear, hiding from a past that included wealth beyond their wildest dreams but also more danger than they ever could have imagined. Mia and Olivia are married to the highest level American drug traffickers ever to become US informants, Chicago-born twin brothers Margarito and Pedro Flores. These men worked with - and then brought down - dozens of high-level members of the Mexican cartels, most significantly notorious kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. The brothers and their wives had everything money could buy - luxury cars, huge houses and expensive jewellery - but came to understand that the vast wealth that accompanied cartel life came with the ever-present threat of kidnapping, death or imprisonment. Choosing their families over money, they decided to give it all up and cooperate with the US government. Now, from behind the cloak of witness protection, Olivia and Mia have come forward for the first time to tell the full story of their family's decision to risk everything and seek redemption. Cartel Wives is a love story, an insider's look into a terrifying but high-flying modern-day drug empire and, finally, the story of a major federal government operation to bring down one of the most feared men in the world.

PART ONE

THE AMERICAN DREAM

CHAPTER 1

Olivia

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

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

I said, “No, it’s middle class.”

“Babe, you were not middle class.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I just wanted to die. I ran out of the bus station as fast as I could, took a cab to the airport, and bought a one-way ticket back to Chicago. When I got home, I drove myself crazy trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to claim the stash I’d left behind. Then, I decided to just go for it. Two days later I showed up to the Greyhound station with my ID in hand and picked up my load, no questions asked.

I was fearless, and people started to respect me for it. Traffickers looked at me and said, “That girl knows her shit,” so they decided to trust me and give me a little promotion. When one of them asked me to travel to Mexico and drive some weed back in the gas tank of my car, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.

Before I’d leave town, I’d lie and tell my parents I was staying at a girlfriend’s house. For all they knew I was just hanging out with my friends, drinking and partying the day away while they were taking care of Xavier. Mom was always furious.

“When the hell are you coming back?” she’d yell.

“In a few days.”

There was no “I’ll miss you,” or “Thank you for taking care of my son while I’m away.” Soon, she stopped talking to me altogether, and my only communication with Xavier was through my dad. It broke his heart, and deep down, it broke mine, too.

I told myself I was making money to take care of my son, but really, it was for me. All I cared about was having my freedom and earning a better, faster, shinier life, which came from getting rich. On the streets I’d been hanging out on, money came from one place: drugs.

I went to Mexico a handful of times for the next year or so. Most of the time things went well, but I did run into a few problems along the way. On one trip, my friend Maria and I were interrogated for hours while border patrol put my car on a lift and tried to remove the gas tank. Maria tried to blame it on me, saying, “It’s not my car, it’s hers.” I don’t know if it was sheer determination or if I could just talk myself out of anything, but they let us go. I was so furious at Maria I made her get out on the side of the highway next to the road kill so she could...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Cast of Major Characters
• Introduction
• Part One: The American Dream
• Part Two: Middle Men
• Part Three: In too Deep
• Part Four: Informants
• Part Five: Purgatory
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Sources
• A Note to the Reader
• Copyright