Wives of twins who helped bring down ‘El Chapo’ find themselves in spotlight, claiming they have immunity from federal hammer
CHICAGO — On a winter evening a little over a decade ago, as their husbands were busy cooperating against the most wanted cartel boss in the world, Valerie Gaytan and Vivianna Lopez were driving around Chicago’s North Side with more than $4 million in cash in their SUV.
The daughters of Chicago cops, Gaytan and Lopez had grown up in similar neighborhoods but on seemingly separate paths. Gaytan, street smart and tough, started running drugs as a teenager, spent time in prison, opened a successful beauty salon and was romantically linked to some of the city’s top gang kingpins. Lopez, meanwhile, was raised in a tightknit, extended-family household, a high school cheerleader who’d largely steered clear of gangs despite her gritty surroundings.
But their futures were forever entwined when they married Chicago twins Pedro and Margarito Flores, who rose to the apex of the nation’s drug trafficking world before making the stunning decision in 2008 to surrender and help federal investigators build a case against their boss, Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
With the twins’ cooperation heating up, Gaytan and Lopez were told in late 2010 they had to come clean. So one day they flew to Chicago and removed millions of dollars in their husband’s drug proceeds from under the floorboards of a basement theater room in Gaytan’s suburban home, packed the bundles into large plastic storage bins and drove to see Margarito’s lawyer at his office in Lincoln Park, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports.
They parked the Audi Q7 on West Belden Avenue with the $4.1 million inside. Because it was after bank hours, the stunned attorney wound up storing the vehicle in his garage overnight before depositing
