‘Cartel wife’ married to Chicago twin who helped take down ‘El Chapo’ gets 3 1/2 years in prison

CHICAGO — The wife of a Chicago drug trafficker who cooperated against Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison Monday for conspiring to hide and spend millions of dollars of her husband’s drug proceeds.

Valerie Gaytan, 48, who is married to Margarito Flores Jr., pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that she laundered and spent at least $2.3 million over a 12-year period.

Her sister-in-law, Vivianna Lopez, 43, who is married to Margarito’s twin brother Pedro Flores, was given an identical 46-month term in July for spending about $800,000 in ill-gotten gains.

In handing down the sentence for Gaytan on Monday, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said while the wives admitted to laundering a total of about $3.1 million, “god only knows how much” other drug money was spent over the years.

“People were maintaining a lifestyle that they had gotten used to, at least to a certain extent,” Kennelly said. “They stayed in it and benefited from it.”

Before she was sentenced, Gaytan stood at a lectern dressed in a black suit and apologized to the court, the government, and her family for her actions. “I’m extremely sorry and I take full accountability,” she said.

Kennelly ordered her to report to prison by Jan. 10. The facility she’s assigned to is being kept secret due to security reasons.

Gaytan’s sentencing comes a week after her husband granted an exclusive interview to the Tribune, his first ever with a Chicago news outlet, where he detailed the twins’ rise from Little Village to the mountains of Mexico, where they were among the Sinaloa cartel’s most successful narcotics traffickers responsible for hundreds of tons of drugs pouring into Chicago and other U.S. cities.

Known for their street smarts and cool business acumen, the tight-knit twins were living in Mexico with their wives and children in 2008 when they were caught in an escalating war between cartel factions and made the stunning decision to help the U.S. government take El Chapo down.

On Friday, Margarito Flores, who goes by “Jay,” spoke to law enforcement in the west suburbs at a one-day seminar titled “From Kingpin to Educator,” giving officers a rare insider account on how cartels use hubs such as Chicago to move massive shipments of drugs and money.

Flores told the Tribune that it’s a coincidence his wife’s sentencing, which was moved twice, fell within days of his seminar. With her facing a significant stretch behind bars, they were grappling with the idea of being separated yet again, but ready to move forward, he said.

“What are we supposed to do, just sit here and cry and just give up?” he said. “We are not those people.”

The Flores twins were each sentenced to 14 years in prison and had already been released by the time Gaytan and Lopez were indicted in U.S. District Court in Chicago in 2021.

The charges alleged that after their husbands turned themselves over, the wives conspired to hide millions in cash, much of it still in small denominations, that had been secretly recouped from the twins’ associates in the U.S., hidden in trap compartments in vehicles and stash houses, and buried under twins’ older brother’s home near Austin, Texas.

According to the indictment, Gaytan and Lopez spent much of the money on private school tuition for their children, international and domestic travel, rent and child support.

On July 18, 2018, Gaytan and Lopez were returning from a trip to the exotic Caribbean islands of Turks and Caicos when customs agents stopped them at JFK International Airport in New York, according to federal court records.

Gaytan was carrying five cellphones, including two with Chicago area codes even though she was supposedly living in hiding out of state.

But what really caught the attention of investigators was a seemingly innocuous sheet of notebook paper found in Lopez’s belongings that prosecutors alleged was a “straightforward drug-money ledger” laying out a schedule for the disbursement of the hidden funds.

The wives originally contended that they had been assured by prosecutors that their husbands’ unprecedented cooperation against Guzman meant they would not face charges themselves for their own actions, but Kennelly ruled last year that the women did not have immunity from prosecution.

The twins’ older brother Armando Flores, who helped them break into the drug business three decades ago, has also pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 11.

Two other relatives also pleaded guilty to helping mail packages of money. Lopez’s sister, Bianca Finnigan, was sentenced to probation while their aunt, Laura Lopez, was given a one-year prison term.

The daughter of a Chicago police officer, Gaytan 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, including Rudy “Kato” Rangel, the feared then-leader of the Latin Kings street gang.

Gaytan was indicted in 2000 on money laundering charges related to the narcotics operation of a previous boyfriend, Valentino Reveles. She pleaded guilty in 2001 and was sentenced to five months in prison after refusing to cooperate against Rangel, court records show.

Five months later, Rangel was murdered at a West Side barbershop in what authorities have said was a contract killing by a rival gang. It was at Rangel’s funeral that Margarito Flores, whom she knew from mutual acquaintances as “Junior,” approached her with sympathy and a romance began to kindle, Gaytan wrote in her 2017 tell-all book, “Cartel Wives.”

In asking for leniency, Gaytan’s attorney, Michael Clancy, said Monday she spent most of the laundered money on living expenses while her husband was in protective custody, not to maintain any lavish lifestyle.

“He was in jail,” Clancy said. “He was around armed guards. She was out on the street... bouncing around, looking over her shoulder. No one would want to be in her shoes.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Erika Csicsila, however, asked for a five-year prison term, saying being forced to make it on your own is not an excuse, no matter how difficult the circumstances.

“There is a right way to do that and a wrong way to do that, and the defendant chose to do it the wrong way for a long, long time,” Csicsila said.

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