There was no book on how to escape with crits alive. You know, there's no book. You know when it comes to even like when they say, why do you even stay in there? Because we don't know no other way like leaving it and feels like you're dying, they seemed to keep themselves alive, you know, especially the chapel mind.
They make out really so many enemies.
And status and but you know, I wish I had like surrounded by friends that weren't drug dealers and weren't on the street, and that they were all like stockbrokers and were estay investors. I just wish my dad was just worked at a factor.
I didn't think that we were organized escape like out of this kind of unharmed.
But trying to imagine myself like, you know, spending the rest of my life in prison, I felt like I couldn't like bring I could. I was so fucked like so like I can't say it's secured. It was just like this ugly overwhelming family of touching the walls like and holding.
On till iget, Like what what did I do? Like what did I just do to myself?
Hey, it's fifty.
Cents and I'm Charlie Webster.
This is surviv and Ol Chapeau, the twins who brought down a drug Ward Season two.
When you've been raised in a life like this, prison vibes are something you know well. The twins father was in there when they were born and stayed there for the first seven years of their lives. Their drug career only started because their older brother of my and was sent to prison when Jay and Pep was seventeen. They did anything to avoid prison life. Only a year before turning themselves in, he said he'd rather die than end up locked.
Up a real riskt bullying in my head.
Than to go to prison.
Breaking the cycle and giving their own kids a choice that they never had a chance at a normal life meant choosing to go to prison, the one place they spent their lives running from, and came at the cost of their own father's life, who was murdered by the cartel because of what they did. The consequences of their decision were slowly starting to sink in huddled together in a tiny cell in the special housing unit the shoe of mcc Chicago, with no idea when or if they would be free again.
I haven't made been so called that the war would literally have ice on them. And I remember my brother and I were so cold that we slept on the same bed next to each other to keep each other one And I remember the card saying, hey, you guys can't do that, and I was like, he's my brother, you know.
Now one of you guys that get up on another bed, I'm gonna give you gets a shot. And I got right up.
A shot is prison slang for a disciplinary infraction, also known as a ticket.
And I was like, they're gonna gets a right up. Like, what's the worst thing? I haven't wearing the shoe. You know, it's already hard to be living in this in the shoe in the hole.
Now we gotta deal with the cold.
And I'm thinking, damn, imagine dealing with the hot, like you're just never gonna be you know, it's not made to be comfortable, or like the lights are on all night. You know, you gotta make yourself an eye cover and it's just weird thing. I don't understand how that helps.
Because of what they were doing and the reach of the cartel, Pete and j were huge targets. They were put in the WHITSEC program witness protection inside prison.
Sometime we call it phase one, phase two or like, but it's not that.
It's just like witness.
Protection where you're incurcerated while you're in prison, and there's witness protection for you know, when you're free.
So what's witness protection mean in prison?
It means that it's just it means that you're gonna be safe, but they're gonna add a series of rules and you don't get all the privileges that normally like normal prisoners get. It's the cost of like being safe. They have rules that could be like punishing with like disciplinary action, so you c you can't use your name, and you can't say certain things. Just you don't get emails, you don't get like certain things that could come back and people could kind of get a hold of me
they kind of mind it. Or who you would talk to or who you can't.
Did you feel like you needed witness protection in prison? Did you feel like there would have been you know, like hits on you in prison?
I need, oh for sure.
And one thing like it doesn't matter who you're telling if you're a snitch, which is kind of like gronded because there's the majority of those people in some way somehow cooperating, so I remember it. I would be bored sometimes and they'll be like, all you snitches, all you wanna die? And I would just sometime I'll argue with them, be like, why are you mad?
Mind your business? I'm I'll be like, why are you here?
You know?
Eventually I won the whole shoe over.
They got tired of what could they do? It's just us arguing back and forth, and I just me and my brother would make everyone laugh and like if we had to do something with our time, like just cause you're stuck there sitting there. And then what happened was that next you know, some people, some associations start coming up to the show, and now they know.
That we're there, Associates that you'd again like in corporated on ended up getting put.
In this show with you under showing.
People started kind of finding out like who we were. They'll be like, yo, I it is the Twins here, Like here's the Twins. I know that I wouldn't have survived if I didn't have wines protection.
With the Twins on the inside setting up their customers was going to get suspicious.
If they weren't there in person.
Someone needed to do the dirty work on the outside, and it couldn't be just anyone, It had to be another floorers.
The FEDS pulled in Jay's wife, Val.
They asked for my help, and because Jay and Peter were no longer on the streets anymore, I assisted them. There were certain missing pieces that they needed. They needed me to turn in the ledgers. I went to the US Attorney's office and took two computer towers full of Jay and peters. You know they're drug ledgers.
VAL's job wasn't just a turn in ledgers and find missing pieces. She also had to essentially go under cover for the FEDS at the direction of the lead prosecutor, Thomas Shakeshaft, even going as far as wearing a wire to help convict the twins.
Customers the customer friend of mine. His name was Kylie Murray. He went by the nickname like c Ali. He was one of my closest customers we had. He was one of my first customers. Kylie was like a big target for the DA in Chicago prior to me and my brother training ourselves in and they they insisted they wanted us to cooperate against them. We had a Lamborghini parked in Atlanta, and he went and he stole the Lamborghini,
even though he owed me like five million dollars. The fifth came and asked about the car, and they knew he had it because I would see the re surveillance him and you know, it was our car. And you know, once we started talking about that, they you know, they wanted us to cooperate against him, and he had owed us all this money, and they had asked Val if she could reach out to him and give him like a face story that my older brother was and continue to sell drugs if he would be willing to buy
on purchason. And Val met up with him and he gave her two hundred thousand and she gave him the title for the car.
Kylie Murray, also known as Hollywood, was one of the Twins' biggest customers because of the cooperation the Flores family were providing. Kylie Murray was one of the many people arrested in Kylie's case.
It was for his part in a cocaine trafficking ring worth one point eight billion dollars.
One night, whilst Kylie was out on bail, he was walking home and two men pulled up in a white van. They got out, shot him dead, and then sped off. Val kept the two hundred thousand dollars that Kylie Murray gave her before he was arrested. According to Val, prosecutors told her she.
Could keep it.
VAL's cooperation with the Feds included a number of sessions where she would sit and profit giving the government as much information as.
They wanted in order to help the brother's case.
I had to sit down with the government, and there was different prosecutors there. There were supervisors there, there was agents there, and so you have all these different departments that are sitting in one room, and everybody is asking me questions. And I noticed that when I would bring up certain things, it's like they would hush me because they only wanted to speak about certain subjects. They didn't want me to get into properties that we owned in Mexico.
They didn't want to know any of that. They basically said that they had no jurisdiction over that. And I did disclose to them though that you know, I had my house in Plainfield.
Plainfield is a small wealthy town about an hour west of Chicago.
I paid for it with drug proceeds we you know, our husband's bought us several high end luxury vehicles that we brought over from Mexico, several of them, and I disclosed that, you know, we had purchase houses. I disclosed everything to them.
The two hundred thousand wasn't the only money that Vile collected from the brother's drip debts.
There was plenty more.
There was some money that was collected and we put the money away in the house in Plainfield. We didn't know where to put it, so we put it in the theater room where we had this like built up floor, and we kind of just removed the face of the facial boards of the floor and we put the money in there. Jay's attorney wanted to see me in person.
He told me that the government wanted some money that was picked up in DC and that it was in j and Peter's best interest to turn in that money because they wanted it and they wanted handed over and that that person whoever it was that turned in the money would be given immunity. Me and went back to the house in Plainfield and we bought these big tupware like bins that you would kind of keep in your garage if you were keeping like sporting goods or things like that that you want.
To store away.
So we put all the bulk currency inside those bins, which was about I don't know, maybe eight to ten bins, and we put those in the suv. And when we loaded them in the suv, like the truck was completely fool I couldn't even see out of the rear view mirror, the side mirrorge just because we had all the seats down. And I drove it to the attorney's office, which was on the north side of Chicago. When we got there, the attorney was in complete like shock, like he didn't
know what to do. He had no idea that what he was supposed to do with all this bulk cash, Like he didn't want to be responsible for it because it was the middle of the night. So he then called the government and let them know that he had the money in his possession. At that point, he was just saying that they did not want to come pick up the money. They didn't want to seize the money. So the next day we went to the bank and
we actually deposited that money at the bank. So it kind of looked like a scene from like Scarface, where We're walking in with these bns of money and they're just counting and going through the money counters and counting it, and it ended up being like the four point something million dollars.
The four million dollars was only a portion of the full amounts of drug proceeds that was collected by Val and other family members.
Val handed it in.
To Jay's attorney with the expectation that she would get immunity.
He let me know that he wasn't going to disclose to the government who actually turned in the money until he got the immunity in writing, because that they were playing games. So at that point I know that he was trying to protect me and he thought he was doing the right thing by having me turned in that money, because that's exactly what they wanted.
Remember, Val didn't have any protection.
She was not a part of the witness protection program like the twins were. The government made a lot of special commodations for Jay and Pete. Not only were they allowed to be together in the shoe, they eventually got to see their families, something that's highly unusual in WHITSEC.
So they kind of agreed to allow us to see our family and on Fridays for a little while at the same place where they're briefing it their headquarters or whatever.
In the DA office, they had like a.
Room where they process you know, inmates or or you know, people they arrested, and it's like a pretty simple room. They probably just take your pictures and fingerprints you in. They have like all these little like holding closets, like with a little bench, and the door has a little people and then they are like in the corner of them, there's two bedrooms right next to each other, you know,
and there's only one entrance to this room. And my wife would come and bring the kids, and my mom came and my my older brother and val and Jay and the boys. And on one of those occasions it was around like that Valentine's was like, I'm that during the m during that visit somehow like the wake up. Yeah, And I remember that because I remember she word like
something red or something and I'm carrying my baby. It was kind of crowding out whenever my brother and I were out of us cell, Like there was a lot of agings, you know, so they would like crowded and they would like stand by the doorway, you know, and I just kind of like they'll be conversaying among themselves, and there's like cameras up there too, like in that room.
So I remember.
Like she gets up to go make the baby a bottle, and the baby like fell asleep in mar on side. Put the baby down, so right away she's like making the baby the bottle. She's like, we're seeing the bottle in the bathroom and I just walked her towards the door with it, and I'm watching her like clean the baby's bottle and there's no one, like I mean, they can't see me from that when they're distracted by talking to amongst each other. And I remember just.
Just walking into the bathroom.
It's embarrassing because there's my mom's there, and.
You know, I told Peter, I'm like come in.
Yeah, she was like then I remember just like and then.
He had the baby, I have the bottles.
Then just like.
Just going into the bathroom and means so nervous. So like I was like nervous, but I just missed her so much. And I remember just like at that point, like so what whatever happens happened. And I remember her telling me like come on, Pete, like I want to have your baby. And I was like, you out your mind. She's like, yeah, I want to have your baby boy, And I don't worry. You know, by the time you're coming home, you'll be perfect at that age and you could play with them. And I was like, you don't
know what you're asking for. But I was like, okay, you know, just in the heat.
Of the moment, it was like, yeah, I think at that point, we're just conversation. We're just conversating at that point right there. But I didn't say play with him. I said, I'll you know, I'll have another baby, We'll have our kids by that time, they'll be grown and you know, you'll have you know, a whole weather, you have a whole family by the time you come home. Yes, And but mind you, you know we're still living on
that Oh you're gonna get only eight years. We're getting in the best situation where you know, he's the biggest cooperator.
And see's eight years. I thought, I.
Mean I thought maybe eight eight years maximum. At that point. I was like, you'll probably be home in like three, four or five years. Like I didn't think it was going to even be eight years.
I mean, you know, we're just I guess we were hoping for the best. Anyways, that moment just was so intense and we got away.
And I was yeah, and then it was super fertile at that time because I just had I just had.
Went for it, so you yeah, so we got.
Busy, yeah, in in the bathroom.
Yeah. I believe we got away twice, so there's like one more time.
And I just afterwards, I was feeling, like, what the wages.
I hope she's not pregnant, you know, And then of course she was pregnant.
It was the neircomers in there, the like remember there's a lot of agents.
It was in like and I remember we didn't talk about she was just told me one day, like she said something like, are you ready to play with your I know.
It was like I was. I was already feeling sick, and I was like, something's some I'm pregnant. One hundred percent I'm pregnant. So I took a pregnancy test and then he called and I'm like, I'm pregnant, and it was it was a lot of different feelings.
It was just so like such a shocker, I'm pregnant.
Yeah, and we were both afraid, like.
Yeah, and I remember just like thinking, Oh, what are the that's gonna say?
Were you allowed to have sex?
And of course now it became such a big issue.
I just didn't see I was jeopardizing like so much.
So when did they find out?
Show the staff at the prison, no, I have a baby, like she knows she was pregnant. They see her, but I guess they assumed, like, wait, how long he's been in custody something. But I guess they just figured that's the way she came, that's the way they met me.
She's pregnant.
So I have a legal visit about two thousand and ten. I'm signing some papers and they're doing an interview.
And all right, I see you later. The next morning, like at.
Seven in the morning, they come knock on my door like you know, PF give up legal visit. I'm like they what are you talking about? Yeah, get dressed and I going to see the agent and the prosecutor in their same clothes room day before.
I was like, what the hell's going on? And they let me have it. I might ask you a question, don't balk your live with me? You have a something?
I was like, yes, is it yours? I hope so what the fuck they let me have it?
They were so pissed off, say figured it out? Yeah, what did they say?
They made me like be thorough about exactly what happened, and and they're like, this is gonna be the most embarrassing because you fucking deservera in yourself. And I ain't look back, and I'm like I understand how that was. You know, I can't say I regret it. I have my beautiful son. I can't see like probably who wouldn't take the chance that they had it, you know, but they were very pissed off, and it just became a humongous issue that had people from DC come interview me
and they're doing a big investigation about it. I like to see you I had like somehow bribe someone or were they letting me as as a benefit, And you know, it was like a big issue, you know, because it was against like I broke the rules and stuff and all night.
No I'm like, I'm a man, that's my wife.
Like, if someone gets the opportunity, I'm sure it's not the first time it's happened, it won't be alive. I had other issues, you know, like they would call it the three Bees, The Bentley, the Baby, and the Billboards.
The twins became infamous for the three Bees. The Baby was just the start next the Bentley.
It was a birthday, so I would have the car. Buying her a cardact that was like buying her buick At that time. I had my sister in my battery helped me, you know, not at that time. She was like trying to help me, and she understood what I wanted to do for her, so like, don't worry, I'll take care of me, you know. To be honest, it was stupid because my wife didn't need a better you.
Know, why did you want to buy hervetment?
I don't know.
I just thought like what could I get at her birthday? You know it's coming up. I mean we had ten cars. I mean you know we had every car you could think of it.
You got ten cars at that time.
Still, yeah, did the government not take any of them at that point?
I think no, not yet?
So what cause did you have?
We had every issue but you could think of We had multiple same rain drawers, like we would buy him, you know, two.
Three at a time.
I had a little party for my birthday and then they were like go outside go outside. And I went outside and there's a big red bull on a car, and I.
Was like.
Shocked and surprised, and and yeah, I was truly missing him, Yeah, truly missing him at that At that point, I was pregnant, emotional.
I mean, the car didn't make no difference to me, honest, I was just it wasn't like what you think it was at that point.
You know, like we're more in need of each other than a supercar, you know. And I didn't, you know, considering the trouble it caused me. And it goes stupid.
When the government discovered, like that what we did to acquire that money, you know, that was going to turn over to them.
All right, So that's why it was a problem.
No, that was just part of it.
Like we you know, we spent the money on stuff like that, just anything that could hinder you know, you as a credible witness.
You know.
It's a bad decision.
Yeah, that was a bad decision.
The twins were moved from mcc Chicago to a different prison in order to help protect their identity.
They often moved prisons.
And we can't always name where they were due to witset confidentiality.
The first two bees had caused a lot of trouble for the.
Twins, but it was the third b the billboards, which happened after they moved prisons.
That was the final straw.
One bad decision after another.
I got the billboards, and the billboards was just a violation of my security at the time, and yeah, they were.
Not happy about that. We all paid the price for that one.
Peter I remember for Valentine's state, he wanted to put up things to billboards, two huge billboards on the interstate, like when you.
Roll up to the visit.
That's so my intention was just a surprise and her way home that she sees like a little token of my love and appreciation for her.
And it was a It was the next exit where the prison, where the facility was, so.
They were not small, I guess they were like like they had like three hundred feet across like to me, like the huge.
Told them and it said, Philo, marrying you.
Was the best thing that ever happened.
And it was black.
The sign was black with like big red hearts and white bright letters, so you kind of it was simple words.
It was like Mary, you was the best I love you. Yeah, you're grateful I.
Can't wait to spend for everyone.
With the second one, yeah, it was.
They were absolutely beautiful, Like I couldn't believe. Like I I parked, I parked on the side of the highway, and I just like was just staring at them, like in tears with my baby, and I was just staring at them. And it was we were alone, it was we're leaving the visit and we were just there and I was just like, look back at my babies and I was just looking at the sign, and you know, it just.
I couldn't believe it.
Like Peter's always been romantic, but I feel like this gesture was like just like really over over over at the top. Oh yeah, I was in tears. And then I felt like I felt happy and then lonely, and then I looked at my babies and I just felt like I wanted him so, I wanted him home so bad, and it reminded me of what I felt for him
as well. And not only did he show me what he felt for me, I mean putting these big, two huge signs on the side of the highway six months for six months, yes, so, and I looked at them every time, and I stared at them every time, and it just it really made my heart.
And I think that to be able to show her like a beware or to do something because not because you can't, because you wanted.
To, Like it's you know.
It was one of those moments that I felt like, you want to make her feel how special she was to me? Well got me in trouble was that that they made a big news.
It was on the news.
They like a journal I seen them, or they talked about them, and they went out to make a story.
I look what a husband did for his wife.
Never imagine that the guy with dinner was in prison. But later on I knew if the trouble was coming when the Seals would come over to our unit and be like.
Who's the guy that put up the billboards?
Don't forget where they were not they're.
Not supposed to know you, you know.
And I didn't put her name out there. I just put it, you know. I looked like the man and I'm like, oh, there's going to be trouble.
You know.
It was, it was It was just not for Peter.
I didn't say that what I thought he would have said because of the billboards. My best friend, my brother who had spent my whole life got transferred.
Wow, that's a little bit bigger.
Huh.
Pete's very public declaration of love for his wife, Velo viv Lopez changed everything. It brought along a fourth b breakup. The twins were separated for the first time in their lives, and.
You know, we all suffered the repercussions.
We had the privilege.
It was a privilege granted to it by a special privilege because of our cooperation. The department just allowed us a lot of identical twins which were now was not it was against policy to be together.
Should we say to give you a special approach? Sure, yeah, I guess it was.
We were together.
They made an exception for us.
They made an expect exception for us and put us together.
We're not supposed to be together, and we're identical twins, and they basically told us, don't fuck it out. We were punkies, we were salies in the same job in prison, and we took it for barn there. But the billboards, where's the beginning of like something solid they had? I guess he decaid to the bill words and they found out and they started investigation. The whole time, they think that because who Val is and because who I am person I was, they kind of just said it's Ja
because there was a B on it. And I think they're thinking be Low, because they're thinking that Jay Low vow. One day in March of that year, March April, they come get me to the south four in the morning, okay.
In wash out them out to you and you come down to r D. And I'm like to put on sweater. I see that. I look at it.
When I see that, there's lieutenants.
There's a couple of guards, and I'm like, man, what could he want? And now with my brother, I don't know. I'm just like, oh, all right, I go and.
There's doors right, so as soon as I step down in the door, they lock it and I go into our.
Indeed, R and D stands for Receiving and discharging. It's where prisoners a process and identities checked to make sure the right person is going to the right place.
It's the first stop when you arrive and the last before you leave.
He's like, he has my back that actually came with, you know, from Mexico. On the table.
He said, strip start taking my clothes and you know, regular check. But he's like, hold on, I need to make sure. Let me see your tattoos. I said, I don't have tattoos.
Are you.
Let me look at your body, like making sure.
And he has both of our files and he's like making sure I don't have my tattoo my neck and my chest. Okay, we got the right one. Put in your clothes and you have the same. Marshals come get you, and you know they roll up with it from cars. It's like five in the morning, six in the morning, big out rot. I mean, hear what's going on. They're like, oh, you'll find out, don't worry about it. Man, where are we going?
I can't tell you.
If I could see forward the truck.
It's a boutpool truck. And I'm noticing they're talking like a little bit whispering, like yeah, soll he's not gonna be with his brother nomore.
And I'm hearing them talk and I'm like, that's weird. I can hear him saying it's coming up.
As soon as he said that.
It's coming up. I know what they're talking about, the billboard. Yeah, because I know that it's there.
I know it's closed by we just left.
It's coming up.
Yeah, and there he's like, yeah.
What you've been doing lately?
I kind of look at him like nothing, but I'm actually stupid, Like and as we're driving, I can see the huge billboards.
I could see that they're black.
I could see him in the corner mine because I really looked part before he turned, and I'm like, oh shit, I'm thinking about that. They look nice.
But when he said yeah, so what you've been doing, he kind of looked at me. He wanted to see my reaction, and I stirred at him. I didn't even look at the blue words. I'm looking from the corners. I'm like, oh, not much or other kids said. But as soon as he did that, I'm like, shit, they know. I didn't think that I was still gonna get in trouble.
I'm just like, okay, they don't.
And uh, they drove me to the airport and they didn't wanna talk to me about where I was going. And it was actually a big jet and uh, they kind of waved my way up.
You know, your chap shop order.
I kind of waved my way up to the airplane and the pilots said, I said, hey, where we're playing?
Where we're going to?
He said New York. I'm like, hey, like, why the fuck are we going to New York?
And he like, just just get in. We can't tell you anything. Just sit down.
It was a plane ride to New York to the MCC New.
York, Jay London. At New Accompold, he was greeted by a sea of thirty squad cars and a whole bunch of marshals. They accompanied him on the forty minute drive from the airport to mcc New York, right in the middle of downtown Manhattan.
You know, I'm thinking, I'm going just for a week, a couple of days, and I'm going to go back to my brother. No, I go to a process. When I get there and meet the union managery, I'm like, excuse me, man, for how long they're here for?
For good?
That hurt me?
And I was like, but why shakes oh, And I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about, man, I said, yeah, sure, you just got the wrong one.
That was my brother.
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 McLennan, 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 Jackson
and me Charlie Webster. Curtis fifty cent Jackson presents a Lionsgate Sound and G Unit audio production exclusively for iHeart Podcasts