Organized Crime

Twins who rose to top of drug world eligible for light sentence after informing on drug lord

Associated Press
Published | Updated

This undated photo from a wanted poster released by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Pedro Flores. Flores and his twin brother, Margarito Flores, are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, Jan, 27, 2015, at federal court in Chicago on drug trafficking charges. The Flores twins cut deals to buy tons of narcotics from Joaquin "El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel in the 2000s, and later cooperated with U.S. investigators. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service) (The Associated Press)

This undated photo from a wanted poster released by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Margarito Flores. Flores and his twin brother, Pedro Flores, are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, Jan, 27, 2015, at federal court in Chicago on drug trafficking charges. The Flores twins cut deals to buy tons of narcotics from Joaquin "El Chapo” Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel in the 2000s, and later cooperated with U.S. investigators. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service) (The Associated Press)

FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2014, file photo, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, is escorted to a helicopter in Mexico City following his capture overnight in the beach resort town of Mazatlan. Identical twins Pedro and Margarito Flores of Chicago, who went from middling Chicago drug dealers to partners of Guzman, building a nearly $2 billion trafficking franchise that spanned much of North America, are scheduled to be sentenced at federal court in Chicago, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015. The twins cut deals to buy tons of narcotics from Guzman in the 2000s and later began cooperating with U.S. investigators. (AP Photo/Eduardo Verdugo, File) (The Associated Press)

Twin brothers who partnered with Mexico's most notorious cartel kingpin to build a nearly $2 billion North American drug ring will be sentenced Tuesday in Chicago.

Anyone convicted of trafficking a fraction as much cocaine and heroin as 33-year-old Pedro and Margarito Flores could normally expect to get life in prison.

But the twin's cooperation led to indictments of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and 50 others. So prosecutors are asking for a remarkably lenient term — around 10 years.

Prosecutors portray the brothers as among the most valuable drug traffickers who ever became informants.

Drug-world figures weighed in on the twins' importance in own their way. Prosecutors say they killed the twins' father in Mexico after word spread that they had spilled secrets to authorities.