BOOM. BOOM. BOOM! A third gun shot to confirm the body will remain a body for good. That’s how Luis “gatillero 1” likes to do things. He has learned his modus operandim from “El Sapo” of Columbia’s drug cartel, when he worked for him and his people in Miami in the early 80’s.
Luis del Castillo was not Colombian, he was from Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico. The day I met him he was sitting at a police station in Miami’s Federal Drug Detention Center retelling his story and the details of his crimes to a colleague and an old friend Detective Evangelina Mendoza, who had finally arrested him after long years of trying to capture the infamous Gatillerito 1, the biggest criminal in the history of the Colombia, the U.S. and the Caribbean US island of Puerto Rico. He was the biggest drug dealer after Pablo Escobar himself.
Evangelina, who was of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent, had a love hate for Escobar and other big drug lords of her time, but her job came first. And no matter how much money she was offered to stop her investigations against the “South Cartel” and how many time the handsome Gatillero tried to woo her with expensive gifts and many special and romantic dinner invitations, that she’d accepted out of curiosity and as hook, to be closer to the man she wanted to put in jail herself. If Gatillerito 1 was going down, she would be the one to get the medal for it and no one else. She’d primised that to herself and to him as well. He laughed at her whenever she told him that much. Yet she swore she’d had the last laugh.
Luis was mesmerized by Evangelina’s beauty, her hazel green eyes contrasted with her tan skin and long brown curled hair. Even in the moment of his arrest he smiled knowing that she was the one who finally captured him. He could’ve escaped if he wanted too but now in his late forties he was ready to face his destiny and retire from a long life of crime. He also couldn’t deny that victory. It was his redemption.
Evangeline was happy and sad that at the same time the date she announced Claire that thanks to her they’d finally had capture Luis del Carrillo alias Gatillero. And that he was now facing the full extent of the U.S. law for his many crimes. “It was about time” said Claire to her old friend Evangeline. Now that the biggest drug Lord Escobar was dead, everyone was falling like the London bridge after the Big Fire, and all the rats were abandoning the ships, so to speak.
His “secuaces” from Mexico and Puerto Rico where fighting over some drug territories in Miami and New York among other U.S. states. Also the lasts survivors of the Italian and Cuban mobs were fighting each other and disintegrated. Some got mixed up with the local criminal gangs and Gatillero no longer couldn’t trust his life to any of them. He rather make some deals and put himself in the hands of his jailed and the love of his life, Evangelina.
Gatillero 1, or UNO as his friends had dubbed Luis, felt Angelina and the Feds were his only hope. The only thing he needed to do to secure a good deal with the Feds and secure the safety of his own life and his families was by becoming a snitch. A “sapo”. And with Escobar dead, or in hiding, his men dead and some in jail, and his enemies trying to kill him, becoming as snitch was the least of his troubles, and his only way of surviving the drug war that was exploding on the streets of Miami in the 80’s and 90’s. Besides he trusted that his lover would get him into a good witness protection program and a great deal where he get to keep plenty of money to get back on his fit and still treat her like his Queen.
Evangeline had initially worked undercover to gather all the evidence they needed against Gatillero and his people, Later on she shared her secret with him and even saved his life few times. But when it was time to turn him in. She did it, not after convincing him it was the right thing to do, risking her life she gave him up. But she couldn’t have done it with out the help of her special witness and former secret military agent Claire.
Claire had also being a famous undercover escort who unexpectedly had her own runs with the law and was del Carillo’s ex girlfriend. Now she was back on the side of the law as the special witness who would bring Gatillero 1 down.
Claire was pensive as she talked to Evangelina and watched through the glass window how the police officers and the Feds were taking the famous Gatillero into custody, shoving him into a police car with handcuffs and chains like a wild animal, she thought.
Angelina’s partner officer Carl Smith was by her side as she was been briefed on what was happening next. Claire wasn’t happy with Gatillero’s deal. She found it to be too lenient and almost laughable. Gatillero laughed like a kid as he was driven away, looking up and waiving good bye to them making the peace sign. Evangeline almost smiled, while both Claire and Officer Chris where somber and serious.
Once at the police station, Gatillero laughed like a kid with a new toy as he retold all the gruesome details of his cronies criminal acts and his too. He began his criminal career stealing oranges, mango, and any sort of products that he could get at the market near his home in a small town in Puerto Rico. He exchanged the food items for alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Later on he moved onto stealing electronics and selling them at the Flea Markets near the town where he grew up with the poor watch of his sick middle age grandmother. A single woman who drank since noon and smoked pot often. Gatillero learned to fend for himself and fight the gangs off all on his own. But the necessity forced him to join those same gangs. He later began his house breaking career. By then he was almost a perfect thief and con artist. He was not scared of anything. An Evel Kanivel daredevil.
He 1st got caught at the age of 14 but was soon released and after his grandmother passed away he began working with his uncle who took him to live with him in Miami and taught him how to sell drugs and showed him the ropes of his business making him his first hand and body.
Del Castillo worked with his uncle but he had a bullet with his name on it. He never forgot how who when he was a teenage boy, he would bit him up, and force him to sleep with prostitutes, or to rob senior’s houses for jewelry and antique herloins.
His uncle David had also forced him to be a mule and traffic his drugs all over Puerto Rico, and Miami, with two other young teens, one of them being Evangelina’s cousin, Rico Mendoza. Who was found death in a burned car in Puerto Rico.
While in Puerto Rico and working under his uncle’s orders del Castillo and his little gang would travel in the island by public transportation and bikes, to avoid being traced by the DEA officer who where after their tail for sometime now.
Mendoza was sort of their leader, even though del Castillo imparted his uncle’s rules and punishments if needed, and the tougher kid in the gang. But Rico Mendoza, who later on became an FBI, fed himself was the bravest and ruthless.
He would beat his victims regardless they age or sex, he would laugh like a crazy hyena while he did most of the dealings and did most of the talking with the biggest narcos the rest of the West side of Puerto Rico.
Mendoza desided to go on “business” by himself and then expanded his trips to North and Central parts of the island. His main “point” of operation was a small old town named Aguas Buenas on the tail of the biggest criminal cities of Caguas, Carolina, and San Juan. It was an easy for Mendoza to expand to the big cities called the whole Metropolitan area once del Castillo went to Miami to work with his uncle.
Del Castillo’s uncle found out that Rico was double playing him and got him killed. Evangeline thought that del Castillo has being the mercenary who killed her cousin, but she couldn’t prove it.
Evangeline have sworn to avenge the death of his cousin and began following del Castillo closely but he was not easy to catch or arrest since he always lived a double life. While in the US. he was a street criminal and a local store attendant, church goer, and husband with a beautiful wife and a kid.
But Evangeline had a secret weapon and she knew that del Castillo loved women more than anything even more than money. So she planed to get information from him by using her looks and by using Clair’s help. Evangelina had saved Clair’s life more than once.
Evangelina was working at the Port Charlotte police dept. when she first met Clair. Clair had being kidnapped and Eva was one of the officers assigned to rescue her and who arrested the criminal’s who kidnapped and tortured Clair. Clair at that time was an important case witness about women’s trafficking by a group of a gang in the U.S. and Europe, mostly Rusians with a big ring in Florida and other cities.
Clair had being their victim before and the woman of one of the gang leaders, she was working secretively with the FBI when she got taken by them, beaten, and tortured and almost killed.
Evangelina and her team found her before she was killed and with a very detail and secret operation they broke in into a storage lot where they were keeping Clair and with an effective attack with pepper gas making the criminal to surrender, defenseless, and finally rescuing Clair.
Thanks to Evangelina, Clair was safe and alive, she was home again. It was her duty now to pay back and help Evangelina and the DEA in their their case against Luis Castillo aka Gatillero 1.
It was the least that she could do to help her friend, the woman who saved her life. Clair was not only grateful she was determined to turn her life around for good. After her kidnapping she swore she would not have any more secrets, she would return to the FBI and she would help in the arrest of el Gatilleto 1 and all of his friends and his enemies too. She knew the right people and had the right connections and she would make them talk and help her. She swore she will turned them all into “sapos” snitches.
Clair was alive and she was back home and this time she was ready to take care of some unfinished business along with Evangelina and she would stop running from her destiny and her new fate.
She is here to capture del Castillo one way or the other. As a Fed and working along with the DEA Clair feels as if she is at home?
But is she? Can she trust the FBI? Is Evangelina her true friend or is she just using her?
TO BE CONTINUED….
