Pietro La Greca Jr. was born in San Diego, California but he was raised in Tijuana all his life. When he was a teenager, he found out that his father, Pietro La Greca, an influential Italian man had earned the nickname of the “Mexican Don Corleone” as he handled criminal businesses laundering money for corrupt politicians and drug traffickers.

This story is told in the book “Pesos: The Rise and Fall of a Border Family” and for the first time, its author has opened his heart to talk about the tough times his family went through in the border, surrounded by dangers and persecutions due to greed and money, not only by his father but by his uncle, who was killed by criminal organizations.

In an exclusive interview with San Diego Red, Pietro La Greca Jr. at his home in San Diego spoke about the reasons why he decided to write about this frantic tale:

The first reason is that my dad died. He wasn’t a very good person, so I was sure that nothing was going to happen to me or my family. I then met a man from Hollywood and one day at a friend’s house I told him my story. He told me: ‘You know what? We need to make something out of this’.

The criminal life of Pietro La Greca Sr. launched in 1983 when the peso depreciated; after committing fraud against the government, he decided to open several exchange rate houses in San Diego. The businessman ended up having a total of 14 houses along the border, which is why he was known as ”The King of the Peso.”

He had clients like López Portillo and similar people. The taxes that people paid when they exchanged pesos for dollars, when it was around 10,000 dollars, it was a lot of money. That’s when my father learned how to launder money by exchanging dollars at a better rate with no taxes for merchandise that did not exist; this is called controlled dollars. This business was managed by my grandfather who had an import-export agency, somebody who my father did not get along with very well.

Several years before, the Mexican Don Corleone opened a women’s clothing store in Tijuana called Portofino, where he met the mother of Pietro La Greca Jr. and they fell in love. Despite the 20 years age gap, they got married. At the same time, the store wasn’t doing very well, so Pietro La Greca Sr. decided to burn down the establishment to claim the insurance, with help from the chief of the fire department, the police, and the insurance broker. This fraud was committed on three more occasions.

Let’s start from the beginning. Pietro La Greca Jr. spoke about his childhood, recalling how he grew up surrounded by love thanks to his mother and grandfather, but he was never close to his father.

My father and I never had a good relationship because we never spent any time together. He spent his time with his friends and at the office he was working on his businesses. I spent time with my mom, at school, and with my grandpa on the weekends in a ranch in Tijuana. He was my best friend who taught me everything about life, I loved him with all my heart.

A few years later, the federal police arrested his grandfather and he was in prison for almost 8 months. When he found out about this, Pietro La Greca Jr. had his eyes opened at last:

I was like 12 or 13 years old. We were in Fashion Valley, my grandma, my mom, and I. As my father was exchanging a lot of money, we had a security team and they took us to a house in Coronado and there I realized everything, that I was in a kind of illegal and corrupt family.

Due to this Pietro La Greca Jr. and his family moved to the eastern United States, both in Florida and New York, staying in luxurious hotels and motels,, as Pietro La Greca Sr. was afraid that the government would take his son to Mexico to capture him.

The beginning of the nightmare occurred when his uncle Fernando and Pietro La Greca decided to build a neighborhood in Rosarito called San Fernando.

My dad had contacts in all of the banks in the United States and they received a 30 million dollar loan, but my uncle spent all the money and they got in trouble. After that, my uncle asked for a loan to the Arellano Félix Cartel.

The author said that his grandfather, from the shock, died of a heart attack the very night he found out about this.

Previously, Pietro La Greca Jr. had been training to take control of his grandfather’s customs agency. Once he was there, he experienced the scariest moment of his life.

I remember very well that day when the FBI arrived at the customs agency and asked me: “Are you Fernando Gutiérrez?” and I said “No, that’s my uncle… is it something important?”, and they told me: “It is a matter of life and death”. That was the last day I worked at the agency. I didn’t want to get a bullet to the head. I felt horrible about leaving. I did not come back. The agency closed one year later, after my great-grandfather had founded it 60 years prior.

Later, in 1996, Fernando, Pietro La Greca Jr.’s uncle, was murdered by organized crime in Coronado.

His father and uncle’s neighborhood project was abandoned, cheating investors and buyers; sometime later, they would close the exchange houses from which his family had obtained a fortune. In that moment, Pietro La Greca Jr. remembers living unimaginable things.

I ended up playing polo with Prince Charles (now King Charles), Sylvester Stallone, and writer Tony Robbins; this was thanks to my uncle’s influence.

After studying business administration, Pietro La Greca Jr.’s life would be turned upside down again, as his mother died of cancer at 57 years old. The young man had already gone through a lot of difficulties due to being the son of a criminal, which is why, with no more patience left and knowing the suffering it was inflicting on his loved ones, he decided to distance himself from his father. He studied in Argentina and Hawaii for one year. However, he never imagined what would happen afterwards.

My father and I had a very big fight. I have a recording where he says: ‘If you cross the border into Mexico, I’ll put you in your grave’… to his own son… just so you can picture what kind of man he was.

His father’s scams, especially regarding the ones related to taxes paid to the government, started to fail, and that was the beginning of his fall.

It should be noted that after trying unsuccessfully to sell his customs business, Pietro La Greca Sr., as an 80 year old, still kept the same attitude. A journalist even wrote an article whose headline read: “If you want to know the true life of Mexico’s Don Corleone, his name is Pietro La Greca and he walks the streets with impunity”, as he never went to jail or was punished for laundering money.

He not only laundered money for politicians and drug traffickers, but also for journalists in Tijuana. If he wanted an article about something, in the border or a newspaper in Mexico City, he could ruin somebody’s life in a day.

To finish this interview, Pietro La Greca Jr. shared a very important message to everyone who reads his story:

Money is nothing, don’t worry about it. Love and life are the most important things. If my father hadn’t caused my mother so much stress for so many years, maybe she would still be alive. This hurts me so much because my father never understood the value of family until the day he died. I prefer not having any money and having a happy family with health and love.

The book “Pesos: The Rise and Fall of a Border Family” is already available in bookstores in the United States and on Amazon in digital formats. The audiobook is narrated by actor Tony Dalton and will soon have a Spanish edition.

You can purchase his book on Amazon, by clicking here: https://amzn.to/3CRxxWt

Watch the complete interview right here: