Original subtitles

Then we'd be going on the vacation of our lives.

The beaches are beautiful. The water is blue.

Not understanding why they're going to pay for us in Peru.

Stop saying something. A little bit of... What?

And they said a little bit of cocaine.

I just got asked by a Peruvian custom agent to follow him to a back room when

have cocaine in my bag.

Scared to death.

I'm pretty much born and raised right on the beach. California.

I was a straight -A student.

I hated missing school. I was active in sports.

I was good.

Jennifer and I met through a mutual friend who used to run a modeling

And so she introduced us, and immediately we clicked. We hit it off.

Like we had a connection.

From then on out, we started hanging out as often as we could.

As promoters, I mean, we basically...

got paid to go mingle, pass out flyers, let people know what was going on at our

parties.

It was kind of glamorous because Jennifer and I were known as the girls.

Yes, it was exciting. We were partying with famous people.

Out partying until 7, 8 in the morning, getting home at 10 in the morning,

living kind of a really fast Hollywood lifestyle.

Didn't really know where my life was going.

It wasn't something that we could do forever.

I was just getting ready to go to work, and I get this phone call.

Hello? And it was Jose.

Who?

She had a friend, Jose, who was actually a friend of the family for many years.

And I hadn't heard from Jose in a year and a half, two years.

Oh, my God! How are you doing?

He was a surfer. He was Peruvian.

You know, just kind of laid back.

I was excited to hear from him.

When he called, I was excited, you know.

We had nothing but fond memories.

I told him to swing by the pizzeria that I was working in, and he did.

Oh, my God. How are you?

My God, it's so good to see you.

You're looking great.

I'd asked where he had been and what he had been up to. In school, busy, you

know, and surfing, surfing a lot. He was very vague.

He had just said, yo, I've been around, you know.

You want to catch a movie later or something? Yeah, no, that sounds good.

Definitely a proper catch up, yeah. Excellent. Yeah, call myself, call

So good to see you.

It's weird how he just kind of...

Disappeared, and then so abruptly just was back in my life. It was crazy.

Oh, it seemed like Jose had a lot of money, yeah. He had jet skis. You know,

had a nice car.

He had a house in Mexico.

Not to mention the house that he was living in was pretty fantastic.

It was very nice.

Very, very nice.

I kind of questioned it, you know, like, hmm, what's going on here?

And I asked him, and he said his father sent him money from Miami.

Because he didn't have a job. Jose went to school full -time and surfed full

-time.

And I believed it, of course.

And he was like, no, I have an extra room. Why don't you girls move in?

And we were like, oh.

The room that we were given literally opened up onto the ocean.

Gorgeous.

And you woke up every morning and you could hear the seals and the waves.

We were living a pretty nice lifestyle.

Probably too good to be true, now that I think about it.

A couple

of childhood friends come to visit, Angelo and Lucio.

They

seem nice,

you know, they were Peruvians.

spoke broken English, but they did, you know, speak a little bit of English. So

we were able to, you know, speak with them.

Yeah,

we hung around the house.

Anytime we left, they were there. Anytime we came home, they were there.

Hey, can we talk to you for a second?

Yeah, what's up? So one day, Angelo and Lucho called us into the living room.

Ha, so you guys had fun last night.

They asked us how our night was and what time we'd gotten in. And we had fun and

we're like, okay, what is this small talk, you know? So we were just talking

about it and we want to give you guys the opportunity to go to Peru,

included for a few weeks.

All expense paid trip to Peru.

You know, we wanted to travel. It was Peru. We'd never been there.

We were like, wow.

You go over there.

You hang out with our friends.

They'll take you. You want to go shopping? You'll go shopping. You'll do

whatever you want.

They made it sound like it was Rio de Janeiro or something. We'd be going on

vacation of our lives.

The beaches are beautiful. The water is blue.

A little hesitant because not understanding why they're going to pay

go to Peru.

No, well, you just have to bring something a little bit extra.

We'll get your plane tickets, we'll get your passport.

You just have to bring something a little extra back in your bag.

They're like, okay.

What? And they said, a little bit of cocaine.

Just a little small amount.

No big deal.

Like bringing a pair of tennis shoes in our bag. It was nothing.

And they told us that the bags were, you know, everything was professional.

Everything was professional. They spent thousands of dollars on making these

bags. We would not even be able to see the drugs. You know, they have a way of

doing it where it's put in the seam of your bag.

And, you know, basically, we wouldn't even be able to tell that it was there.

I asked.

What if we would get caught? What if we do get caught?

And I remember them specifically saying, this is something that did stick in my

mind. They said, there's no way that you will get caught. There's no way.

Trust me.

We'll pay $5 ,000 each.

Cash?

You have a couple of days to think about it. We'll meet Thursday.

Okay.

The most attractive thing about the offer was the traveling.

You know, I've always wanted to travel my whole life.

It was Peru. We'd never been there.

And also, obviously, the money.

$5 ,000 was a lot at the time compared to what we had.

We planned we were going to take $5 ,000 and put it in the bank, and the other

$5 ,000 we were going to go visit our families.

I'm from the Midwest, so, I mean...

pretty far from California, and Chris's mom lived in Michigan at the time. And I

also remember we were going to buy makeup.

We had nothing to lose. That's what we thought.

We were ready to go.

Let's do it.

Angelo and Lucha said that we would meet in a couple days outside, and we met on

the pier in Redondo, and they just told us the only thing we couldn't do was

tell Jose.

He can't know.

Okay.

I said okay.

Not really understanding why or not really questioning it. The ticket?

Yeah, I got it.

Everything's set.

Everything is ready to go.

It was really happening.

You know, this was it. It was really happening. We were going to do it.

I was 19.

You know, I felt like I was invincible.

I mean, for me, it was just the experience of kind of leaving the

I wasn't happy living.

Even though it was a glamorous lifestyle, this is kind of like an

get out and start over, I guess.

I mean, I think that there was a point when I did get a little apprehensive and

worried about it.

I should have followed my gut instinct at the time. I don't know.

The guys just told us, pack nice clothes and pack like you're going on vacation.

We've never really been on a vacation of our lifetime, so we're going to

paradise for nine days.

I'll just let that whole denial kick in and kind of look at the other part of

it, the vacation and the money.

We had like a few hours to kill. Then we met this gentleman who I believe is

American.

And he goes, why are you guys going to Peru? And we're like, oh, we're just

going on vacation. He goes, you're not going to smuggle drugs, are you?

What?

And I were kind of like, ha, ha, ha, you know, kind of laughed it off or

whatever.

Because we honestly thought we were like the first ones doing this.

I think that was the first time we thought maybe, okay, so.

People are actually aware that people do this, if that makes any sense, you

know?

We were descending to land in Peru, and we were just like, ooh.

It was gray.

It looked cold outside.

It was ugly. It was dirty.

It was not the palm trees and beautiful place that I had envisioned at

all.

And we got off the plane.

And I remember just kind of looking to see, you know, who it was that was going

to be waiting for us and picking us up.

They didn't have a sign or anything. They just kind of like, like they knew.

The only two white girls there.

They knew we were probably those girls.

They were very friendly.

You know, they helped us with our luggage.

They walked us to their car

and basically told us that they would be taking us to, you know, the hotel where

we would be staying.

As soon as we get in the car, we take off, like, skidding.

We were, like, immediately, like, holding hands.

Jennifer and I just look at each other going, oh, my God.

Oh, God.

They were, like, smoking Blitz in the car.

We look down, and there's, like, a gun.

I don't know if that was a tactic to scare us.

You know, I was still kind of hoping, though, that maybe they just carry guns

around and it wasn't going to turn out all bad like it did.

Can you give me the passport?

I remember that. That was odd, too.

Passport? I question the fact that why they felt like they needed to take our

passports.

Because I said...

They've

now got our passports.

They've shown us that they have guns.

What's next?

The hotel was far, far away.

There was nothing around.

Is this it?

I know. What are we going to do?

It was just a dirt road and farmland.

The place was empty.

It was completely empty.

We were not on vacation. We were basically being held prisoners already

hotel room that they took us to, you know, 40 miles out of the city with no

contact with anyone except for them.

Okay, we need your bags.

Now? Yes, now.

They took the bags, because those were obviously the bags that they were going

to do the job with.

Quickly. All right. Let me help you.

I could have done that.

That's more like it.

From that point on, we never saw the bags. We never saw anything up until the

morning we left.

Where are you going?

They didn't leave us any way of contacting them.

You know, it was basically, we'll get back to you when we're ready. Have fun.

We'll pick up tomorrow.

Don't leave the hotel.

They left us in the hotel for like two days.

Didn't even hear from the museum.

Like that, and then...

Okay. We walked.

We braided each other's hair.

We watched Spanish TV.

I remember they had a nice pool.

Drained. Oh, my God.

We were bored out of our minds.

I mean, we didn't even know how to call a taxi. We couldn't speak Spanish. We

didn't know anything.

It can't get worse than this. Tomorrow's going to be better.

Renzo and Fabrizio finally called us after a couple of days and they said,

we're going to come pick you up. We're going to take you to the beach. And

like, okay, great.

Tomorrow it will be blue skies and we'll go to the beaches and it will be, you

know, laying on the sand and sitting in our bikinis.

This is the beach.

It was a beach. There was sand and the ocean, but... It wasn't summertime

and I think basically...

During the winter, everything kind of closes down.

We were ready to leave the beach.

Just driving with friends and Fabrizio to the beaches. They

never mentioned the drug. We never talked about it. We didn't talk about

bag. We didn't talk about anything.

Ever.

I believe it was the third day in. They said, oh, we set up a tour of the city.

Well, the city was definitely prettier.

You know, there were old buildings, and the architect was interesting. Kind of

took our minds off of our negative moods of being stuck in the hotel room and

not doing anything.

There was an interpreter, and her name was Tessie.

And she spoke perfect English, and it was wonderful to be able to actually

to someone.

Jennifer was like, yes, because Jennifer's a huge dancer.

We're thinking, thank God, finally someone is really going to tell us

where to go and what to do.

After the tour, we get back and the guys pick us up and we're really excited.

They

automatically

got mad.

We never got to see Tessie. We never got to go dancing.

We had no passports. We had no money.

And we knew the guys had guns, and we didn't know them well enough to know

they would or would not hurt us.

And it was just kind of a dead end.

No turning back. We have to go through it. We have two more days.

The day before we were leaving, they came by to take up all of our clothes.

The guys, they were going to take our clothes and all of

our stuff and pack it into the original suitcases with the cocaine in it.

It felt good because we weren't going to have to see the bags. We weren't going

to have to wonder where the cocaine was.

I mean, that helped in the process of our denial, absolutely.

I said, okay, well, we're not going to see you tomorrow.

There's going to be a guy, a friend of ours, that's going to get you a cab and

drop the bags off to you tomorrow morning and give us some sleeping pills,

something to calm us down in case we were nervous. I think I was definitely

than willing to take it to help me sleep, yes.

The guys said in case we were questioned by customs, just relax and remember you

went to Machu Picchu and Cusco.

Machu Picchu and Cusco. Cusco. Yeah, Cusco. Cusco. Okay, it's very important.

Like I said, I think at that point I was ready to go home. I was just, take the

bag, let's get this over with. Tomorrow we're getting on the plane.

We woke up the next morning to a knock on the door.

The minute I saw the bag,

my heart started to kick in.

I wanted to know what was in there, how much was in there.

I wanted to make sure that there was no evidence of it being there.

And there was not. Not that I could see to my eye.

And the whole way to the airport was probably the longest ride ever.

Very long.

I think that we were both very scared at that point.

If we would have tried to back out, I think we feared what could happen to us.

No one knew that we were there. I mean, they could have killed us, and no one

would know.

We didn't know there was an American embassy in Peru that we could have

We didn't speak the language.

Our parents didn't know where we were.

We didn't even know how to use a phone, like if we had to call home.

You know, not to mention we didn't have money to call.

You know, we were screwed.

I remember just, you know, kind of going through my head. We were, you know,

there just to visit students and, you know, we went to see Cusco.

We get to the airport and starting to get nervous.

Don't get nervous.

Don't let anything show on your face.

Just do it.

Get on that plane.

Do it.

We were dropped off, and the guy asked if we wanted help with our luggage.

We're like, no, no, no, we've got it.

You're told very clearly to never let go of our luggage.

We walk inside.

And there are drug dogs walking back and forth and police officers and machine

guns.

Can we head towards the ticket counter?

Do you have some water?

And

there

was a customs agent at the ticket counter already.

I don't necessarily think that I was extremely alarmed to see him, but I was

also just kind of like, okay, this is the first step. We have to get through

this.

The customs agent asked us for our passport.

Okay.

Heart's starting to pound a little more.

I just remember thinking, okay, this is it.

How long in Peru?

Nine days.

Nine days.

Yeah. Which was, I mean, really so unlikely at that time. The weather was

bad. You know what I mean? It was just not the time for vacation in Peru.

I thought we did everything right. We did everything we were supposed to.

and they asked us to walk where we originally put our bags.

Words cannot express what I felt at that moment.

You just don't walk on the scales.

I was

floored.

I just got asked by a proven custom agent to follow him to a back room when

have cocaine in my bag.

Scared to death.

I just got asked by a proven custom agent to follow him to a back room when

have cocaine in my bag.

Scared to death.

The custom agent takes us to this room.

My heart was racing.

I just remember there was a drug dog there.

Do you have drugs into your baggage?

We are police officers of Drax.

Okay?

And there's a guy hunched over our bag with this pin type of thing

and like a metal hook.

And he had poked our bag,

pulled it out, and coke came out of it.

I think I went into shock, honestly.

Jennifer and I just kind of looked at each other, and we just, like, you know,

kind of put our hands in the air and shrugged our shoulders.

What is he talking about? This isn't ours. Those are our bags. No, this isn't

ours, and we don't know how it got there.

You know, the only thing we could say was that it wasn't our bag, but, you

I mean, we brought him in the airport, so.

It took them a good 45 minutes to an hour to tear the bags apart.

They were taking our clothes out.

They opened the bags, the bottom of the bags. It was like in a big, flat, almost

plastic -looking type cover, and they pulled that out.

The whole entire bottom of the bag was just full of blocks of cocaine.

And at that point, I still didn't know how much a kilo was, but I knew that it

was more than what I was told I was going to be bringing back home.

It was there, and it was wrapped in black tape, and it was blocked, and

was a lot.

That amount of coke would have been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It was pure cocaine.

Not cut. Pure cocaine.

I mean, we were completely ignorant about it. It was just... It was

overwhelming. It was absolutely overwhelming.

We get to this little room.

I have no doubt in my mind, I'm going home. We were still there on vacation.

Okay, didn't work, but we're still going home. It's not ours.

Okay.

And then he opened the curtain.

And we saw our plane.

And then he made us watch it take off.

And the plane took

off and we weren't on it.

And that's when we broke down and realized we're not going out.

We left the airport and passed, and we're driving, not talking,

not really realizing what's going on.

I could not look at Krista.

We were taken out and we entered this building.

All the people are staring at you.

We didn't know what was going on. We didn't know what was going to happen. We

didn't know.

I remember seeing a couple cells off to the right.

And we're saying no, no.

At this point we're crying. We don't believe they're going to really put us

here.

and we were put into a room.

We had a plastic bag with what little belongings we had, and we just held each

other and cried the whole night.

I'm the crybaby of the two of us, but, yeah, she cried.

There were times where Jennifer would not stop crying and I would just look at

her and be like, you need to stop crying.

And she would look at me and just put her hands in the air and just tell me,

what do you want me to do?

And then I would start crying. It was like for a while it was just we're

to keep each other strong, you know. When she was weak, I was strong and vice

versa. But it got to a point where there was no strength left, you know.

Nothing but tears. There was no words, no comforting, nothing.

Nothing was going to make it okay.

We contemplated ending our lives, but we couldn't figure out how to do it at the

same time.

I think Chris and I even discussed a couple different ways that we could do

Yeah. We were there for 15 days.

We weren't given food. We weren't given water.

We weren't allowed to shower.

We didn't know what day it was. We didn't know what time it was.

We were so excited because we're like, finally we may know what's going to

happen to us.

We're from the American Embassy.

It wasn't like that at all.

I don't really remember her being very concerned. I think it was just straight

to the point visit that she had to do.

I said, here, piece of paper.

We're going to fax these to your parents.

I looked at them in disbelief, like, really?

You want us to write down on a piece of paper that you're going to fax to our

parents that we're in prison in Peru?

Who could do that on paper, you know?

They thought we were in San Francisco. My stepmom was calling morgues because

she thought I was dead because she hadn't heard from me.

My dad was a police officer for 20 years.

So I was told when he found out, he sat down on the couch in front of the TV,

didn't shower, didn't eat, didn't do anything for three days. He didn't move,

didn't sleep.

We had the first contact with our parents over a cell phone.

I just remember crying and just saying, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, you know.

And just, you know, hearing them say, it's going to be okay, it's going to be

okay.

My dad always said that if any of us ever got arrested or in trouble, that he

wouldn't cross the street to help us, that we would be on our own.

He was a correctional officer.

I remember him saying, I don't want to know what you did.

I don't care.

I just want you to promise me that you're going to make it.

And from that point on, I knew I had to just...

Go through with it and deal with it.

Kaya was a male prison.

And that was probably one of the worst memories.

The matter of having to squat and urinate in front of six male guards.

There was one specific night where they started to come into our cell.

In the middle of the night. The previous night we had heard people having

intercourse or being raped or something.

We had like some sort of crackers and I think maybe a bottle of pop or

something. And I completely woke up in a haze and just threw it at the cell door

and it went all over and he scurried off and never came back.

Honestly, I think we probably could have been raped.

I just was looking around, just going, this doesn't look like a prison.

This was, like, dirty, and there was clothes hanging out, like the bars of

windows, and it looked like a bomb shelter. I don't know how else

to explain it.

It was kind of scary, very scary, actually.

I remember asking if we would finally be allowed to take a shower.

And she kind of looked at me and she's like, you won't be taking a shower for

the rest of your time here. She said, you'll be using a bucket.

And we're walking down this corridor.

All of these bunk beds were like next to each other and they had sheets draped

over ropes to make their own little rooms or to create privacy.

I think probably about 30 other women in there at least in one room.

We didn't know what to expect. We didn't know if it was violence, you know, if

the prison was violent or if it was full of violent offenders.

You're going to wake up in the middle of the night and have some knife sticking

to your throat or, you know, you just, we didn't know what to expect.

We were so different. We were white. We were blonde.

Or I was blonde. I don't know what it was, but I just remember everyone waking

up and everyone just staring at me.

I don't think I ever had a real night's sleep there.

The whole time I was there.

The food they called paila.

I think a rat tail was found once and it was very inedible.

And half the time in the food there would be cockroaches.

Yeah, cockroaches were everywhere.

Wake up in the morning and they'll run down your leg when you're taking your

pajama bottoms off.

It was hot. You had to be outside.

There wasn't very much aid available.

You couldn't drink the water.

I dehydrated, I believe, three or four times.

Jennifer and I were so lost.

We were so lost. We didn't know where we were going or what we were doing.

Dr. Fishman did everything for us. She wasn't just our lawyer. She brought us

food. She hugged us when we needed hugs.

They were scared and hungry.

So first, the first thing I made before talking with their parents or before

taking the case was to give them something to eat.

And some comfort. I'm a mother.

Yeah, she was.

Yeah, she was like a grandmother or a mother.

Dr. Fishman said, so you girls didn't know?

And we said no, and she's like, well, pretty much what everyone says when they

first get here, but it's okay.

It was easy to know that they really were not criminals.

They were not criminals.

They were used by criminals.

And she pretty much told us, you know, if we cooperate, it's going to be better

for us.

We eventually listened to Dr. Ota Fishman.

They blamed everything on Jose.

Said that he was the head, said that he's the one that set everything up,

the one that sent us, he's the one, he's the one, he's the one.

I don't think I will ever know if Jose had something to do with it or not,

because in my heart, I don't think he did.

But in my mind, it's obvious that he did, you know.

I just know he really, really cared about Jennifer and I a lot.

I literally called it Groundhog Day. I mean, it was the same thing every day.

You're completely cut off from the outside world.

You never see a car drive by. You never see the sunset.

You never see the sunrise.

You never know what's going on.

You feel like you're forgotten, you know?

Being human, you can adjust to the conditions, but you can't adjust to the

that you can't leave. You can't adjust to the fact that...

You can't pick up the phone and call somebody when you want to or when you

to.

You can't adjust the fact that you might get to see your family once every six

months, maybe.

You can't adjust to that.

One afternoon, I called Dr. Fishman.

She said, today's the day.

We're like, what?

Pack your things?

We couldn't believe it. In that prison, the people are released by 8 in the

night.

But they were ready since noon.

And I told her, be patient. They are going to open the door.

You already wait for over two years, and you cannot wait for half an hour?

would not believe it. I was afraid to believe it.

And I don't think I believed it until they called my name.

Krista Jennifer Libertad!

Krista Barnes and Jennifer Davis Libertad.

Which meant freedom.

I walked out so easy.

I always searched it.

I walked out.

See the cobblestone streets and not just hear about it, you know, it gives me

chills thinking about it. It was amazing.

And we both took hot showers, and then we watched the sunrise together, and it

was beautiful. It was amazing.

One of the things that we'd always dreamed of you know so many days so many

nights

And

we

walked out So easy.

No searches.

Just walk out.

We watched the sunrise together, and it was beautiful.

Amazing.

One of the things that we'd always dreamed of, you know?

So many days, so many nights.

Flying back to the States, when we finally got clearance, it was...

Again, it was surreal, it was great, it was exciting, but it was also sad

because Jennifer and I knew we were parting ways at that point.

It was very hard to know that that was going to be it, that she was going to be

going back to California and I'd be going back to the Midwest with my

I wanted to get a job, and I wanted to be really good at my job and do really

well in school.

And I started going to school immediately, I think three weeks after I

And I graduated a couple years ago with a degree in international development

studies in cultural anthropology.

And I'm very, very excited about that.

All I want to do is take my experience and channel it in a more positive way

make a difference in other people's lives.

Thinking about it, I'm like freaking out because I just can't imagine going

through those emotions again, you know, psychologically and emotionally.

We would wait for people to walk in that spoke English or that, you know,

brought us things that we needed.

Now I'm that person with some weird feelings.

When they search you, it's going to be a little, you know, emotional.

We're just seeing the police there.

This is hysteria to John. I'm getting pretty nervous.

I wish Jennifer was here.

I'm coming to the prison because I just wanted to see the prisoners that were

here when I was here.

The foreigners.

Talk to the foreigners, let them know that, you know, not to give up hope,

you know, your life still can turn around and be better.

And let them know that people haven't forgotten about them, you know.

My name's

Krista. I was here in 1996 for three years with my friend Jennifer.

And I just, I wanted to come back for a really long time to visit the prison. I

think for me, on an emotional level, to come back to see people,

it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger, right? So you dream about the

and what you're going to do. It is possible.

It all is possible.

I think my experience in Peru was a wake

-up call.

With the drugs, with money, prioritizing things in life, realizing what's

important. This is where I live, 3B.

I'm trying to remember what room Jennifer and I had.

We've been here for over 10 years.

And she remembers me and Jennifer.

It's not about what you have.

It's about who you have, you know?

I don't think I would be here today if Jennifer wasn't there.

You go through it together to have one another to lean on and shoulder to cry

on.

Taking a shower.

Taking a hot shower.

Waving when I want to.

Oh, we did not have a mirror. We did not have a mirror. I'll always be there for

her and she'll always be there for me. That's all there is to it. There's not a

day that goes by that I don't think about her or wonder what she's doing.

It never makes her happy.

We went through a lot together.

And Banged Up Abroad is back next week at the earlier time of nine.

Next, though, Bruce Lee stars in our five -movie, Fist of Fury.

Awesome.