All language subtitles for Banged Up Abroad - Season 14 Episode 9 50 Ton Pot Run

I feel like a Da Vinci of smugglers.

It's like a huge magic show that you're
putting on.

But I'm a high -risk junkie.

I always push things to the limit until
it blew up.

If you violated the oath of the cartel,
you could be sent to shock.

I thought, this is the end.

This is how it ends.

My life was like insanity, man.

It was the early 70s.

It was the age of Aquarius, the age of
drugs, sex, rock and roll.

Freedom. People just wanted to be free.

It was an idealistic period of time.

All across the country and cities, young
people were playing music and dancing

and smoking pot.

I was a hippie. I smoked pot every day.
I never felt like pot was wrong.

I just thought, wouldn't it be great if
pot was legal?

But the fact that pot and hash were
illegal was to my advantage because I

more money selling it that way.

I was smuggling hash in from Nepal.

It came in Nepalese antiquity, shipped
to Boston, where it was unloaded

and distributed by my best friend, Eric.

On paper, Eric and I should never have
really gotten along.

I was a street kid from the inner city
of Boston, and Eric was an upper -middle

class kid from Norwood, Massachusetts.

We were completely opposite
personalities.

That's for me. Come on. But we had fun
together.

Wow, what a beauty, huh? Good.

Boston is the university capital of the
United States.

There were a lot of rich kids who just
wanted to smoke pot, and it was the

perfect market for us.

We felt indestructible. People were
getting high. They loved our product.

Our business grew and became successful.

We had this big pile of cash.

Plenty of women, and we were just having
a blast.

And then one night, I met this Colombian
guy, and he told me

there's someone I should meet in
Colombia.

This guy in Colombia, he runs an
organization, Garfil, that grows 50

tons of marijuana a year, and we call
him El Padrino, the godfather.

He knows you.

He wants to meet you.

I was 20 years old, and some godfather
in Colombia had heard about me, and they

wanted me to go to Colombia to meet
them.

That got me excited.

This was a big opportunity.

Colombia was known to have top -quality
marijuana, and here was my chance to get

right to the source.

It was dangerous and breathtaking and
scary.

But the thing is, I'm a high -risk
junkie.

I had a need to always push things to
the limit, to build something and keep

building it and building it until it
blew up.

So the next morning, I was in a private
plane.

flying into northern Colombia to meet
the Godfather.

And he says, come on in.

He looked like someone who was deadly
serious.

A mysterious, hardwired kind of person.

The feeling that I had was a feeling of
distrust.

I'm not sure what's going on here.

I'm out of my element.

We get about 10 miles down the road, and
we get to a military checkpoint.

The Godfather handed me the bag.

I open the bag, and I see 50 ,000 pesos,

and I see a revolver.

And he says to me, I want you to offer
the guard the pesos first.

And if he doesn't take it, I want you to
shoot him.

What have I got myself into?

Then I realized this is a test.

They want to know if I've got the balls.

to go out there and actually shoot
someone in the head who doesn't take a

So I had no choice.

I had the money and the gun.

There were so many thoughts going
through my head. I hate violence. I've

hated violence.

And I didn't want to shoot him.

So I really hoped that he would take
that one.

The God looked at me.

I looked at him.

I take a deep breath.

I hand him the bag of money.

I could tell that he was bewildered.

I needed him to take that money.

He looked at me.

and slowly walked back toward the God
house with a bag.

I thought, thank God.

And then I walked back, and he asked, is
everything okay?

And I said, yes.

Going on that journey was, that was the
test, right?

He's challenging me to see who's the
craziest in the room. Is it him or is it

me?

As we got deeper into the jungle, we got
to a farmhouse.

I noticed that there were farm workers
who were also carrying shotguns and

rifles. It was clear to me at that point
in time he was running a very serious

operation.

And then as he got over the hill, I
could see down in the valley, as far as

eyes could see, the most beautiful crop
of marijuana plant.

I'd never seen so much marijuana in my
life.

This was at least 20 ,000 acres.

This is unbelievable. This is probably
the largest marijuana field in the

The Godfather explains to me that
they've been growing here for 120 years

and distributing our crop in South
America.

And then he got down to business.

The Godfather wanted to know, is it
possible to move mountains of marijuana

safely from this farm to the U .S.?
Their harvest is

50 tons per year.

And I thought, that's a lot of Cupid
footage.

Seems insane.

And then he said, don't read me.

He walked me to this barn.

When he opened the door, there it was,
like, floor -to -ceiling U

.S. currency.

There were just hundreds of bales of
cash.

I just looked at that money, and I
thought, I love

this guy.

And then I fell in love with this
project.

Then the Godfather told me it would make
me filthy rich, that I would make $10

to $13 million a year.

I said, perfect.

I've been doing the same on a very small
scale, but I know how this works now.

So I said, yes.

And I'm in.

But then he said, once you agree, you
can't get out until I say you're free to

go.

I had no idea what kind of impact that
would have on my life.

The Godfather wanted me to start this
operation by the time the next harvest

started. And the first thing I needed to
do was move to the West Coast.

There has never been anyone who's ever
smuggled marijuana up the Pacific Ocean

all the way to the Pacific Northwest.

So it was Eric and I.

This was going to be a huge challenge,
and it would make us filthy rich.

The two on two.

Yeah, but I'm not sure. I need to check
out that nighttime.

So let's do the second one. Okay,
gotcha. Okay.

But how can we not get caught while
we're doing this?

This is not like smuggling cocaine or
diamonds that you could hide in a

concealed space.

Hang on.

Okay, yeah, it's that one. The cove in
the corner.

It's like literally moving a mountain on
a boat in broad daylight and nobody

sees it.

See what time that is?

It's like a huge magic show that you're
putting on. It's a lot of work, man. A

lot of creativity, though. You
appreciate the creativity. Imagine each

those things is a puzzle piece that
you're putting together until you get it

right. Then this would be the spot.

I knew that we could get a freighter up
the West Coast undetected because Coast

Guard... couldn't board a foreign vessel
outside of United States territorial

waters, which was two miles offshore.

Over there. Over there, that's it.

The plan was we would send our boat out
to the freighter, and then the marijuana

would be offloaded onto our boat and
then brought to shore.

I found a perfect stretch of beach. They
had a road that would be perfect for

offloading. Got it?

Perfect. We'll take it.

And now everything was ready for our
first shipment with 10 tons of marijuana

it.

I was incredibly nervous and anxious
about how this was going to unfold.

Can't see him.

I got nothing so far.

The tense of time is really waiting for
the freighter to arrive.

Because you never know, it could get
busted on its way.

Just trying some other channels. Come
on.

I didn't want to go to prison.

But if anything went wrong on my end, do
I think that they would have killed me?

Of course.

I got nothing.

The cartel would slit your throat and
feed you to sharks.

Something went wrong already, man.

Maybe, maybe. Hold on, hold on. I got, I
think I, hold on.

All of a sudden, the radio came to life.

Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey.

And the captain on the freighter is
giving me the coordinates where he is.

But by offloading at night, there was a
better chance of not getting caught.

And so we waited for night.

Hey, hey, hey.

And then Eric saw the lights, and it
came on.

All the adrenaline started rushing
through my body.

Okay, it's time. Let's do this.

We went racing down to the water to go

get that weed.

Good man, good man. Good, good, good
man.

And in the meantime, the boat went back
out to the freighter to get another

load.

One by one, we started uploading 10 tons
of bales into the truck.

And then all of a sudden, Eric saw
light.

And there's a helicopter flying around.

My heart stopped.

My first thought was, this is the
police.

I felt this panic and tense coldness.

And then it was gone.

All I could think of was, let's hurry it
up and get it done. I did it as quickly

as possible.

Come on, come on.

And then the truck drove off to a farm
where I distributed it once.

So, job well done.

No one got busted.

Everyone got paid.

You know, happy, joyous pot.

And the next day I woke up and I felt
like I had just been in a prize fight,

I felt calm and peaceful.

and like almost in some kind of
spiritual high.

Money came back from my distributor in
Chicago and went downhill to the cartel,

and $3 million stayed with me as my fee.

I feel like a da Vinci of smugglers.

It was just a moment of joy and
celebration

between the two of us.

So I did party and go crazy.

But hanging over the cliff was the next
job, right?

After that, we shipped in load after
load after load.

We did ten times, ten more, ten more,
ten more.

We were shipping in so much marijuana
into the U .S.

that I'm pretty sure that most people
that smoked pot in the 70s smoked my

The next four or five years were nothing
short of a fantasy life.

A non -stop party paradise.

At 28 years of age, I had accumulated
wealth of over $30 million.

I had bank accounts where I could
literally write checks for millions of

dollars. States that had millions of
dollars.

I owned real estate holdings that were
worth millions of dollars.

You want to say this can't last, but
year after year it lasted.

Hey, come over here. I got something for
you.

To the point that you gave up on saying
this can't last.

So, you know, my life was like...

Insanity, man.

Then one day, I got a call from the
Godfather.

There was something important he wanted
to talk to me about.

I wasn't sure what he wanted to talk
about.

As far as I was concerned, he was very
happy with what I was doing. He was

making a lot of money.

But he said to me, this season, I want
to bring all 50

tons at once.

I thought to myself, this is the
stupidest idea I've ever heard, right?

Everything's working great. Why would we
do that? Why?

Ten tons is the most we've offloaded.

Offloading 50 tons would just take too
long.

Usually we get everything done in one
night, and doing it this way, it would

expose us for three nights.

Yes, sir.

There was a very good chance we would
get caught.

You got it in mind?

I repeat, all 50 tons.

One.

I couldn't even believe it.

But I knew I couldn't change my mind.

Part of the deal was, you can't change
your mind.

And out of my mouth came, okay.

So I was, and I knew it.

There's only about six people in the
world that could pull off 10 tons.

So to pull off 50, which had never been
done, would be pretty difficult to do.

It was crazy, but it was exciting to me.
Good job.

It's like the most addictive rush. It's
like high -risk behavior rush.

It's like, hey, do you want to go
surfing when there's a 2 -foot swell or

-foot swell? You know, I'm out in the 20
-foot swell.

Not long after, I got a call telling me
the freighter had left Columbia.

So Eric and I got set into action.

The plan was to offload from the
freighter the Helena Star

over the next three nights.

We'd never done this much before. It was
going to be dangerous.

Anything could go wrong.

It was painfully exhausting from ice
-cold water to a 10 -feet stand

onto a truck.

All of a sudden, we heard a plane,

and that worried me.

At this point in time, it was a U .S.
Air Force plane which could measure the

cargo inside of a freighter out at sea.
I was very concerned about that.

It was specifically designed to look for
freighters that were carrying illegal

drugs.

And then it was gone.

Come on.

I thought, thank God.

We offloaded 13 tons of marijuana into
the truck.

We knew that stage one was done, but I
had a freighter out there bobbing around

with 37 tons left of weed.

And there were still two more nights of
this kind of work.

The next morning, we were just resting
and watching TV.

I thought after this, we could retire
for

good. When a news bulletin comes on... I

said, wait, that's our freighter.

I could not believe it.

I started thinking about this possible.

Is it possible someone ratted on us?

Okay.

I don't know.

My whole life.

I've never been in trouble with the
police, not a single speeding ticket.

And here is my first bus for 37 tons of
pot.

Then, the wanted picture

of me.

My first thought was, I look incredibly
handsome, and I really love that

picture.

But the truth of the matter was I became
highly recognizable.

My face was on newspapers and television
stations on every channel.

My bus, 37 tons, was one of the largest
U .S. marijuana seizures in history.

We knew it's only a matter of time until
we get arrested.

We were both pretty much done and
resigned ourselves to that.

But the idea of prison horrified me.

I wanted to breathe free air for as long
as possible until somebody forcibly

put me in the cage.

I knew that becoming a fugitive was the
only option.

For me, there was no problem. I had
nobody who loved me that I had to worry

about or that would worry about me.

But Eric was very much connected to his
rich family, so I explained to him,

we're going to be living under fake
identities in a foreign country.

You got that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eric had never been to Nepal, never been
to India, never been to Colombia in the

jungles. This was all brand new to him.

I called a contact and arranged to buy
two passports under a fake name. Come

Go.

My plan as a fugitive was to end up in
this safe house in Santa Cruz, Bolivia,

which I had heard about.

Our cover story was we were two
musicians that were just going to travel

Central and South America and have a
good time.

But first, we had to get to the airport.

What's your name?

The airport

is surrounded with guys, fully
weaponized and looking pretty pissed

This is not a place where you could
charm your way through customs or

like that.

We had 400 ,000 U .S. dollars with us in
a bag.

If we got caught, we were... Because
there's no way to hide that, right?

I was worried

that somebody might recognize me as we
were going to the airport.

What's your name?

Where are you going to?

We were just really tense.

Next, come on.

Where are you going to?

Eric was never the kind of person that
was able to handle dealing with stress.

Next.

We get to the booth.

I was very anxious.

This guy looked at the passport and he
said, what's your name?

But out of my mouth came, my name is
David Richardson.

My real name.

Not the name that was on the passport.

I couldn't even believe it. I thought to
myself, why did you say that?

At that moment, the gig was up.

I've been caught, and it's over.

It's kind of like, oh, well, Mickey
Mouse, you know, like the ride's over.

It's over.

And he asked, are you sure?

It says here, Paolo Lapini.

And I just looked at him, and I said,
how stupid do you think I am?

Next. I felt a sense of relief, like,
yay, we're out of here, goodbye.

We flew to Bolivia, and we

landed in Santa Cruz Airport.

And there's a guy there from the safe
house.

You here for us?

With a large gun.

He didn't say welcome or hope you're
going to have a great time while you're

with us.

Zero and nothing.

On the ride to the safe house.

I'm apprehensive.

I'm still out of my element.

I could see it on God as we were
approaching the safe house.

The air around this place was dead.

The guy who was managing it let us
through.

I looked at Eric.

He actually looked bewildered.

Like, What have I got myself into?

What kind of place is this?

I'm sure you thought we'd be staying at
a five -star hotel with cabana bars and

lounge chairs, but it was a hideout for
criminals of all

sorts.

Smugglers, gangsters, killers, you name
it.

I didn't really trust any of them, and
I'm sure they didn't trust us.

But at least I was safe.

I guess we were there for a few weeks.

Then one day, we were watching the TV.

That's when I realized my bus turned
into a huge media circus.

They took over the world.

So I knew I'd eventually get caught.

I'm not stupid.

It's not a sustainable concept being a
fugitive. It's idiotic.

Eric looked really worried.

After that, Eric never left

the cabin.

He was traumatized.

I'm watching my best friend going out of
his mind,

which I felt responsible for.

I was getting restless and antsy.

I was missing that adrenaline rush that
I lived for most of my life.

Like, what's next? We can't just sit
here and do nothing.

All of a sudden, from nowhere,

These three guys that are here, my
thoughts were me. I have no idea

what's going on here.

I'm getting down.

I'm getting down. Who sent these guys?

And how did they know I was here?

And they put a bag over my head.

I was scared.

And I thought, this is the end.

You know, this is how it ends.

They threw me in some cheap.

I can't see a thing.

And I'm getting more and more terrified
the longer this journey takes.

I'm trying to work out who these guys
are.

All I could come up with is they were
hired by the U .S. government to kidnap

and bring me back to the U .S. to
prison.

But then they tie me to this chair, and
this guy comes over, and he says,

so you're the one smuggling marijuana
with the Colombian mafiosos, right?

I said, I don't know what you're talking
about.

And then one of the guys belted me.

He then said to me, what are the
overland routes that the cocaine travel

I don't know what you're talking about.

I realized these guys wanted to know the
routes through the jungle to smuggle

cocaine from Colombia.

At this point, I don't think these guys
are here to bring me back to the U .S.

to prison.

They were not police.

These guys were clearly a rival cartel.

I felt enraged that this is happening.

Who gives them the right to do that to
me?

At which point, I got a whack to the
jaw.

I was knocked out two teeth here.

I can't even describe the pain. It was
agonizing and it didn't go away.

Over the next few days, I was
interrogated and tortured.

The thing is, they got the wrong guy.

I didn't know anything about these
roots.

But they didn't believe me.

At one point, they broke out a car
battery.

and connected it to my nipples.

The pain was so intense that I kept
shaking my head from side to side and

screaming out.

And they continued to ask questions.

The torture was agonizing. It went on
day after day.

All the money that I had,

all the success I had, the risk that we
took, and here I am. I was going to die.

I surrendered my body, and I just
somehow was able to look down from up

In that space, I felt no pain.

At some point, they must have realized
that I had nothing to say, and they were

done with me.

So the next thing I know, they put up
another black bag over my head. I just

thought, here we go again.

What is this? What's going on? What's
next?

The jeep stops.

They take the mask off. I look around,
and I see that we're at a Bolivian

prison.

I go, holy, I can't believe this.

They must have given me up.

It was just getting worse and worse and
worse.

It looked nothing like an American
prison.

It looked like a massive swamp.

Here I was, after being kidnapped and
held and beaten in

a jungle, to being kidnapped and held in
an oblivion military prison.

I honestly didn't know how much more of
this I could take.

The God goes, this is you, isn't it?

They'd be different.

I knew they knew who I was.

My old life is over and a new life is
going to begin.

Goodbye, freedom.

I was assigned a bed and handcuffed to
it in a cell by myself.

No sheets, no pillows, just a mattress.

And the smell was disgusting.

The food consisted of wet rice and

sloppy meat

rank fish.

So I didn't eat for days.

I could see through the bars.

There was always screaming, dabbing,
fighting.

That was normal behavior on a daily
basis.

In my spirit, it was once as wild as a
wolf and free as any animal that's in

jungle is now caged.

and whimpering.

I knew

that I had hit rock bottom in my life.

All the time I was worried and
wondering, what happened to Eric?

Where was he?

Was he alive?

He wasn't a street kid. He wasn't street
wise.

My worst fear was that he would be
feeling alone and vulnerable.

He wouldn't be able to handle being in
prison for years.

He's the kind of guy that someone could
beat up or even rape.

Days turned into nights. Nights turned
into days.

And it just went on and on and on.

Then one day, all of a sudden, there

was Eric just standing there.

I couldn't believe it.

I just stared at him.

I said to him, you know, I'm...

I'm really sorry.

If you hadn't met me, you never would
have ended up in this cell with me. I

responsible for that.

And he said, don't worry about it, man.
I made all those decisions myself, and I

don't regret any of them.

We had a great time.

When I heard that, I just had this big
inner smile, and it gave me a peace of

mind.

And I knew he was right.

We're alive.

We're breathing in and out, and there
was a future ahead. We didn't know what

was, but it was there.

Over the next couple of months, I came
to the realization that I have an

obsessive personality.

I'm driven by self -gratification, and I
rarely consider the needs of other

people. especially Eric.

I never should have got him involved in
this business because if I didn't, he

could have had a very normal middle
-class life without me.

Eric was eventually released after
serving two years in federal prison.

I served four years of my sentence and
was released on parole.

Eric and I stayed in touch until he died
of cancer in 1999.

When I look back at my relationship with
Eric, what I can honestly say is he's

the only friend I've ever had that loved
me unconditionally, and I loved him the

same way.

Over the next two years, I fell in love,
got married, and now have two sons.

I had to learn to do for others as I
would do for myself.

After 15 years of really hard work, I
set up and treated over 25 ,000 people

in drug and alcohol treatment programs
throughout the United States.

I've always been an advocate for the
legalization of marijuana.

And I love the fact that people smoked
pot and became mellow and listened to

music and had a good time.

We'll probably remember those days as
the happiest days of our life.

I'm an advocate for people who don't
have college education to get good

jobs. in the cannabis industry.

That's why I get involved in helping to
legalize that industry.

It's not because I want to make money. I
don't care. I've made my money.

What I care about is creating jobs for
the unemployable. That's what I care

about.

The moral of the story, I don't think
there's a simple moral to this story.

My life was filled with adventure and
excitement and challenges.

I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Ha ha ha ha.