Original subtitles

I needed $3 ,000 a month for the mortgage to complete my home.

Johnny said, I'm going to pay $10 ,000 American dollars.

This isn't an answer to my problem.

I can't believe I'm even considering buying cocaine from a Peruvian police

officer.

This is just getting way out of control.

I was scared to death.

I'm in really big trouble.

This was a life or death situation.

My biggest fear was that I would never see my children again.

I had to plan an escape.

In 2004, I had a very good life.

I was 43 years old.

I was married to my second husband.

We were very happy together. We loved each other a lot.

We used to ride motorcycles.

I loved the feeling of freedom.

I had three children by my first husband.

My daughter lived with me and my two other children lived with their dad.

We just had a really great time in life.

And then my whole world falls apart.

I lost my job.

I was pretty devastated.

Little did I know that my life would actually get... Worse after that.

On Christmas Eve, my husband left me.

Now I'm by myself and trying to figure out how I'm going to come up with almost

$3 ,000 a month for the mortgage so I can keep my home.

It kind of slipped into a bad depression.

I didn't know how I was going to do with anything, how I was going to function.

All these things just affected me to the point I couldn't go out and look for

work. I just wasn't up for it.

I got in touch with friends from Austria.

Johnny and Biggie.

They were friends with me and my second husband for many years.

I was telling them, Billy and I broke up.

They felt bad for me and they said, we're buying you a ticket to come over

visit. You need to get away from your life there because it's too depressing

you. That would be great.

And so I thought, oh, this is a great idea. I'll go to Austria and get away

the ugly scene here.

Hi, it's Ruthie.

I called my daughter's father, my first husband, to come and pick her up.

Then I go to Austria.

Johnny is a tattoo artist. They have a tattoo studio.

Thanks for having me here.

They were kind of watching out for me and making sure that I was okay.

We were talking about my inability to pay my mortgage on my house at almost $3

,000 a month.

Things are a little rough right now.

Then Johnny started telling me about a business idea that he had.

that involves bringing something back from Peru.

What kind of stuff?

He says it is cocaine.

I would be transporting cocaine.

I'd seen the movie Midnight Express.

I was a little bit scared about that kind of thing. I knew there was risk

involved.

But Johnny said, well, I'm going to pay $10 ,000 American dollars.

$10 ,000 is a pretty fair amount of money when you haven't worked for a long

time.

And he says, I got a guy down there who's going to take one of these

And he's going to put some cocaine inside of the mattress.

So you wouldn't be able to see, like, a package.

Totally flat.

And it looks just like it came from the factory.

It goes through airport security. You can't see a thing.

I mean, the dogs wouldn't smell anything.

And all you got to do is bring the mattress back.

It's full proof, right?

Easy job.

$10 ,000, right?

I thought to myself, I can have money to pay my mortgage.

Getting myself out of the mess I was in today.

You want to do the job?

It sounded like a foolproof message.

So I'm like, hell yeah.

Great.

Deal.

So a month later, I set off on this crazy job.

I arrived in Lima.

A little apprehensive.

I'd never been to South America before.

I was doing something I've never done before and didn't know exactly what to

expect.

Johnny's proving a contact.

Juan was waiting for me with the sign with my name on it.

Went and greeted him like we were old friends.

We got in a taxi.

And as we're driving along, I just remember looking at so much rundown

buildings. I didn't like it too much.

I started thinking, why am I here?

I don't want to stay here too long.

Juan took me to a hotel to stay in.

Told me I would be in Peru maybe a week or so, give or take.

I'll call you later.

Just until all the business was settled.

While we were waiting for everything to go through, I would go out and find

things to do.

There was an awesome bar right near my hotel, and it was a heavy metal club.

I had the best time there.

Then the next day, Juan came to my hotel.

He was carrying a backpack.

He was kind of funny because he always called it special stuff.

Johnny had told me how we were going to do it. It was going to be like spread

out, but when I unrolled the mattress, it was actually

all in one spot at one end of it.

Watch this.

I started to kind of get worried at that point that it could possibly show up.

I didn't know what to do at that point.

I was terrified.

It was right before I was catching my flight.

I was just going to have to take it like it was.

I just had a bad feeling about things to come.

When I arrived in the Lima airport, there was a lot of police

with guns and dogs.

So I'm starting to get pretty nervous.

I had to go through the security, and I didn't like the way the mattress looked.

I started to kind of get worried at that point that it could show up when it

went through the x -ray machine.

I'm watching the people that are inspecting the x -ray screen to see if

any change in their expression.

Suddenly the conveyor belt stopped.

They looked closer.

I was very nervous inside. I thought my heart was going to beat right out of my

chest.

This was a life or death situation.

It could get very bad.

I'm watching the person who is scanning my bag, which contains a kilo of pure

cocaine, hoping that as it went through, it wouldn't look suspicious.

I was scared to death at that point.

And then finally, my bag comes through.

That was a relief.

Then I'm home free. I'm ready to go get on the plane.

Vienna was probably one of the most relaxed airports I've ever been in.

Nobody came and approached me or hassled me.

I got off, went and got my luggage and out of the airport.

How was it? Everything smooth? Everything fine?

Great. Johnny seemed very pleased and very happy.

I feel great.

Thanks, Booty.

I've just made $10 ,000.

After I got paid for this trip, I got my mortgage company off my back.

I called you.

And I was ready to go and make some more money.

Over the next three and a half months, I made two more trips.

I wouldn't exactly call it easy money because it is a very nerve -wracking

But everything went like clockwork.

As soon as I got paid, I would go back to the United States, pay the mortgage,

and spend some time with my children.

It was my third trip when things started to go wrong.

I was carrying two kilos of coke, and I was probably getting a little bit

complacent because everything was going nice and smoothly.

Suddenly, a couple of scary -looking guys with guns approached me.

I've seen you here several times, you know, while you've been to Lima so many

times.

Oh my God, I'm carrying a big bag full of drugs over my shoulder while I'm

talking to a cop.

I have to be cool.

When I say I just come up with something off the top of my head.

I'm selling tattoo supplies.

We have a tattoo company in Europe.

I can't be...

acting all weird or nervous and start sweating or anything like that because

it'll be a dead giveaway I'm doing something wrong.

So I pull up my sleeve.

They kind of scanned over my tattoos and looked at them.

And they just accepted it.

I was like...

Narrow escape.

I was worried that they were paying too much attention to me now.

I thought to myself, maybe it's time to take a break.

No.

But my financial situation is still not good.

It was just too hard to catch up with all the months I was behind.

I started getting letters from the mortgage companies that threatened the

foreclosure.

I didn't know what I was going to do.

And then Johnny called and said, I need you to go again.

It was dangerous.

But I didn't want to lose my house.

I thought about, yeah, okay, so I go to work for one week, I get 10 grand.

Yeah, I got that.

So it was back to going to work and paying the mortgage.

This time when I got to Lima, things didn't work out so well.

I told Juan that I needed a kilo, and I gave him $2 ,000.

He told me that there was a crooked cop.

He suggested that one buy the coke from him.

I'm not sure if he was just trying to sell a kilo of coke and make some extra

money, or if he was really trying to set us up. I

can't believe I'm even considering buying cocaine

from a Peruvian police officer.

But if I came home empty -handed, I wouldn't get paid and I would lose my

I

had to go

ahead and make a deal.

This is just getting way out of control.

The more that Juan spoke with him, he got the idea that it was going to be a

deal.

That this cop could be trying to set us up.

At

the

last minute, I decided there was too much at risk.

I canceled the whole transaction.

I don't want to do it. No.

So I did not make a dime on this trip.

I decided pretty much that I didn't really want to do this anymore, and

it was really time to get out.

After that was probably one of the worst times of my life.

The mortgage company, when you get so far behind, they order the foreclosures.

My daughter helped me move out of the house and pack up all my stuff, and that

was hard.

My daughter took it pretty hard, too.

Don't worry, honey.

My kid is back on her feet.

My daughter went back to her father's house in Miami.

I had nowhere to move to. I was pretty much homeless.

I needed to get some money fast.

And then Johnny called.

I was in such a bad situation.

I decided I'd do it one last shot, and then that was it. No more.

From the

get -go, I had a bad feeling about this one.

And when they gave me my boarding pass, they wrote a red magic marker quite

large.

I don't know what it really meant.

I should have listened to my gut feeling.

When I got over to the security entrance, they looked at my

boarding pass.

And they said, oh, no, you go over on this side. Please, wait here.

And I'm like, oh, God, what now?

The police come up to me. Are you Ruthie Lambert? And I'm like, yeah, come with

us.

I was...

Very nervous inside.

So they put me in a little room.

Then they pull all my stuff out of my suitcase.

They started asking me a lot of questions. What is your job?

What I've been doing in Europe, what I've been doing in Lima.

And the police didn't really believe me.

And they come out with these big pads and they start wiping everything down to

see if there's any drug residue on there.

Like they thought that I was trying to smuggle drugs out of the Miami airport.

But my things were clean.

But I realized that if the American police are on to me, obviously I'm

becoming... Hot.

It was really time to get out.

I told Johnny.

I don't want to do this anymore.

Like, fine, fine, if you want it to be your last trip, that's fine. Just get

this one taken care of.

Yeah, this will be the last one.

I should not have gone.

Goodbye.

Hindsight's 20 -20, but it's too late for that now.

On this trip, I was picking up three kilos.

Now I had to package it myself.

I didn't have very much time and I had a lot of work to do.

Sprayed it up in a big, giant tub.

Then put it inside of the food saver bag.

Sucked the air out.

Seal it.

Another bag.

Duck the air out.

Seal that one up.

I needed to stay awake as long as I could.

Next, I still had the mattress.

Cut the end off.

Slit the foam.

Open it up.

Plus the cocaine inside.

But three kilos was way too much to try to stuff inside of one mattress.

It was so fat with cocaine that

it was really difficult to roll my mattress up.

And I started to get worried at that point.

I was supposed to be on my way to the airport.

It wouldn't even fit inside of the sleeve.

It was a real job to get it inside of the backpack.

I was afraid it could potentially give it away.

But there was no time to go and redo it over again.

I was very late.

So I was just going to have to take it like it was.

And that was probably the worst decision of my life.

And even though I was still having a bad feeling about the trip, I just kept

telling myself that I'm being nervous.

for nothing this is just like any of my other trips it was going to be fine

we drive up to the departures

and i open up my door suddenly a guy like a porter he ran across

said hey put your stuff on a trolley

The alarm bells start going off in my head that this is different.

And all my times that I've been here, they've never come out to greet me with

baggage cart.

I was getting definitely kind of spooked over all this different behavior.

Everything did not feel right, but I told myself I was being overly nervous

no reason. I'd done this so many times and everything had gone fine, but I just

felt very unsettled.

I walk inside the airport.

I'm already starting to think that there's other things brewing besides me

late.

The porter who has my baggage is standing off to my right, and he's got a

of police officers with guns and dogs walking around my suitcases.

I was really nervous.

I walked up to the check -in counter and gave them my passport and my ticket.

I could see them continuing to move around the luggage.

I was so scared.

I could have walked away.

Suddenly the cops come up.

They say we'd like to search your luggage.

Okay.

I was... feeling very apprehensive

they wanted to see my backpack and

i'm terrified they pull out the mattress and they're kind

of looking at it i was just standing there watching them

one cop gets out some sharp kind of device and stabs at it

my stomach was definitely

upside down at this point.

There's nothing on it.

I'm like secretly smiling to myself that they didn't find anything.

And so I'm thinking they're going to let it go.

Nope, he stabbed it again.

And I'm like, oh God.

Pulls it out and he looks at it.

Still nothing on it.

So I'm, like, starting to really smile inside, and I'm trying to keep the smile

from creeping out of my face.

He stabbed it a third time.

I see it come out.

It's coated with all white powdery stuff at the end.

It felt like a 50 -story building crashed inside of my stomach.

Well,

that's the end of that.

And they handcuffed me to the chair.

They said, you're being charged with drug trafficking.

I was in shock.

They leave you handcuffed to the chair for about 14 hours.

I went through a million moments of regret that night.

If I should have listened to my gut feeling, I should not have gone.

I was thinking about my kids and how much I missed them.

I started to think about, oh, my God, what I'm going to tell my family.

I'm in huge trouble.

I have no idea what the penalty is going to be.

I'm sure it's prison, but I have no idea for how long.

I was so miserable.

i couldn't believe i was in prison they give you a mattress and find a place to

sleep people were in

there for stealing armed robbery drugs murder was

horrible it was smelly it was dirty i just thought about where i was and where

was going to be for a long time and that i would not be in contact with anyone

that I care about or love.

There was a phone there.

So I called my daughter.

Hi, baby.

That's Mom.

She's frantic with worry about me because she hadn't heard from me in so

I was really in a lot of pain inside because I had hurt her so much.

The only thing I could tell her was that I loved her and that I was sorry.

I didn't know how long I would go away.

I was just telling her that I was really sorry.

And I didn't mean to hurt her, and I'm sorry I let her down and disappointed

her.

You know, I ran out of time, and we had to hang up.

Six years and eight months, that's a long time.

I wouldn't see...

my children, my family, my friends.

I was devastated, knowing I'm going to be suffering for years and years and

years, you know, the horrors of a foreign prison.

I didn't know that it would get a lot worse.

I started to notice some small bumps around my eye.

They looked like almost like small pimples or something like that.

Every day a new one would grow and every day they would get a little bit larger.

Five years earlier I had had breast cancer.

I knew that my cancer had returned.

I was getting very, very sick, and I was also losing a lot of weight.

I was very weak.

I knew that if I didn't get back to America soon and get some medical

intervention, I was going to die very soon.

I figured I was looking at probably the beginning of 2012 before I would

actually be able to return to the United States.

And I knew with the health problems I was having, I wouldn't make it.

My biggest fear in the whole world was that I would die in Peru, never

see my children again, and never see my family again.

I was very scared more than anything that that would happen.

I had to make my way out of Peru any way that I could.

I had to plan an escape.

I had a lawyer who knew somebody that could help me get out of the country.

The cost of escaping Peru would be 2 ,000 U .S. dollars.

My sister sent me the money.

He'd done this before, so I took his word, but I was still a little bit

apprehensive. We are right here, okay?

He would drive us out of the country into Ecuador.

What's the border like?

It's like a small marketplace.

You just walk through.

You walk across the border? That's it. You walk through.

My lawyer got my passport back.

There was a strange mark on the back of it written in like a white paint.

And I'm sure this is something that the Peruvian police put on it to kind of red

flag people's passports when they've been arrested.

I took like a dark colored pen and scribbled all over it so it would

blend in a little bit better with the cover of my passport.

Just in case, you know, it kind of stuck out when I went through any airports.

I was ready to go, and we left a few days later.

My escort and the sister -in -law picked me up, and we got on a postal road that

headed north towards Ecuador.

I was feeling very nervous and very apprehensive about the whole trip.

I didn't know what would happen when we got to the border. I didn't know what

would happen when I got to the airport.

I was very weak.

My stomach constantly hurt.

Constantly I was in pain.

I was just hoping that I would make it back to America in time to save my own

life.

Hours and hours later, we're out in the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly, there was police officers out in the road flagging cars over.

I'm really scared because I don't know if they're going to find something wrong

with my passport.

I get sent back to Lima and have to go back to prison to die.

The police came up and asked my escort for identification and driver's license.

I just sat very quietly in the back,

hoping that he would let me go.

The cops looked over at me.

I was so scared.

At that point, I thought, oh, my God, it's all over.

He was going to ask to see my passport.

Notice that there was that white writing from the Peruvian police on the back.

But he didn't say anything.

He waved us ahead, and everything was fine.

Stay open.

I was so happy to be out of there.

Finally, we stopped not too far from the border, which was the middle of a big

marketplace.

My escort explained that we would walk through the marketplace.

When we got to the other side, that we would be in Ecuador.

I was very apprehensive because there's always lots of police, lots of guns at

any border. So I couldn't believe we would be able to cross so easily.

This was a big do or die day.

If I didn't make it, I would never see my children again.

It was probably almost a mile from one end of the marketplace to the other.

All the way down, I was just waiting for the police or somebody to stop me.

I'm so weak, I'm afraid I'm just going to keel over and pass out if something

bad starts to happen.

And then in front of us was like a big banner that hung across the marketplace.

Signed it, you are leaving Peru and entering Ecuador.

I couldn't believe it.

There was no police anywhere.

I was elated as I walked under the sign.

I'm not even going to look over my shoulder. I never want to see that

again.

I can't even describe how happy I was to actually have finally walked out of

Peru.

I couldn't believe it.

I didn't know what to do at that point.

I was so scared that we were going to end up being arrested and thinking

it's over again, you know? I mean, I can't believe it.

I didn't want to be showing anyone my passport.

If they run my name, maybe they'll come back. I'm supposed to be in Lima.

They would arrest me and send me back to prison, and I would die in there.

We walked into the Border Patrol place, and we walked up to one of the

windows.

The guard looks at my friend's passport and he starts flipping through and he's

like, where's your stamp for leaving Peru?

I didn't get my passport stamped on the way out. I didn't even think about it.

So the man says, well, you need to have your passport stamped when you leave

Peru before you come into Ecuador.

I was scared to death. I thought that they were going to arrest me and send me

back to Peru.

My friend walked into this little office with the man he was talking to.

And I was really freaking out.

I was afraid to go in this room. I knew I was going to end up in handcuffs.

I heard him asking him, so what's it going to take to straighten this out? He

says, you know, we need to get our passports down.

The guard says, oh, it's the both of you.

So now I'm terrified he'll flip my passport over and notice that white

from the Peruvian police.

My friend pulled out a crisp $100 bill, and he says, well, $100 would be enough.

I just stood there in the doorway frozen.

I was so scared that we were going to end up being arrested for bribing cops.

I'm thinking that, oh my God, it's all over.

The guy took it, stuck it in his pocket.

He took both of our passports and they got stamped.

Then he handed him back to us.

I'm so relieved. I was crying.

Trying to walk so calm, but I just wanted to run.

And I can't keep from grinning. I got an ear -to -ear grin.

When I landed in Miami after all these years, I was in tears.

My daughter and my youngest son came to the airport to pick me up.

I was like trying not to get too emotional because they don't know what

been through. They don't know how sick I am. They don't know the experience I've

had to live through for the last few years of my life and how happy I am to

in my country, in my city.

I was so emotional. I almost got out and kissed the ground.

My cancer has spread through my body.

It can't be operated on. It can't be removed. It's going to be there. It's

going away.

The only thing they can do is try to control it and try to prolong my life.

The price that I paid is way more than I ever made out of drug trafficking.

I didn't just end up in prison.

I ended up with a death sentence.

Knowing that I could die in a foreign prison made me realize what's really

important in life. And it's not money. It's not houses or material things.

It's spending time with family, friends, loved ones.

And every day that I get to spend with them, to me, now, is precious.