Original subtitles

I had never been out of the U .S. before, never to any place like this.

She was a great little girl.

I fell in love with her right away.

$13 ,000 to go to Peru and bring back three kilos of coke.

You just come down and protect me.

You helped do it! He could have just basically pulled out the gun and just

me right there. You were set up.

You know, how the heck am I going to get away with this? This is just so much

coke.

All I want to do is check in.

Get the hell out of here.

Please let me go. I'm just a stupid kid.

I had no idea how I was gonna be able to get through this.

I was 20, getting any job I could get, anything I could pretty much do to make

some money.

Then my great -grandfather died.

He lived in Florida, in Key Largo.

So I went with my grandfather down to the Keys to help clean up his estate.

We were only going to go down there for a week or two.

Once we hit Florida, we got the palm trees.

You got the ocean almost the whole trip down.

It was great.

It was beautiful as could be. I mean, something you see on TV.

You know, first one -year -old kids, you know, those women in bikinis, the white

sandy beaches and the palm trees.

It was just like paradise.

I decided I wanted to stay.

I found my new home. This is where I wanted to be.

I went up to the marina.

and asked him if I could get hired on.

Hey, what's going on? Hey, how you doing, partner? Hey, my name's Russell.

guy had a parasail boat, and he was looking for deckhands.

He said he could get me trained in just a couple of minutes. It was really easy.

It was fun.

I mean, I had a blast. I got to meet people every day.

Great girl from all over the world, Australia and Japan and everywhere else.

There was another deckhand already there. His name was Mike.

He was a great guy, always joking.

He became a really good friend of mine.

I realized I was living in paradise.

You know, life was easy and simple.

I just wish I had kept it that way.

I went to work one day, getting the boat ready for that day.

This girl walked by. She was crying.

We hollered over to her.

We wound up being Kim, a friend of Mike's.

He said her husband had just beat her up.

She was a great little girl.

She was 17 years old at the time.

She was this natural redhead, great red hair, real pale skin, little bikini top

and her shorts. She looked great.

And I fell in love with her right away.

I don't have anywhere to stay. I'm going back down. I'm too scared.

Well, hey, I got a trailer just up off the beach, you know? I gave her the key

to my trailer and told her she can go there and hang out if she wanted.

Now we got back to the trailer.

I opened up the door.

And I think he came there on my bed, and she got this mirror.

She's over here cutting up some coke, fixing to snort herself a line.

You want some?

No, thanks.

I've never seen anybody do coke before.

I smoke pot a lot, but I've never seen anybody actually do coke.

So it's kind of intriguing to me.

So you find everything okay?

Yeah.

Knowing what I do now, you know, seeing her do the coke, that should have been

like the first sign to me that, you know, she's trouble.

We sat up and we talked almost all night long.

She decided that night, you know, that she was going to leave her husband. You

know, she didn't need the abusive relationship.

We just started making out, and one thing led to another.

We had sex the first time that night, and it was great.

By the morning, we pretty much assumed each other to be a couple.

The next few weeks, it was great.

We'd hang out, going up to South Beach on the weekends, just partying.

Just having a good old time.

But, you know, the one thing that really bothered me about Kim was the amount of

coke that she was actually doing every day.

We'd be either at a bar or, you know, even McDonald's or whatever, and she'd

just take a real quick snort, and just in plain view of everybody, I just

couldn't believe it.

She'd go a little nuts on it sometimes.

Then

one

day, Kim turned around and told me and Mike that she met this one guy in a club

in South Beach.

And literally, out of nowhere, out of the blue, the guy offered me $13 ,000 to

go to Peru for two weeks and bring back three kilos of coke.

She could find somebody to go down with her. You know, they'd offer them the

same deal.

I didn't even know where Peru was.

For some reason, I thought it was somewhere over near Africa or Europe or

something. Imagine what you can do with $13 ,000. The first thought that came to

my mind is, you know, getting arrested.

You know, you see on TV in these movies, these Mexican prisons, just real dirty

and violent and everything else. $13 ,000.

Wait, he said it was a guaranteed, okay?

Oh, the guy said? Mike and I both, we just turned around and looked at her and

said, there's just no way, you know, you're nuts.

No way in hell.

Uh -uh.

No way, man. I'm not getting caught up in any of that shit, man.

I don't know, Kevin. You don't have to do anything.

Come on, like I said before, it's a two -week paid vacation.

Over the next couple weeks, you know, she'd ask me over and over again. It's

worth the risk.

Why don't you just come and do it with me? Just think about it.

She didn't want to go by herself because she was afraid that, you know, they

might kidnap her or rape her.

Just come down and protect me.

Then she said... You know what?

I'm going to go anyway, with or without your help.

Let's just hope nothing happens to me, huh?

In a way, she was blackmailing me, you know.

She basically wanted me to go down there, you know, to prove that I loved

I told her, I'm going to go down there with you.

I said, fine, I'll go.

I said, just to make sure you're safe.

I don't want to carry any drugs. No. No, you don't have to carry any drugs.

That's the deal. I promise.

If you look after me. Yeah.

But looking back at it, that was the stupidest decision I've ever made.

A few days later, we go to Miami to go get our passports.

Kim sees her friend, Sixo, over there by the corner.

They supposedly just met, but they look like they were really close friends.

Back then, I didn't think anything of it.

To me, he seemed like a decent guy or whatever, you know. He seemed genuine,

know, his attitude and everything else.

You're going to get the money, easy money, two weeks pay verification.

Then when you get there, everybody's going to take care of you, all right?

Thanks. Well, now get your passport and good luck, guys. Okay.

Take care.

He was really good at doing what he was doing, convincing me how easy everything

is.

But thinking about it, you know, nothing's that easy, and this just

too easy to be true.

I should have just said no and just walked away.

We got off the plane. We expected these guys to be out at the airport to pick us

up.

Well, we didn't see anybody. We sat around. We waited.

And we didn't know what to do.

We didn't really have any money on us.

So we had to spend the night at the airport.

At about 6 .30, 7 o 'clock the next morning, these guys show up.

Well, I saw Kim talking to these guys.

She seemed like she knew what she was doing.

Really relaxed conversation or whatever it is, like she'd done it before.

It kind of surprised me that, you know, she was so comfortable with these guys,

you know, people that neither one of us has ever met.

I had never been out of the U .S. before.

Never to any place like this.

It was almost like going back in time to another planet or something. It was

completely foreign.

They take us to the hotel.

You know,

I'm expecting a nice, you know, the Sheraton or Ramada or something, you

nice big hotel.

They take us to the little rinky -dink motel.

It was real dirty, no running, hot

water or anything. It was just cold water, little room.

The other thing that bothered us is we were promised $100 a day.

It's prudent, man. The first day, they gave us maybe 100 soles, which is the

equivalent to almost $30.

Well, come on, man. That is bullshit. We were promised more money and a better

hotel.

This is the way it is. This is the kind of hotel you're going to be and this is

the money you're going to get.

We were told that we just didn't have a choice in the matter.

Are you okay?

Are you okay with that?

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

About every two or three days, you know, we'd stay in one hotel.

On about the third or fourth day, they'd come and pick us up and move us to

another hotel to a different part of town.

Well, each hotel wound up being a little bit worse than the first or a little

bit cheaper than the next.

Hello, boys.

Hey, guys.

A few days later, they asked us for our passports and our tickets.

You know, we didn't understand that why, you know.

They said, well, they needed to take the tickets and the passports so they can

turn around and get our flight reservations set up for when we, to fly

We just didn't really pay much attention to it. We were more focused on each

other than on our surroundings and everything good or bad that was going on

around us.

Everything was going really good between us, but everything great comes to an

end. This was kind of like the quiet before the storm.

Four days before we were expected to be leaving, they came to the hotel one

morning.

Good morning.

Sit down, please.

There's been a change of plan.

Tonight is your last night together.

Tomorrow we're taking Kim to another hotel. Then we pack her and send her to

Miami.

I started feeling like a cold chill or whatever running down my back.

Originally, we were supposed to leave, you know, the same time together.

And now we were told that, you know, it wasn't possible that she was going to be

leaving three days ahead of me and we were going to be separated.

What about me?

You're staying here three days more.

This is really shady.

You know, this is like the first sign that really clicked into my head that

something just went awfully wrong.

I was afraid that if we did get separated, you know, they could do

anything to Kim.

You know, they'd already described to us how they were going to be suiting her

up. with the drugs, and there was no way I was going to let them do that without

me present.

She's a cute little girl.

They might rape her. They might kidnap her and sell her.

No, no, no way.

Shut up! Shut up, both of you.

They sat there and explained to us if she does get caught, they're going to

her back to her hotel, and if they see my name on the register, they would

arrest me too. So if we were in separate hotels...

There was no way that if she got caught that I would get caught.

Kim turns and looks at me and says... That

made

me feel real uneasy because that

was completely out of her character to say something like that and to change

mind so quickly.

Yeah.

It'll happen to me, right?

You'll be good?

So there you go.

It surprised me, but I trusted Kim, you know, completely.

She's okay, I'm okay.

And so I just ultimately accepted the new plan that they had.

But, you know, thinking back on it, what would a bunch of drug dealers care if I

got caught or not?

I regretted not seeing all these problems ever since.

We spent the last day together, you know, pretty much in the hotel, saying

goodbyes. We were really intimate that day.

It was kind of a sad day.

I sat up watching Kim sleeping that night. It was real peaceful and calm.

Now, this is the girl I loved.

I was really considering to marry and everything. She was just so beautiful

peaceful right at that moment.

It was just something I just didn't want to let go of.

I gave Kim the hotel number.

I made her promise to me that she would call me the second she got there to let

me know everything was okay.

Kim told me that she loved me and that everything would be okay and for me not

to worry too much.

I told her that I loved her too.

She was real clingy. She didn't really feel like going. She didn't want to let

go of me.

She got in the backseat. We said goodbye.

As they drove off, she was looking out the back window, waving.

You could see that she was upset and crying.

It was really sad.

I had no idea that in the next 24 hours, I could be betrayed by the girl that I

loved.

I got up early the next morning, and I was just waiting for Kim to call me. I

mean, I sat there all day just pretty much just waiting on that one phone call

to make sure that she was okay.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

I opened it up.

Where's Kim?

When I saw the gun, I realized that, you know, anything could happen right now.

You know, this guy's never had a gun on him before. And here he is throwing me

around and knocking stuff around.

That's when I first realized that, you know, my safety is really in jeopardy

here. I have nobody now.

This guy could kill me tomorrow and nobody knows really where I'm at.

He finally calmed down a bit, you know, after screaming for a while.

He told me that they took Kim to the airport.

She went inside. She was supposed to check in and pay her airport tax and

come back out where they were going to take her back to the hotel and they were

going to suit her up with a dress and then take her back to the airport.

But they said that she went into the airport and they never saw her come back

out. They didn't know where she was.

My first thought was, you know, she just got scared and just got on the plane

and just left, went back to Miami, you know, saved herself.

She took off on you. That's nothing to do with me.

I turned around and told this dealer that, you know, it's his problem that

had to take off on him.

That's your problem, all right? That's not my problem. And he turned around and

told me that... Now it's your problem.

You understand?

It's your problem now.

You have to go back to Miami with the drugs.

He said that, you know, people have paid money for the drugs.

If I went back and she went back with nothing, you know, there's no telling

they would do to us.

He's got my plane ticket. He has my passport.

I have no money or a hotel.

If you want to see your country again, then you have to take these drugs.

I felt that he could just, you know, basically pull out the gun, shot me

there. I mean, there's nothing to stop them.

You understand now?

You understand now?

I'm going to have to take these drugs. I mean, these guys basically tell me I

either take them or I'm never going to see anything ever again. I won't see the

light of tomorrow.

I really wanted to get back home.

So I pretty much just had to agree and accept it.

I told the guy, okay.

Don't leave the hotel.

I'll be back.

I felt real alone then.

Your fate and your life is in somebody else's hands and you don't have anybody

there to help.

You're pretty much broken. I mean, it's a real lonely feeling.

I still don't know for sure what has happened to Kim.

I mean, I don't know if she's been arrested, you know, if they did put

her and she just got caught.

Maybe she put up a struggle for not wanting to do it and they raped and

her or something.

If Kim had just gotten scared and went back to Miami without taking the drug,

was kind of a relief to me.

But at the same time, how much could she have loved me if she was able to do

that to me?

At this point, all these questions are just racing through my head. I don't

what's going on, and I'm just desperate for her phone call to let me know that

she's okay and to tell me what happened.

I had to wait three days before my flight. I mean, they told me I had to

the hotel, not to leave.

I'm still worried about what happened to Kim.

I just couldn't figure out why she hadn't called me yet.

The last night I was there, I couldn't sleep for anything. I mean, my mind's

worrying about Kim.

I've got to worry about myself.

I've never seen a kilo of cocaine before in my life. Now I've got to take three

of them. I mean, I don't know how much that is. I don't know if that'll

fit on my person or not.

I just don't know what to think anymore.

Every thought just went racing through my mind of getting caught.

Those Mexican prisons and everything else just went through my mind.

And I finally fell asleep.

I don't know what time it was, but it felt like I was sleeping maybe five

minutes.

And this guy just starts knocking on the door.

They told me that they're going to change the way that they do things

what happened with Kim.

They told me that they were going to tape me up first and then drop me off at

the airport.

I watched them pull out one package after another.

When I saw him pull out more than three, I mean, he pulled out a fourth one, and

then a fifth, and then a sixth.

I looked at the guy and I said, he says, no, don't worry about it. He said, this

is only three kilos.

I mean, these guys, they seemed like they were pretty professional about it.

mean, they were really quick about it. They knew exactly how these packages had

to go on.

They seemed like, you know, they knew what to bring. You know, the dog

repellent, just in case the dogs were there and everything else. I mean, it

seemed like they've done this a hundred times.

For me, it was, you know, the biggest thing in my life. The only thing I could

think of, though, is, you know, how the heck am I going to get away with this?

This is just so much coke.

At this point, I thought I was going to get caught for sure.

There's a passport, ticket, and money for the tax. Now go.

You can do it.

There was just no way that I was going to be able to make it through this

airport.

My heart was just racing.

Just nervous as could be. I had that cotton mouth.

Felt a little nauseous.

I was kind of paranoid about everything.

Everybody seemed like they were just staring at me.

They knew exactly what I was there for and what I was doing.

Everywhere I looked, you know, you saw there was a security guard pretty much

every corner.

It was like they knew that I was, you know, carrying all these drugs with me.

The biggest problem I had was trying to walk.

Every time I took a step, you know, the tape would pull against my legs.

The hairs on my legs and my chest, you know, with every movement, it would just

tug on them and just rip one after another.

It was really painful.

I went and I paid my airport tax, got back in line to check in.

This couple in front of me, they were just sitting there arguing, and the only

thing I could think of was just shut the hell up, you know. Here I am, I've got

a half a ton of coke on me.

All I want to do is just... Get the hell out of here.

I got really nervous seeing that I was going to have to go through customs

next.

So I decided, you know, I went to the bathroom first.

It was like the point of no return. I mean, I needed to try to, you know, grit

my teeth and just rip all this stuff off.

Or just go ahead and just follow through with what I'm already doing.

I started picking at the duct tape on my chest just to see how easy it could be

to come off.

And seeing how tightly wrapped it was and how painful it was just peeling that

little bit off, I just knew there's no way I'd be able to take this stuff off

myself.

And then I thought if I got back to Miami and I didn't have the drugs and

didn't take the drugs back, then, you know, what are these guys going to do?

When I saw myself in the mirror, it was like looking at somebody else.

You don't have to do anything. You won't get caught.

I couldn't believe that Kim had gotten me into this kind of trouble.

I still couldn't believe where I was or what I was doing. It was just a surreal

feeling.

Walking from the bathroom to the metal detector and security point.

It seemed like it was taking forever.

You know, each step just seemed like another step backwards.

I was just so damn nervous.

I was sweating like crazy. I could feel it running down my sides.

I mean, the duct tape and the packages just felt like they were just ovens on

me. This is the point of do or die.

If anything goes wrong here, I'm done.

So all I can think of is just, you know, I hope to God that, you know, I can

just pass through. Nothing will go off.

If I can make it past just this one little doorway, I mean, I should be

That's the biggest turning point of the whole thing. I mean, it was pathetic how

nervous I was just to walk through that.

It just started beeping.

It was like a nightmare.

You just know that they're going to pat you down now.

And the second they pat me down, you know, I know they're going to fill all

these drugs on me. That would be the end of it.

I figured, shit, I'm busted.

The security guard tells me, you know, to hand him my jacket and then to step

back through.

I handed him my jacket. I walked back through.

And it didn't go off.

He said, here you go, you're fine.

He didn't want to pat me down or anything, so it was just a big relief.

I mean, it was like the best feeling in the world.

Yeah,

right. I mean, I'd never felt that happy about anything.

I was like, all right, I'm done. I mean, these guys were right, you know.

Six tone, everybody was right. This is a piece of cake. I don't know why I was

so nervous.

I had to wait about an hour, hour and a half before I could board the plane.

I was trying to be like the biggest nobody there was.

They go and they call my flight.

I figure, all right, here's the final couple of steps, you know, no big deal.

I'm on my way, you know, go back home.

As I'm walking along, you know, I just picture my whole life again.

The sand, the sun, the beaches, the women, my work and everything else.

Then I see this other security checkpoint.

I look up and there it is.

But I noticed that it was for carry -on luggage.

And I didn't have any, so I figured, all right, well, this is no big deal, you

know. I'll just walk around it. You know, it's nothing to worry about.

As I start walking around it, I see the one security guard at the end of it.

He casually asks me for my boarding pass.

I handed him my boarding pass. You know, it was no big deal. That's all he

wanted. Thank you.

As he pointed up to the plane.

I felt him touch me with his

other hand.

My heart just sank.

I felt so devastated and lonely and fearful. I mean, I just didn't know what

expect or what to do.

from that moment on.

Time pretty much just stopped for me right then and there.

Sir.

And I turned slowly to look at the guy. Sir.

What is it?

I'll just never forget that moment for the rest of my life. Sir.

It was like disappointing your own father. What is this?

I mean, it's such a terrible feeling. I mean, it was really hard.

What is this?

What is this? What?

That one little tiny touch just got me caught and changed the rest of my life.

Johnny! No, no, wait. Come on, man. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I don't

know.

What is it? What is it?

I don't know.

What is it? I don't know. And I swore up and down that I had no idea what it was

or how it got there.

I mean, I just tried to play dumb.

I figured stupidity is the best plea I had right now.

I was

begging with these guys just to

take these drugs and let me go home.

Just banging with all my might.

Take these drugs.

Nobody has to know.

I've never done anything like this before.

You'll never see me again.

Just please let me go. I'm just a stupid kid.

You know, these guys just look at me and just told me that they can't.

From there, They took me to a security office.

When I started pulling off my jeans, you know, they just, everybody in the room

just got quiet for a minute.

They had no clue that I had these other four packages on me.

Hey, are you crazy? Are you a crazy man?

They just all started laughing just in disbelief that how stupid could this guy

be?

He actually thought he could get away with this.

One security guard pulled out a knife, and he started to split the package.

And the second he cut that package, coke just come pouring out of it.

The

pain,

I mean, it was an excruciating pain every time they went to rip the tape off

me.

I just couldn't believe it was actually happening.

It was like I was seeing it through somebody else's eyes or, you know, from

somewhere else in the room.

Watching those planes take off, it was one of the saddest feelings of my life.

Real devastating to just know that there's nothing you can do about it and

of those planes was yours to go home on.

Then they weighed all of it once they had it all off.

And it was about six kilos of cocaine.

I was devastated. I mean, here I had double the amount of coke that I was

supposed to have had.

Like another knife in the back mile.

As the bus pulls up to the prison, all I see is this huge, huge wall.

To me, it looked like Alcatraz. I mean, it was just this huge, big prison.

You feel like pretty much anything's going to happen. You know, you're not

to survive that long.

They slam the door behind me.

And that was a real bad feeling, you know, the sound of that just iron door

shutting.

You just know that, well, there it goes.

You know, all your freedom just went out the door.

I figured these are the worst of the worst.

Now I'm being forced to, you know, basically spend the rest of my life with

these guys.

You know, I have to, you know, try to figure out how to keep one eye open. You

know, this guy just killed somebody yesterday, you know.

Or this guy just got done raping somebody yesterday.

I was put into a cell with two other Americans, Danny and Sean.

It was a small cell, had two bunks.

I had to sleep on the floor.

I had no idea how I was going to be able to get through this.

After about three days in prison, I was able to make my first phone call.

I was able to call my mother, collect.

I'm sorry, Mom. Okay.

The first thing I said to my mother was, when she answered the phone, was that I

was sorry and that I loved her and just not to worry. I'd be okay.

She said she loved me, too.

I'm really sorry.

She told me she had talked to the embassy.

She's got a lawyer that's going to help me out.

And for me not to worry.

Pretty much all the foreigners were in there for the same thing, you know,

drugs.

But they wanted to know how I did it, you know, what I did wrong, where I was

carrying them, stuff like that.

I'm turning away with my ticket. He's showing me where the plane is.

Danny was listening.

He was paying a lot of attention to what I was saying.

He was an experienced dealer. You know, he's done this several times before.

Right away, Danny turns around and tells me, You were set up.

You were definitely set up. It's a classic. Think about it.

Man, when I was dealing back in New York, I had girls just like that.

I used to pay them to have guys fall in love with them.

Offer them to come take a trip over here so they could take some drugs back.

After they're in love, they'll do it quick.

You know what I'm saying?

At first, I just, I was like, no way.

That's right. You didn't know this girl.

That's what you think. That's what you think, bro. That's what you think. She

didn't love you, bro. She got paid for that. It's all about money.

She got paid. She got paid to make you love her.

It's all about the money, dog.

And happy.

Because where is she now?

At first, I didn't want to believe it.

But that idea of her just betraying me, it stuck with me. And slowly but surely,

you know, I could remember things of when we first met.

How fast we got hooked up.

It started to become a real possibility that, you know, well, maybe he's right.

Here you go.

Not him.

Yeah, I'll be fine.

I started piecing things together, and it kind of fit, like a jigsaw puzzle.

Every piece had its spine.

It was really hard. It was like a stab in the heart with a knife.

It made me feel like a complete idiot.

It broke my heart to even think of it, that she'd be able to do that.

It sounded like an eternity.

Almost felt sick to my stomach.

It seemed like it was going to just take forever to make eight years go by.

A day or two after I got sentenced, I figured out that my eight years, with

served and good behavior, would be reduced to almost three years.

And I just decided, hey, I have to do it, so I might as well just bite the

bullet and get the time over with.

The second I walked out those doors, you know, I just looked up and you could

just see for miles.

It was a really good feeling.

It just made the world just seem that much bigger.

Seeing those doors closing was about the happiest feeling of my life.

Knowing that that was over with, I was free.

In prison, I realized that everything's got a plus side to it. For every

downside, there's a plus.

Even my time spent in prison, something good came out of it.

I met my wife.

The woman I love.

You know, after all these years, you know, there's still, you know, I still

feelings for Kim. I think I'm always going to be curious on if she did truly

love me or not, or if it was just a complete betrayal.

I've tried tracking her down once or twice. I couldn't do it.

One of the big mysteries of this whole thing is the day that Kim went to the

airport.

There's a lot of different scenarios that keep going through my head.

One of them is, you know, if she did just get scared and get on the plane and

leave.

Or if she had taken the drug back and they just tried getting me to take more

drugs back.

I don't want him to do it anymore.

If you're not doing this, you know what's going to happen to you?

Or Kim might have betrayed me.

But the whole time that we were together, she was, you know, had fallen

with me. And having to betray me was tearing her up inside.

And the other one is the hardest one to believe. But I can imagine her going to

the airport with these two guys, you know, just laughing it up, knowing that

there to take the drugs back.

Well, she goes home and finds another sucker to come back in a couple weeks,

know, and to do the whole thing all over again.

This thing with Kim, it's like a mystery in my life. It's just an unfinished

chapter.

And I just don't know if it'll ever be closed.

We hook up with Donald McIntyre next as he takes in the police control rooms of

Leeds where they're monitoring drunken revellers and a potential suicide in

cities.