Original subtitles

I didn't even know what cannabis resin was.

I've got five kilos strapped on my back.

Anything going wrong now means you're inside.

This is kamikaze work.

I was addicted to it.

I was suddenly surrounded by armed police.

I'm a martial artist.

Now it's life -saving time.

It's 1993.

My wife, Susan, and I moved to the most beautiful farmhouse in Spain.

We were in Frangirola, which is a seaside town.

on the Costa del Sol.

The Costa del Sol is a bit like the Californian coast, but much, much

more purpose -built for the European holidaymaker.

All the businesses were run by English people.

Most of the pubs, most of the restaurants were run by English people.

My wife and I, we wanted to set up a martial arts business.

We were both black belts.

We're good at teaching and we're good at business.

I got into martial arts when I was about 15 shortly after I left school.

Eventually, I got the sense of adventure and I joined the British Army and

became a combat engineer.

But the martial arts thing stayed with me.

I met Susan at the beginning of the 90s in a martial arts centre.

I fell in love with this girl.

Unfortunately, she fell in love with me.

We wanted to start a new life doing what we do best.

But it didn't quite work out.

We'd found a place that was suitable for us to teach our martial arts.

We met the people who owned this place, a chap called Steve and a chap called

Charlie.

We negotiated the rent, which was really favourable for us. It was really cheap.

We were overjoyed.

It was perfect.

I signed the contract.

Here's the keys.

Thank you very much. We all shook hands. Wonderful.

We considered ourselves to be extremely lucky. There was no way that I could

have known what they were up to.

Six months after we'd started our business, things changed.

Charlie came into the dojo and asked to speak to me privately.

We sat down together.

He then kind of explained that he was now going to more than double my rent

because he had problems with the bank.

I was really flabbergasted, shocked.

I was stuck for how to respond to this.

We'd actually spent everything that we had on building the business.

My world has just collapsed.

I've got an awful thing to do now. I've got to go and tell Sue.

It took me a

few days.

The instant reaction was a shock.

The atmosphere just suddenly becomes terribly unhappy.

It's an awful thing to do, to take somebody's happiness away.

Susie. How on earth are we going to survive?

Susie! How can I possibly make this extra money?

I knew then that I had to do something.

Then I was offered my way out.

Steve called and he said, come on, I'll take you for a coffee.

Hola.

He said, I've got some people in England who I send cannabis resin to.

People who smoke spliffs.

They're doctors, they're policemen, dentists, you name it. They all do it.

I didn't even know what cannabis resin was.

I spent my life in the army and martial art. What the hell's a spliff? I don't

know why, you know.

I don't even know what the stuff is. I don't even know what it looks like. I

don't know what it smells like. I don't know what it does to you.

I can only... I said, what about you taking it across to England?

I was shocked.

Come on.

Trust me.

I've never, ever broken a law.

I've just never done anything wrong.

He said, you know, you're ideal for the job. Nobody would ever suspect you of

doing anything wrong.

They have no reason to.

It was against all of my principles.

Sit down.

But he said, you'll be extremely well paid.

And it's a piece of cake.

Simple, really.

It's the only thing that's been offered.

So I'll do it.

To save the roof over our head.

For me, it was a decision that was totally life -changing.

I was at my lowest point, and he caught me at the right time.

He knew what he was doing, because what had he got? He'd just got himself the

perfect mule.

When I went back home, I wanted to tell Susan.

We didn't have secrets between us.

But this was a necessary secret.

I couldn't share this with her.

I didn't want to implicate her in any way.

So to relieve her of some of the stress, I told Susan that I was going to the UK

to do a martial arts seminar.

and there's a lot of money involved, so don't worry about the rent.

Some weeks later, I went along to the deserted warehouse, which belongs to

Steve, where the drugs were hidden.

Steve told me that we were going to have a neoprene...

suit that will house five kilos of hashish on my back.

And it's super.

My reaction was, well, it'll have to be absolutely perfect.

I went along with it.

But I'm still frightened of the consequences of it getting caught.

Steve lifted out this bag.

That's the stuff.

I'd never seen anything like it before.

They've got this cellophane wrapping on them, and there's a kind of a film of

dust like talcum powder.

The smell was tremendous. It was really overpowering.

That made me feel really nervous.

But the thief said, don't worry, the drug will be treated.

It was dropped in a bucket of bleach.

so that nobody can smell it, dogs can't smell it.

Out of the bleach it's dried, and then it's taped, and taped again.

The neoprene suit had to be close -fitting.

Here it is.

Try it on.

I'd jumped up and down, I'd tested it, I'd walked and jogged around the place,

nothing was coming adrift.

I could look in the mirror and just see that I didn't look any different.

It was a problem to dress and undress, but

I felt, yeah, it's a piece of cake, as long as I don't get frisked.

Steve drove me to Malaga Airport.

We parked the car. We walked from the car.

In walking from the car, he checked me over from behind. Yeah, everything's

perfect. Don't worry, everything's great.

There's hundreds and hundreds of holidaymakers all around the place.

Everybody came to shuffle through to security.

In we went.

Steve going, because he's not part of this anymore.

I've got a certain amount of anxiety, because I'm doing something that I don't

want to do.

I'm mingling with the crowd to go through the metal detector.

The result of anything going wrong now means he is inside.

Your heart is pounding, but I act as normal as possible.

If the Guardia Civil officers physically grabbed me, they'd know instantly what

I had on my back.

I'm in a heightened state of adrenaline.

I walk past the Guardia Civil officers without them suspecting anything.

There's a great relief, but there's still a feeling of we're not out of the

yet.

Then I go to the gate area

to board the aircraft.

And I wait there.

I've still got the trepidation of having this cargo on my back.

When two Guardia Civil officers came walking towards me,

in their green uniforms

and their weapons on their hips, looking at them, waddling towards me.

Here we go.

This handcuff's going to appear any moment.

I was absolutely really breaking it now.

The adrenaline was screaming around.

They came right to me and then they spoke

to this chap sitting next to me who was one of them

in civilian clothes going to UK on his holidays.

Now, I'm worried because here's me sat with five kilos on my back.

next to a Guardia Civil officer disguised as a civilian, who, if he had

me with his elbow, he would have had a very hard feeling, because that was

the cannabis resin was, right there.

There is a feeling of, as he sees me, does he know?

So I kind of moved this way a couple of inches.

Right to the end, nearly falling off the bench, getting away from him.

Eventually, they said their adioses and off they went.

The relief that I experienced then was immense.

The aircraft started to board.

Everybody got up. Everybody wants to be first.

let him go for i don't want anybody behind me maybe accidentally pushing or

feeling what i had on my back so i just followed the end of the queue

three hours later i arrive

in manchester i cleared the aircraft now i am desperate to

get to my destination and take off from the drugs

It was only then that I realised I still had to walk through customs.

I'm going down towards the customs officers who are manning the desks.

I can see people to the left and to the right having their bags rummaged.

I can see also some empty desks, so I could be called.

My heart comes up into my mouth thinking, you fool, you should have

more minutes and then they would have been busy as well.

The first thing that I thought about was trying to run, but this is just going

to make matters worse. I don't want to be noticeable.

So I stay at the same pace as everybody else.

I can't afford to be rushing.

It's killing me.

Just do it.

Eventually, I walked through to the other side without anything happening,

which was a great relief.

I beat the system.

And off I went, into a taxi.

I get into the hotel.

Once I'm in the room, I get undressed, take everything off,

undo the tapes.

I ring Steve.

11 red roses to him means I'm in room 11.

I had to wait.

The contact arrived.

Which in this case was his daughter.

My anxiety is now ceased.

I'd make enough money to pay Charlie three months' rent.

I was buzzing.

It was a thrill.

The next day, I got a flight back to Wengerola.

I arrived home.

It was frustrating because I couldn't give her the good news about... having

this money and having this deal with Steve.

Obviously, the cat had to come out of the bag eventually.

But I wasn't ready for that yet.

It wasn't time.

About three weeks later, Steve asked me if I wanted to do it again.

I've forgotten all about the trepidation and the consequences of being caught.

This is the easiest money I've ever made.

So I said yes.

I should have realised I didn't know anything about the job.

I was green.

On my way through Manchester airport, I was carrying six kilos on my back.

I was one of the first people through because I didn't have any luggage.

It was a silly mistake.

Customs officer called me over.

Panic suddenly appears.

He starts to rummage my bag.

The customs officer, busybody of a man, eagle -eyed and poker -faced.

He questioned me, where are you going?

It seemed as though he suspected me of something.

Something must have triggered his thought.

Maybe it was my appearance.

I told him that I'd arranged to test -drive a motorbike at this shop in

Manchester. There's the business card.

He was looking at me.

He asked me to take my jacket off.

That's it.

The jacket is my cover.

It was game over.

I take the jacket off as best I can without over -exerting.

Very difficult.

I thought he would see the solid mass of cannabis resin on my back

I didn't know what he was going to do

He took my passport and went to

his office

He gave me the passport.

Sorry about that, sir.

Just doing my job.

It gave me an enormous rush.

This sense of great achievement for having beat the system.

I knew I would do it again.

Stephen thought about using a motor car.

The plan would be to leave southern Spain and go across France and then sail

across to England carrying 45 kilos of hashish.

The idea was to cut the fuel tank in two, weld a plate in there, put

back together again so we can have petrol in this side and cannabis resin

this side and there the twin shall meet.

I had to think about this because 45 kilos is much more serious.

But this was a better way of beating the system.

I would get paid something like $30 ,000 to $40 ,000.

Let's give it a go.

I drove across Spain into France.

The drive had been particularly good. Super weather all the way.

It was about nine o 'clock in the evening.

And as I approached this toll road, seemingly from nowhere, there were

armed police.

I wasn't going anywhere.

There was a shot.

They got me out of the car and started work

There's somebody with the bonnet up checking

that There's somebody with the trunk open checking in there

the dog team was working from the other side of the car I Thought they were

being quite specific about what they were doing These people meant business

This chap started to take various bits of equipment out.

He was a mechanic.

Then he took the petrol cap off.

I see the chap put the probe into the petrol tank.

I was internally freaking out.

I've got 45 kilos of hashish in the fuel tank.

My heart was in my mouth.

I've got the feeling that something has made them pick on me.

When he withdrew the probe, wiped it clean,

I realised he didn't see anything

untowards.

The relief was immense.

I've escaped again.

When I got home, Susan and I were having a meal.

The wine that I was drinking, it was an expensive drop of wine that I was...

Treating myself too.

It must have raised her eyebrow.

And so she questioned me.

What are you up to?

What's going on?

There's something happening that I don't know about.

So I just said, look, I've been taking cannabis resin.

to England.

This is how I've got this money.

It was really a great shock to her that I had actually been breaking the

law.

Even though it was to save RuPaul, but I had... That seemed not to matter

once the truth was out.

She was obviously... She was against it.

because of that.

I thought, enough is enough.

With the money that I'd made, I no longer had to rent the dojo from

Charlie and Steve knew exactly what they were doing.

They coerced and put me into the trap, and I fell for that.

So it was adios, Charlie, and adios, Steve.

There was a feeling of good riddance.

But because of the thrill I was getting out of smuggling, I

realised I was addicted to it.

This is so easy.

I was going to continue to do it.

Now... It was sheer ego In

less than a year I became a

fully fledged cannabis smuggler It

is an enormous trade It

is an industry far beyond what anybody could think

I was running back and forth to Spain on various aircraft through various

airports with kilos of cannabis resin on my back, driving to northern England

umpteen times over the Pyrenees Mountains across France.

I spent 12 years in the army, the drug smuggling business.

It was just like another army adventure.

The martial arts business was taking second place. Susan was actually

More than me.

She knew what I was doing, but that aspect of life was my business.

We love each other more than anything.

But you do your job, love, and I'll do mine.

I was becoming a freelance operator.

People who I meet along the way came to know me and trust me because I visited

them many times to take their supply.

One of them, a Spanish gypsy by the name of Lito, asked me if I could sail.

I said yes, because during my military career, I learnt to sail. The salt craft

and things like this.

They needed somebody to go across to the Moroccan coast, pick up the tons of

cannabis resin, and bring it back here.

It's only about a dozen miles away.

For me.

It was a major adventure.

I said yes.

We set off in darkness before midnight

because the police and the Guardia Civil were always patrolling the bars at that

time.

The wind was in my face and the adventure had started.

Lito knew exactly where to go.

This was unknown territory to me. This was a new stretch of water. I'm going to

an unknown destination. I'm meeting people who I believe to be armed and

dangerous. And I know that there's no swimming back.

Eventually, I could see breakers landing on the beach. The only noise was the

water hitting the beach.

As we landed out of the scrub...

Suddenly came all of these people with guns and bales of hashes.

Butterflies were really screaming around.

A tonne was put on board.

It was loaded in moments.

There was a tap put over it.

It was time to go.

We pushed back out to sea to get back to the Spanish coast.

On the way back, I'm looking for lights, moving lights, that could be patrol

boats.

I was thinking, here I am with the tonneau on board.

If I'm going to get caught, this is where I'm going to get caught.

Let's get ashore and get this stuff off.

I want to go home.

This is Kamikaze work.

As we approach the Spanish coast, the adrenaline is so powerful,

it gives you tunnel vision.

When we hit the beast, I felt really, really relieved.

They surrounded me with a wad of money.

I actually didn't care about that money.

I was thinking, I can't go through all that again.

But... Propositions were still coming thick and fast.

There was a day that one of my contacts came to the Finca.

Paco was an estate agent. That was his front.

In the meantime, he was a hashish smuggler and dealer.

Paco had a problem. He

had this deal

of delivering 500 kilos of hashish to

Burgos in the north of Spain the following day.

And the driver had disappeared.

The gang that he had got himself involved with I threatened to kill him

family should he not deliver the goods.

That was his dilemma.

I had question marks. I was dubious.

But I decided to help him.

Had Susan known about what I was doing, there would have been an almighty row

and probably I wouldn't have done it.

But again, I didn't tell Susan about this because

I thought it would have brought too much anxiety home.

It was a decision that for me was totally life -changing.

When I started out the next day,

I was worried.

There was no preparation and planning here.

And I can only hope and pray that they have taken all of the precautions that I

would have done.

I arrived at the farmhouse where everything was to be loaded.

Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Packle was a mixture of nervousness and relief.

We loaded the bus with the bales of hashish and

we manipulated the bales under the seats where we could.

Where they couldn't go under the seats, they had to stay in the aisle.

We got the 500 kilos in there and then we covered it with travel rugs and a few

cartons of odds and ends, just cartons, just to camouflage it.

It's impossible to effectively hide 500 kilos in such a small vehicle.

If I was stopped and checked, it was game over.

Paco had another vehicle because he was riding ahead of me, so that should he

run into trouble, he can immediately telephone me.

And so off went Paco.

This was when I really thought to myself, you fool.

I really should have taken note of my own instincts. I should have left it

Paco. But I thought, OK, there's a reason for everything.

The reason for doing this is to save Paco and his family.

So off I went, ten minutes behind him.

There was nothing out of the ordinary with the drive.

I was kind of looking in my rear view all the time and making sure that there

was nothing going on behind me.

Everything was fine.

Suddenly, my phone rang.

It was Paco.

Paco said, pull into Junction 13.

I said, no, Paco, I'm not pulling into Junction 13.

It's a bad idea for us to be together.

He then pleaded.

He then said, look, people who are running the operation are at Junction

Don't drive past Junction 13. This is where we need to be.

So with that, I thought, well, there's something wrong here.

I don't want to meet these people. They've nothing to do with me. I don't

them to see my face.

However, it seems there's no getting out of this.

It had to happen.

All right.

Goodbye, Paco.

Eventually, I approach.

Junction 13.

And then I saw two cars in front of me.

I put my brakes on.

That was a moment that, clang, something's happened.

I was in grave danger. There were men with weapons.

I started to panic.

Time to get out.

This is my survival instinct.

I'm off.

I was looking for a means of escape.

There is this hotel building not too far away.

I run into this entrance on the side of this place.

It was under construction.

It was deserted.

I was just determined to escape.

I'd seen cars in the car park behind.

That's the best escape route.

So I tried these doors.

But everything was locked in desperation trying these doors. I was just thinking

of just escape.

None of them would open.

The final door didn't open.

I turned around to go back the way I came.

As I was doing this, five men came in with guns,

pointing at me.

instantly there is a bodily reaction of panic.

You don't know what is going to happen next.

I'm in trouble now.

All thoughts of escape and evasion have now disappeared. I had no other option

than to put my hands above my head and say, tranquilo, hombres, por favor.

Calm down. I'm not going anywhere.

I'm all yours.

My heart is pounding.

And then the handcuffs came out.

I realised they were the police.

They then attacked me.

They kind of wore themselves out, giving me this beating.

They were saying the words, which means black belt. They knew I was a martial

artist. I was totally helpless.

I didn't realise this yet, but the police, they had been listening to each

every telephone call Paco had made.

Paco telling me to pull into Junction 13 was great news for them because that

gave police...

all the time they needed to set an ambush.

It's my fault. I should never have taken Paco's proposition.

My first instinct on entering the caravan child was monstrous trepidation.

I was injured and I was in a confused state of mind.

My thoughts were tumbling through my brain.

As I was being escorted to my cell, I didn't see anybody else.

These were lonely corridors.

There's just the smell of old concrete and murmurings, distant

noises of men.

Very strange feeling.

This was my first experience in prison.

I was then prodded into the cell.

The occupants were two Algerians.

We shook hands.

And they made me welcome.

When I cry to sleep, this is when everything falls in on you.

I was worried about my Susan alone on a hillside in southern Spain.

I'm now becoming conscious of the consequences of what I've been up to.

Once Susan discovered where I was, I wouldn't allow her to visit me.

I wouldn't allow her to see the conditions that I was in.

The sensation is of total helplessness.

I am the cause. I am to blame.

One of the worst days of my life.

The daily routine in the prison was up in the morning

and then exercise.

Then everybody's ushered out into the yard.

To begin with, I was looking for other Englishmen.

There wasn't anybody there.

I was just a foreigner surrounded by other foreigners.

It didn't occur to me that they could be my enemy.

One day I'd started walking around the yard.

Suddenly, from behind, somebody grabbed my elbow and then asked me,

he wanted me to buy him a coffee.

I just said no.

He produced a nine -inch long shank.

Now it's life -saving time.

He lunges at me.

My instincts took over

His

friend went to pick up the shank

I'm in a heightened state of adrenaline

They all looked at me. They all knew the lone Brit is a serious person because

I'm a martial artist That's how I survived in prison

I

Missed Susan

24 hours of the day.

I'm sure I missed her when I was asleep.

It was a continuing, prolonged sadness

that lived within me.

We conversed daily with each other by mail.

This kept our bond

Live and strong.

Every day that I was in prison, I wrote a letter.

She was supportive in every way.

Because of this, I started to write journals of prison life and of the

life.

The writing particularly helped to get it off my chest.

helped therapeutically, if you like.

She never, ever complained.

There was never, you shouldn't have done this.

I told you so. There was never any of that at all.

Everything was from the heart.

Everything was support.

Everything was love.

I was finally released in the year 2000.

Susan was waiting for me.

This was absolutely the most important day of my life.

The moment I see her face, the world changed.

In that instance, the world changed.

And it was an unforgettable moment when we embraced.

I was totally oblivious to everything around me.

Now life begins again.