Original subtitles

What is this? I'm sitting with a couple of killers of cocaine.

I was getting into something that I shouldn't be.

They were setting me up.

What are you doing here?

I just decided for myself this wasn't cool.

There was going to be some form of retribution.

These are your options.

Body parts or your family.

If you don't stop now, you're going to die.

This is the end of the road for you, dude.

I was 41 years old.

I lived in a very nice area of Cape Town.

Although my wife and I were separated at that stage, my life revolved around my

phone.

At that stage, Kieran was 10 years old.

We used to do mountain cycling. Kieran, he had his little mountain bike.

You know, to see a boy tagging along with his father.

falling, getting up, laughing.

That was really special.

He was essential in my life.

Life was really good.

I was a manufacturing director of two companies in Cape Town, very successful

companies.

They undertook a sudden and dramatic expansion.

And the stress at work was horrendous. I was becoming more and more pent up.

I undertook a macho kind of approach to it.

I could handle it.

And that blew up in my face.

Yeah, look, I said it would be there. It'll be there. It's not a problem.

I started slipping.

Give me one minute.

I just really was feeling pretty, pretty run down.

Yeah, sure. A friend

inquired of me why I was looking so stressed out.

Everything's been bought code by about two days.

I got something for you.

And I was invited to take a blind of coke.

He said, you know, it would give me a feeling of well -being and energy.

I just thought... What the hell, let's give it a batch, yeah?

See if it does actually make me feel better.

After the initial snort, I had a feeling of well -being.

I liked the feeling, and I wanted more of that feeling.

One more?

Yeah, okay.

Well, I've got to have another hit.

Within a week or two weeks of just taking one line, I was getting fully

involved.

It did actually make things better.

You create an artificial state of having a problem -free life.

Feeding the habit does become very expensive.

On a good day, I could spend $200 on Coke.

It got worse.

My ex -wife informed me that she had an offer for marriage.

Her future husband was based in Qatar, in the Persian Gulf, which is quite some

distance away.

She wanted to take Kieran with her.

My access to Kirin would have been restricted to once per year when he came

to Cape Town on holiday.

As a means of denying the fact that Kirin was going to leave the country, I

would increase my consumption.

Your personal life, your family, your job, everything takes second place.

The moment when he left, it was just such a traumatic

moment that I just...

Yeah, I just refused to acknowledge it, I suppose.

Drugs became king.

My performance at work went down the tubes.

It became so bad that I basically resigned, but it was either that or be

I'd lost my job.

To a degree, I'd lost my son.

I think I'd basically lost myself.

I had no option but to admit that I was an addict, and I went to rehabilitation.

We had sessions with psychiatrists, and a lot of time is spent

examining oneself.

That was particularly hard, but it still didn't deter me.

After a few weeks, I was ready to leave. Thank you. Thank you, Adam.

I'd lost everything financially.

I'd blown everything.

And I was coming out basically without a cent in my pocket.

I met a very nice guy. He was there for heroin addiction.

How's it going?

Yeah, yeah.

He knew somebody who may be able to make use of me.

I can help you for money.

Yeah. Yeah.

He mentioned that it's good money.

He's basically drug trafficking.

He knew somebody who was connected.

Really? Yeah.

He asked if I was interested.

I needed money.

I agreed that he should pass my name on to his recruiter.

A meet was set up in Cape Town at the Central Station.

This guy was very presentable, well -spoken.

What's your name again?

Youngish.

a lot younger than I was.

The plan was for me to travel to Peru, pick up a package, deliver the package,

and upon completion, I would receive $6 ,000.

He informed me that I was going to collect cocaine.

Everything had been taken care of.

I need have no worries about being arrested.

The passage had been smoothed, I think was the term he used.

That sort of put my mind at ease.

I think I considered that I had actually lost Kieran.

There couldn't be that much more to lose.

I gave him the go -ahead.

Yeah, sure.

We'll be in touch.

At that stage, I hadn't thought of consequences.

I was living at my brother's place.

Nobody in my family knew what was going to happen.

When the time came for me to make the trip, I invented a story. I'd got a

temporary job up in Johannesburg laying cables.

And, you know, it would be for about two weeks.

I gave the cue and the same story.

No, yes, you know, by the way, I've managed to get a job at last and I'll be

able to earn some money. And I remember him being quite excited at that. Right.

I mean, I think he was under the impression that maybe this was the first

in straightening myself out. Yeah, all right.

I felt really terrible at lying to Kieran. Yeah, take care, man.

But I hadn't really taken stock of what the consequences might be.

There was a certain amount of trepidation.

I was in a foreign land where I wasn't conversant with the local language.

I'd written the name of the hotel which I was supposed to go to.

I went outside and got a taxi.

And he took me to the hotel.

There was no problems at all.

Having been informed that somebody would contact me, I wasn't sure in what

manner the contact would be made.

I spent two or three days whiling away at town.

Without any contact whatsoever.

One evening I received a phone call.

The person identified himself and I was instructed to go around the corner and

meet him in a park.

And he would come and make contact with me.

Up until that point I had no apprehension.

Now I was getting to be quite concerned.

I sat down on the park bench as if I was just going to have a soft for a smoke

break.

Hey.

This guy walked up to me, introduced himself to me. He just said hi.

He didn't even ask my name.

We just went for a walk.

He told me that they were getting the package together.

It was always referred to as the package.

They just told me that I would be contacted closer to the time.

That was essentially it.

Then I got really nervous.

I was getting into something that I shouldn't be.

I phoned him and told him that all was well and I'd arrived safely and blah,

blah, blah, blah, and that the job was proceeding very well.

How are you guys? Are you all right?

I phoned to find some sort of comfort.

I'll speak to you soon, yeah? All right, bye.

From the emotional point of view, I was finding it a bit more and more difficult

to cope with.

I felt very isolated.

There was a knock at my room door.

I sort of started to think, well, you know, let's get this over with now.

You've come with a specific purpose. You know what the purpose is.

Let's get it, you know, let's take it through.

Two gentlemen came in.

and informed me that they were police here.

I was all, you know, what are you doing?

What are you doing here? Vacation, I'm on vacation.

On vacation, yeah.

And I said I was on vacation.

In Peru, Lima, vacation.

Huh? See?

See?

They went through the room, they went through my luggage.

I felt relief in that I didn't have anything on me.

Had the stuff been in the room, I don't know what I would have done.

Look,

they had a vanilla envelope.

They extracted mug shots.

Black and white mugshots.

And they asked if I recognized any of those people.

I didn't recognize anybody.

I didn't recognize anybody.

Nobody.

They thanked me, and they left.

Thank you.

Mentally, I was pretty wired.

Was this something that they did to all foreign visitors coming into Peru who

hung around Lima, or whether it was directed specifically at me?

I had started to think seriously about what I was undertaking.

The second day after the visit, my contact phoned, and I went down to meet

at the park.

I mentioned to him that I had a visit from two police officers.

He led me to believe that the visit was intentional, that the two guys that came

into my room were actually customs officials who had come to identify me so

at the airport I might be able to sneak through.

That gave me some degree of comfort.

He informed me that within the next two or three days he would be bringing the

package to me.

I was thinking now, okay, well, you're going to go home and hopefully you'll

Kieran pretty soon.

You bloody stupid idiot.

I wanted to get done with it now.

I'd been there almost two weeks.

Are you okay? Yeah.

This is the package.

All right.

Don't worry. There was a sense of relief when the package finally arrived.

Just put it in your suitcase.

No problem.

It was very explicit read at times that I should pass through customs control.

Very explicit.

Pass through the customs between 7 and 9 o 'clock at night.

He gave me a cell phone and said, this is the number once you've passed through

the customs.

Phone me and then destroy the phone.

Those were my instructions.

I became very, very aware of what it was.

Okay, I'm sitting with a couple of kiddos, judging from the size of the

I was a bit wary in case there was an unannounced knock at the door.

I don't think I slept that night at all.

I was wired naturally.

Maybe this isn't so clever, Pringle.

I watched TV without taking any of it in.

At that stage, all I wanted to do was to get home.

I couldn't think of any option to get out of it.

I got out of bed in the morning and hadn't been awake the whole night.

I was also like a cat on a hot tin roof.

I wasn't able to settle.

I didn't eat on that particular day.

I had to go through customs between 7 and 9 o 'clock.

That was explicit.

So it would have been around about 5 .30 that I left the hotel room.

I think by that time my nerves had started to get the better of me.

Once I was in the taxi and heading to the airport, I thought, well, Pringle,

know, this... This is not good.

I just decided for myself this wasn't cool.

The consequences of being arrested hit me.

What would your relationship be with Kieran if you get arrested?

Maybe I might not see him again, ever.

Hang on a second. This is not good.

I indicated to the cab driver to please stop.

I walked a short way from where I got out.

There weren't many people around.

I very casually took the package out of my bag.

I didn't act furtively or, you know, it was pretty cool, and put it behind a

shrub.

And I'd like to think that I was pretty nonchalant about it.

I closed my bag, turned around and walked back to the street.

That was actually quite a cool moment.

I walked a little way down the street and hailed another cab.

Having taken that decision, I felt relief, yeah.

I could go home.

It was the right decision.

At that stage, I really hadn't thought it through all the way as to what the

ramifications might be.

I felt pretty good.

I arrived at the airport slightly before the particular time, and I sat down and

I watched the people going past.

It was actually a relief to be without this stuff.

I mean, I went through customs.

The two gentlemen that were standing there didn't look at my bag.

It led me to believe fully that my passage had been smooth.

Once I'd got through, I called the number that I'd been given, and I just

to my contact, I'm through.

He just said, okay.

And that was the extent of our conversation.

I put the cell phone off, took the chip out, and I threw that away.

The closer I got to Janusburg, the more apprehensive I started becoming.

Drug -related killings are not uncommon.

I heard harrowing stories about revenge on people who had reneged on deals.

I was thinking, okay, I want to get back into South Africa unannounced.

How naive can you be?

Walking out of customs, it was like walking into a brick wall.

There were two of them. Not really welcoming smiles on their faces.

I recognized the one guy immediately.

He was my South African contact.

They were just standing there waiting for me.

They looked at me, made eye contact.

I didn't even consider running.

I think at that stage I'd sort of reconciled myself to the fact that there

going to be some form of retribution.

They came up alongside me.

One guy held my upper arm.

I was really in their hands.

I had no idea what they might do to me.

We got down to the parking area.

They said, look, I didn't bring the stuff.

My contact asked me what the hell I'd done.

He said, you failed to deliver.

They were very angry.

They made their presence felt.

I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything.

At that stage I knew something was going to happen.

Exactly what, I wasn't sure.

They really had me by the ankles, let's say.

If I had tried to make a dash, I don't think I would have got out the car.

I was really scared, horrified.

We drive into a parking lot.

It was a fairly large building.

It gave the impression of being a full -on hospital.

Do you know what this is?

It's a body parts clinic.

I was informed there was a body parts clinic.

There's quite a business in body parts trafficking throughout the whole world.

My contact said, we can get $50 ,000 per kidney and for

other parts of your body.

The guy just said, he said, look, these are your options, body parts or your

family.

And they named my family.

Brain Pringle, 29 Castle Road, Claire Pringle.

My brother's name, my sister's name, the address of my nephew's name.

And the third choice is you go back to Peru.

Take your pick.

I didn't want anything to happen to my family.

This was some heavy stuff, yeah.

I didn't have an option.

I agreed to go back to Peru.

Everything became surreal.

Everything was one great pretense, you know.

I went back to Cape Town. I pretended that everything had been cool with the

job. I contacted Kieran, gave him the same story.

I had told Kieran that I'd done my job so well that they'd offered me another

opportunity.

I really, really, really didn't feel good at all.

Yeah, okay.

Lying to Kieran was so, so difficult.

It was extremely, extremely difficult.

Yeah, keep calling that Ricky.

I was really scared of what was going to go down.

I must have been back about two weeks when I received final instructions to

my bags and come up to Johannesburg.

Continuing at the back of my mind was Kieran.

Am I going to make it back this time? What's going to go down?

The second day I was there, I received a phone call and was told that my

contacts would meet me on the street corner diagonally opposite the hotel.

I walked out of the hotel and there was a man and a woman standing on the street

corner.

And I crossed the road and, you know, sort of made the introductions.

She introduced him as Carlos.

I never did get her name.

So it went downhill from there.

I was taken to a really

shabby sort of area.

and just put in what they would call a hostel.

It was dingy. There was a bed, a bathroom ensuite, if you could call it

I wasn't allowed out of that area without Carlos or his wife in

I tried to go out one day by myself.

And there was Carlos at the door.

You know, plain scared.

I felt an impending sense of doom.

The woman pitched up the one day and she had this waistcoat.

They had stitched cocaine into diamond -shaped blocks across

the width of the back of the waistcoat.

I was told that it was a kilogram.

She was quite open about showing me where the stuff was secreted, except it

wasn't really secreted.

Okay, well, hang on a second, you know. This is actually shoddy workmanship.

Where now?

She looked at me and said, okay, you look pretty good.

That would have taken a blind customs official not to have actually seen what

it was.

It became evident that they were setting me up.

I think at that point I knew that I would never get out of the country.

You know, Pringle, this is it, dude. You're going down.

I didn't entertain the thought of making a run for it.

Nowhere to go.

I wanted to phone my family and to phone Kieran.

Knowing that my family will be all right had become very important to me.

Make it fast.

The woman actually bought phone cards for me, and she would accompany me to a

call box.

Hey, Kim.

How are you?

I remember speaking to Kieran and saying, okay, look, things are cool, you

Yeah. Trying to inflict my voice with an emotion of everything's cool, you know,

not to worry, it was very, very difficult.

We have to go.

We have to go.

Whenever we end a conversation without fail, we wind up with cool and deadly.

And when Kiri said, Dad, I love you, cool and deadly.

was really, really difficult.

Even had I wanted to say something else, I don't think emotionally I would have

been able to.

Walking away from the phone books, that was difficult.

It was like walking into...

Into nothingness, into darkness, into blackness.

It left me feeling lower than I've ever felt before in my entire life.

Yeah,

this is the end of the road for you, dude.

Okay. She gave me my ticket and she said, right, we're going.

In the car on the way to the airport, she actually said to me, smile.

At that stage, I really didn't think I had much to smile about.

She took me to the door and said goodbye.

Remember going and standing in the queue? Go through the

first check.

And I remember seeing her standing at the door.

I think watching to make sure that I actually went through.

I was like excessively nervous.

The next time I turned, she was gone.

I got to the lady, she looked at my passport.

said to me, hmm, you know, you haven't spent much time here, you know, where

have you been?

I said, well, you know, language barrier. I said, well, anyway, she

passport, gave it back to me.

It was actually an immense relief.

I'd passed the first checkpoint and I'd put my bag down and was in the process

of taking my ticket out to check in.

And I saw this guy approaching.

There weren't that many people in the immediate vicinity.

It was almost like, you know, I was, yeah, I was center stage.

Without any hesitation whatsoever, he patted me across my shoulders and down

back and indicated for me to come with him.

I think I was emotionally dead, almost like a zombie.

They led me upstairs.

My nerves were ragged.

You know, Pringle, you've really done yourself in here.

The record was put on a work

table.

They cut open one of the diamond patterns.

Opened the packet and took it off for testing

There's some test that

they perform which turns whatever it is into blue to indicate that it is cocaine

Ringle you've been nailed

There was no indication as to where we were going.

My main sort of regrets or feelings of regret were for my family and

especially for Kieran.

What impact is it going to have upon them?

Eventually I was taken into a holding cell, the hell hole.

It was dank and there was an unpleasant odour, really it was degrading.

The officials took the opportunity of helping themselves to

whatever they wanted to.

I looked at my gas mask bag, looked at me and took it.

It was actually very, very traumatic that.

I didn't sleep that night.

No indication was given to us how long we would be there.

I was.

told I'd been set up.

He said drug people have a deal with customs in Peru.

Cartels provide them with names and say those are the people that you bust.

These people you will let through.

The cartels are getting their drugs through and they're also appeasing the

authorities by providing for guys.

I would have given a lot to have just been anywhere else except there.

I actually transported myself mentally to another place with my boy, with

Kieran now.

After 15 days, we were called out of the cells.

We were handcuffed.

shoved into a bed.

You know, if you know, okay, well, what's going to happen next?

This is the prison that we were going to serve our sentencing.

The experience of finally getting there, in an odd way, it was a relief.

There was no indication of when the sentence was going to be handed down.

There were six of us in a cell, which ideally is for two people.

And there were four of us on the floor.

It was actually horrible.

Ironically enough, I received my sentence on my birthday.

Boom. I've got seven years.

In essence, the seven years represented a lifetime.

When I lived... For Peru, Kieran was 11 years old.

I was thinking, you know, you've actually thrown it away, yeah?

You know, you know him as an 11 -year -old, and the next time you see him,

going to be 18 years old.

Very, very difficult to come to terms with.

Really, it's self -abhorrence.

I mean, self -hatred, self -loathing, yeah.

Cell phones were available if you had the money to pay for the call.

I arranged with one of the guys to make a phone call.

I phoned Kieran.

And he said to me, I said, well, hey, listen, dude, you know, this is where I

am. And he said, yeah, Dad, I know. He said, but just please remember that I

love you and you're my father.

And you'll always be Dad. And I think that was, you know, that was the

that allowed me to eventually to...

Break down. I mean, because, you know, we have this thing of terminating

telephone conversations with cool and deadly.

And once I said that, I mean, I terminated the call.

Yeah, and then I let go.

It was actually quite a while before I stopped shedding tears.

I

wasn't

made for prison.

There was violence.

Generally spurred on by an innocuous remark.

really stupid.

You have to defend yourself.

Life

is

pretty miserable in prison, yeah?

No attempt was made really to distract one.

I used to spend quite a fair bit of time every day just walking from one wall to

the other.

The prime diversion was drugs.

If you had the means to, you could consume drugs 24 hours a day, seven days

week.

I consumed drugs.

You became a zombie.

But it took you out of where you were on a temporary basis.

I experienced a coma that's horrendous.

I could literally see a sign in front of me and in huge letters, you know,

Pringle, if you don't stop now, you're going to die.

That became pivotal in stopping, yeah.

Kieran had said to me...

That he would always be there for me.

That led me to decide within myself and for myself that it was time to stop.

I haven't seen my son for eight years.

At this point in time, I have three months to wait before he gets back to

Town permanently, and I'm really looking forward to that.

I'm not going to let him out of my sight for a long time.

Going through what I've gone through, the cost is phenomenal to oneself and to

one's immediate family.

There is a future.

And whichever way it goes, whether I live in abject poverty or I do make it

good, Kieran will be there.