Original subtitles

My ambition to try to do this well exceeded my talents at it.

I felt complete regret and foolishness for even trying to take something like

this on. It was just way beyond my league.

The two Colombian guys, they come to the room. When they pulled the packages out

of the suitcase, they laid them on the bed and sprayed them all with anti -dog

spray.

They turn up the TV to mask the sound of the duct tape.

They have six bundles made up, and they're putting two on each leg, and

trying to put two across my stomach. At that point, I went into complete panic

mode.

I'm not going to be able to go.

That's when I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Calm down, we're going to

this out.

They seemed to me to be nervous at this point.

Then all of a sudden...

After high school, I bought myself a 74 VW bus, drove around

the country, going to shows and going to communes.

Music has been a very central point of my life.

Music is like church.

It talks to the soul. It fills you with such great energy.

One time I was driving from Florida for a reggae festival and my bus ended up

breaking down in Arizona.

I'm a person that never really believed in coincidences. I think it was like

fate calling me.

I was looking through some of the local papers and they had an ad for a

recording school to start classes for audio engineering.

I knew that that was where I needed to be.

In high school, I was always kind of a C student, but once I got into recording

school, I was all A's and B's.

I had the time of my life while I was there.

Once I had finished the course, I had gotten an internship at a studio in

Trinidad and Tobago.

I was really excited about it.

We were preparing all the songs for carnival season.

It almost didn't seem like work. It was more fun. My focus point was just on

making music.

Trinidad was just like Christmas morning, opening up a present, and

was just a surprise.

Basically paradise.

I was getting into the belief system of Rastafarianism.

The basis of dreadlocks, it's like a natural connection.

They're considered like antennas.

You get your spiritual energy through them.

We used to go down to shoot some pool.

Me and some of the artists I was working with, we ended up talking with this

girl, Makisha.

She was very easy on the eyes.

She had very appealing contributes.

At first she was more into him than she was me, but...

Time kind of changed that.

We ended up falling in love with each other.

At this point, I don't think my life could have gotten much better.

It made me feel really like this is where I kind of needed to be. This was

The carnival in Trinidad I never thought it was going to be as crazy as it was.

Just insane.

It's just getting rid of all those inhibitions, freeing yourself of

You can dance up on anybody's girl or they can dance up on anybody's guy. It's

kind of a, you know, just a free -for -all, really.

So after Carnival was done, my money supply was just about gone because I

knew it was time to head back stateside and try to make some money so I'd be

able to return to Trinidad as soon as possible.

You know, Makisha and I started getting pretty serious enough that it was going

to be a long -term thing.

The only thing I was thinking about was how I was going to be able to get enough

money up and try to get back to Trinidad and continue the life that I had been

living.

Once I got back to Miami and I was staying on a friend's couch, I was

stay out of their hair as much as possible.

I was working as a cook in a restaurant.

The relationship between Makisha and I was basically being lived over the

telephone.

One day I called Makisha and she had told me that she was pregnant.

Wow. I think as much as I was shocked about it, I was excited.

It seemed like there was something calling me to come back there.

Oh my God, I'm going to be a father.

I could see this being my future. I could see me having a family.

And living back there, I mean, who wouldn't want to live in a Caribbean

for the rest of their lives?

But the pressure seemed to kick in a lot more.

It wasn't just about trying to get back to Trinidad, but now

it was trying to prepare for my future completely.

I proposed marriage.

We were in love, but I think the...

The responsibility factor kicked that in even more.

The

place

where I was staying at in Miami, there was John that I'd been speaking with a

lot about my situation.

Brought up his concern about how I was dealing with things and he saw that I

really pressured. And he told me that his cousin would be able to help me.

They were looking for people with American passports to transport cocaine

them.

This would basically take most of my worries away.

A couple days later, I met with John's cousin.

The deal was make the trip from South America to Europe to deliver cocaine for

$15 ,000.

You know, it was going to be an easy thing. He knew people that had done it.

was going to be breezed through. They had their own private airfield.

You know, it was just going to be boom, boom, easy money.

I didn't know destinations at that point.

I can definitely say that it was a tempting offer.

If I did do this, I would be able to get myself back to Trinidad, have money to

get the family started.

But to go from, you know, peace -loving, hippie viewpoint of the world to

trafficking cocaine, which I'd never seen or used in my life, was a quite

drastic step.

Michael? Michael?

Hey.

How you been, man?

I wish I knew why I just didn't say no at that point.

I'm on board. I'm in. Really? Yeah, I'm on board. Sounds like a sweet deal, and

I appreciate it. Now, listen, we're going to get into some details.

We made the arrangements that I was going to do it. He got a photocopy of my

passport. and brought it to his people. They bought me a ticket to go to

Ecuador.

I told my mom that I had to run out of the country real quick to do something

and that I was going to be back soon.

It really bothered me that I couldn't express truthfully the situation to my

mom.

Me and my mom have always been really close.

I think my mom's always been my best friend.

You can say I've been a mama's boy.

I felt I kind of needed the Bible to make sure I was doing positive things,

because really I was trying to do a positive thing. I was just going about

a negative way.

I arrived at the airport in Quito.

I collected my bag and went over to get a taxi.

Here I am. I just got into this country. I have no idea of the customs and the

language.

All I know is that I'm supposed to meet these people.

In the taxi, I was reading the magazine that I bought at the airport, and it had

an article on the rapper John Forte and the legal battle that he was going

through for accepting a package at the airport of liquid cocaine.

This definitely should have been another alarm sounding off in my head.

Just knew.

This wasn't going to go well, but there was no turning back either.

What a dumbass.

I received a

phone call to the room.

People kind of get the perception from television and movies that drug

are going to be a certain way.

I'm Michael.

But these guys, they were nothing like I was expecting. They were very nice

guys.

I feel that they were kind of trying to feel me out to see if I was going to

be the person that they needed or wanted to do this.

They went into depth about how things were

going to go.

was going to be no private eel field. I was going to be flying into a major

airport.

But they said they were going to have things covered, that they'd been sending

people for quite a while, never had anybody get caught, that they were going

be using anti -dog spray, you know, just kind of reassuring, trying to make me

feel comfortable about the situation.

I think looking back, I consider myself to be completely naive, not questioning

enough.

They didn't realize that I had dreads. They had only seen my passport photo.

They were nervous about the dreads because of people's preconceived notions

they'd use drugs, they're drug dealers.

They asked me if I would cut off my dreads. I didn't see that as being any

of possibility.

He's my root. His hair is going to grow back. No, you don't understand.

It's like part of my religion.

I told them that because of my religious beliefs that I wouldn't be able to cut

off my dreads.

Honey?

I called my girlfriend, and it was then that I explained that I was in Ecuador

and that I was getting ready to transport cocaine.

Into Europe, okay?

And she took it a bit lighter than I was expecting.

Right now, I wanted my girlfriend to say, you know, forget about it, come

I told her about them wanting to cut off my dreads.

Again,

she made light of it. She basically said that it was my decision if I wanted to

do it or not.

I was looking for her to say, yeah.

Forget about it, come back.

And I wasn't getting it.

Yeah, bye.

I think all the pressure in this whole situation from beginning to end came

within me.

That was me getting out of the situation.

I had to cut off my dreads.

If you do it, we have a surprise for you.

Next morning, they kind of wanted my decision.

They told me if I wanted to go through with it, they were going to do something

special.

What would you say would take you to a special place here in our country?

Quito is close to the monument for the center of the world.

You could maybe bury your dreads, you know?

Bury them?

It would be like leaving a part of yourself in this country.

Maybe. I don't know.

Just think about it.

I thought that that was a strange gesture, but at the same time, it kind

of touched me because it seemed like a very spiritual gesture.

Yeah. Okay, Mike. All right.

Just calm down. Everything is going to be fine.

I remember sitting in the chair and them starting to cut my dreads away.

I think I kind of brought myself out of my body a bit at that point.

It seemed like everyone that came off, the less sure I felt about

myself.

They collected them and put them into a bag and handed to me.

I was just numb.

I understand that most people won't understand, but it was like I basically

my soul.

It made me feel like I...

I deceived myself that I had given up on my own belief.

I was basically just an empty shell.

It seems that after being in Trinidad and all the pieces coming together, it

seemed like everything was completely falling apart.

We went around the back of the monument.

I dug a hole and buried the bag.

there, you know, kind of doing a recycling, you know, give to the earth,

from the earth, go to the earth.

I remember sitting over it and saying a prayer, asking for protection.

Basically,

I was asking God to help me do the devil's work.

When I got back to the hotel, I just remember looking in the mirror and not

knowing who the heck I was.

I had no clue.

It just wasn't, it just wasn't no pain without the dreads, but I

couldn't see my own soul in my eyes.

I lost myself.

If you can't keep your vow to God, who can you keep

your promise to?

I obviously wasn't keeping a promise to myself.

I felt completely, completely alone and lost.

I found the only British pub in all of Quito.

I remember getting a pretty good buzz on. The alcohol used to pain for a bit

least.

Hello?

Michael. Hey, welcome.

Hi. How are you doing? I'm good.

The next day they bought my airline ticket to go to Madrid. A

first class ticket.

They

bought me

some clothes.

A dress shirt.

a pair of jeans and some dress shoes.

I could have given a care less what they picked out. I just let them do, you

know, whatever they thought was good. I wasn't there.

I mean, physically I was there, but mentally I was dead.

I was just hoping that all of this wasn't for nothing.

I was just hoping there was going to be, you know, the pot of gold at the end of

the rainbow, I guess.

Okay. See you later.

See you later.

Thanks for my first class.

It was the evening before I left Ecuador.

Hello? Michael?

Michael, is that you?

I called my mother. It was her birthday, so I called to wish her happy birthday.

Mom?

Huh? There was a really, really bad connection trying to get to the States

some reason.

I was just calling to say happy...

Hello? I can barely hear you.

It kept on getting cut off and cut off.

I'm in Ecuador.

Yeah.

I'm gonna go to Madrid.

But I feel that she read through the lines at that point and the charade was

I'm just kind of cruising around.

I completely felt...

guilty about deceiving her like that.

After I got done with my mom,

I ended up calling down to my girlfriend.

And she chose this time to tell me not to

proceed.

She was begging me. She was crying all over the phone, begging me.

Just leave it. Just come. Just get out of there.

But it was too little too late.

I remember just walking around the streets in Quito.

I just wanted to go back home.

I wanted to get away from this, but I don't think it would have done any good

because I had already sold my soul.

I went back to the hotel and just, I was done. I just went into coma state.

Departure day.

The two Colombian guys, they come to the room with the suitcase.

They pulled the packages out of the suitcase. They laid them on the bed and

sprayed them all with anti -dog spray.

Anti -dog spray.

They turn up the TV to mask the sound of the duct tape.

They have six bundles made up, and they're putting two on each leg, and

trying to put two across my stomach.

At that point, I went into complete panic mode.

This won't work.

I'm not going to be able to go, you know, all this trip.

And that's when I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Calm down, we're going to figure this out.

They seemed to me to be nervous at this point.

Then all of a sudden...

It

was a very, very tense atmosphere.

It was the front desk telling us that it was just past checkout time.

I told her, can you give me a half hour more?

I'm just going.

I'm just trying to, I just want to get this done as soon and as fast as

possible.

I think everything was just like so crazy at that point.

Got a taxi to the airport.

I'm just in pilot mode. I think my ambition to try to do

this well exceeded my talents at it.

And I felt complete regret and foolishness for even trying to take

like this on. It was just way beyond my league.

I get to the airport to check in, get up to the desk, and

going through the

ticket and the paperwork and whatnot.

It was two hours before the flight was due to go.

She asked me would I have to check in to the bag, asked me the typical, are you

carrying any legal substances, and I say no.

Because I was a first -class passenger, she asked if I wanted to wrap my

suitcase in plastic for protection.

Yeah.

I agreed to have it done that.

The only thing I had in my possession after I checked in my bag was my

pass and my Bible.

Now I go through the metal detector to go towards the gates.

I take everything out of my pockets, my wallet, probably a pen and just a couple

little trinkets, whatever.

From this point in the story on, it's just like a big blur. It just runs so

quickly. It's like watching a movie in fast forward.

I go through the metal detector and...

All of a sudden, alarms start going off.

I felt complete terror.

All this time, these silent alarms were going off in my head. Now the real ones

are going off.

I go back and recheck my pockets.

And that's when I noticed in the change pocket in the front that I had a pack of

gum in there.

And the aluminum from the gum had set off the detector.

I showed it to the guard, and I went back through the detector, and there was

problem.

To think that something that most people throw on the ground could have cost me

everything.

one hour before we were supposed to take off.

I went through to a waiting area.

Figured the best thing to do is find a chair and just sit there and read my

book.

Next thing I know, there's security walking around with a German Shepherd.

And they start walking towards me, just trying to hold on to the

book, just keep both hands on the book to not show any nerves.

And he comes up, and he ends up sitting right to my left -hand side. He sits

down with the dog, I mean, literally less than a foot from me.

And the dog never, ever showed one interest in me at all.

I mean, when they told me in the hotel room that they had anti -dog spray, I

just like, whatever, you know?

I had almost four kilos of cocaine on me, and that dog never flinched.

It's now about a half hour before we're due to leave.

I was completely confident that was just two major instances that should

have really been my downfall.

And I flew by both with flying colors.

I thought, I'm just going to land in Madrid and it's all going to be good

there.

We arrived at Barajas Airport in Madrid, and after all this, I'm just completely

exhausted. But I can smell freedom on the other side. I know that it's, you

know, within an hour's time, all these packages will be off me. I'll have money

in my pocket, and I can just try to get back as soon as I can.

So I get into the terminal and got my passport stamped.

Hi.

Okay. Thanks. Go ahead.

I went to the bathroom, tried to readjust the packages a little bit.

And then I went to get my bag from the carousel.

And at this point, there was only one more thing to pass.

That was just going past customs.

And the only thing that was going through my head is there's not going to

third instance.

I already went through, I already had two close calls.

I got no chance of losing this time.

As I'm approaching, I made eye contact to try and be as natural as possible and

take any suspicion off of myself.

At this moment, I thought I was home free.

I thought it was just walk out the doors, get in the taxi, get in the

that's it.

But then the other gentleman decided to say no.

Señor!

Señor!

Señor, venga, por favor.

Regrese, por favor.

I think I realized at this point that it was all over.

I'd been lucky twice. I passed the metal detector.

I passed the dog.

There's just no way you're going to pass all three.

Three strikes.

They had me put the suitcase up on the table, and they wanted me to open it.

I had to try to explain to them they were going to have to cut it open

didn't have any knife on me to cut the plastic open.

I had a lock on the suitcase. I had to get the key out of my wallet. I knew it

was over.

The nervousness had pretty much gotten me then.

I'm sitting here with this little tiny key trying to open up this lock with two

hands.

I know damn well they saw the nervousness on me.

I mean, it was obvious to me that my hand was shaking at that point, so I

that they saw it as well as I did.

They searched the bag, found nothing.

And that's when they called me over to a little side room.

I think the only thing I can equate would be a wild animal that's been

a trap.

You're there, you're free, but you're not.

They had me stand with my arms straight out.

Move down from my chest, down towards my legs.

All I wanted to do then was mentally leave my body and just transport myself

somewhere else and just leave the scene.

I felt completely defeated at that point. Everything

that I had...

put my love into you know my career my family everything was just

gone like that they took me to another room

there was probably about a dozen people in there you felt like the freak show

everybody just kind of standing there watching me like you know like a a rat

that's caught in a trap not knowing if uh

He's going to try to gnaw his own leg off to escape or he's just going to

away right there.

They told me to take down my pants so they could see what actually I was

carrying.

That's when the packets were revealed to them.

Before they removed the package from my legs, they took photos to show how I was

carrying them.

It was almost like they were having a little party. They seemed quite pleased

with themselves for all this.

They seemed to take enjoyment out of it.

Then they took them off and they put them all on a table.

They cut one open to...

They taste tested it and then they did a test on it to see what it was.

The craziest thing of all was the first

time that I had ever seen cocaine in my life.

Where are you from?

Miami.

They just asked me where I was going, who I was meeting.

who had sent me.

But they basically thought that I had been working for myself.

Couldn't have afforded to work for myself even if I wanted to with that

They then took mug shots.

At that point, the tears were rolling down my face as he's trying to take

of me.

To your right.

I had let down the world.

It just wasn't those that were closest to me, but everybody.

I'm allowed to make one phone call.

The day that I got arrested on was Mother's Day.

There was just no way that I could have called my mother.

I was too ashamed.

Way too ashamed of myself.

Hello?

Hi, uh... The only thing I'm thinking

is... the empathy.

My name...

Michael Moray, and I'm in some trouble, and I'm an American citizen. I'm in

some trouble, and I need to speak to somebody, please.

I woke up the next morning and just realizing the reality of the situation,

knowing that this is probably going to be my home for quite a few years ahead

me.

Looking out the window, seeing a few trees out there, thinking that this

be my view for 20 years.

I'm put on the one...

cell block where it was almost all foreigners.

Pretty intense.

Knowing that it was probably going to be quite a while before I even knew any

kind of judgment.

Prison was definitely a mental torture.

The hardest thing to deal with is knowing that the people that you love

are suffering ten times worse than you are.

It was probably about a month after I was inside that I actually contacted

my mom.

It took a lot for me to get enough courage to actually face that one.

During the number in, it seemed like an attorney before she finally did pick up.

She answered that phone and all I heard was tears.

She was so pissed off at me.

She told me, don't you ever do that again. Don't you ever not have contact

me. She said, how could you leave me not knowing what was going on with you?

I'm imagining all these things like I see in the movies.

I just apologized.

I just told her I was...

Sorry that she raised me better. She didn't deserve that.

A couple weeks after that, I heard my name called out.

And it was a letter.

It was from my girlfriend.

She stated that she's stressed out.

That she had lost the baby.

And that she couldn't continue on and that it was over.

Reading that letter was like having my insides pulled out.

It turned out that the two people that I was trying to help most in the world, I

ended up hurting most in the world.

I don't think there's any words that could express how I felt at that moment.

After receiving that letter, I just didn't...

be any hope anymore. I kind of went into a pretty deep depression.

The sun just didn't seem like it was going to be shining on me again anytime

soon.

I used to just walk the whole perimeter.

Pouring rain, I'd still be out there just walking by myself, not speaking to

anybody.

It seemed like everybody I tried to help, I ended up harming.

Instead of having the mightiest touch, I ended up having the crap touch where

just like everything that came close to me just turned to shit.

There was a period for about a week where I didn't even eat anything.

I just didn't feel anything at

all.

I remember one guy telling me, like, listen, you eat or you don't eat, you're

still in prison.

I was basically stressing myself out to the point of dry heaving.

I finally went to medical and expressed what I was going through, and they

moved me to the infirmary.

I wasn't feeling anything at all at that time.

They basically just gave me pills, trying to calm me down, keep me level.

After a while, I had a bad reaction to the medication that they were giving me.

One minute I was sitting there in tears, and the next I was

laughing.

had to come in and brace me down to give me a shot to calm me.

That basically put me out.

I was hopeful that once the verdict come down that I might be going home.

I remember looking down at the

paper and seeing that I had been sentenced

nine years and

just being completely in shock.

I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

I think after realizing that there was nothing I could do to

change my fate, I started growing my dreadlocks again.

At the foot of my bed, I had an altar made up with different religious

artifacts.

Every morning I'd wake up and I'd do 20 minutes of meditation.

I'd do prayer and then I'd do scripture reading.

I was trying to do everything I could to kind of regain my spiritual footing.

But it almost seemed like I was trying too hard.

I think the fact of not having that connection to the earth or to other

spiritually minded that I could reason with.

It just seemed like a falsity almost.

I believe that I lost my spirituality because of what happened to me in

I should have listened to myself.

I should have trusted myself.

I went against everything that I believed and in the process lost my

One positive thing did come out of my experience in Spain.

After a few years of being there, I was allowed leaves from the prison.

And on my first leave, I met this girl.

I'm continuing to try to move forward and do everything I can.

Right now, I think I'm just living for today. I'm not really worried about what

happened yesterday or what's going on tomorrow.

I'm just trying to make it day by day.