Original subtitles

Marijuana, not wild, you know, dangerous.

What the hell did I get myself into?

That desperate feeling, not being able to breathe. I'm dying.

This is the worst place I've ever seen in my life.

Murders, rapists, this is hell.

I'm going to try to escape.

All of a sudden I hear a pop and then a whoosh.

They were shooting at us.

Little did I know the worst was yet to come.

I grew up in El Paso, Texas, in projects and low -income neighborhoods.

Growing up in a ghetto, school wasn't fun.

So I started ditching school at a very early age, buying my own clothes and

being my own boss, taking care of myself.

My mom, being a single mother, had to work most of the time.

I'm going.

I felt that she was almost not interested in me, almost didn't care.

By the time I was 16, 17, I just felt I wasn't going anywhere, and I wasn't

going to go anywhere because of the life that I was leading.

I wanted to leave, but my uncle, he wasn't going to have me just walking

my own. So he found me a job in El Paso.

I made the choice of going ahead and jumping into the world.

The job that my uncle got me was at a tire shop.

It was a family business.

The owner did most of the work.

He told me I would be getting $250 a week.

Coming from where I was coming from, I felt relieved.

I finally had some income and I could get a place of my own and basically

my new life.

One day, I was working on a tire when three Mexicans walked into the shop.

When I first saw them, to me, it seemed like they were presumiendo, which means

that they were flaunting what they had.

I was impressed by them. I mean, very well dressed, expensive ostrich boots

belts.

A couple of them had real expensive Stetson hats on.

Right away it was like, hey, you know, here's some good customers.

After that, every time they brought in a car, it always came to me.

So they kind of became my regular customers.

What's up?

I've never been around people with that much money.

It wasn't like anything I've ever seen before.

It became almost an obsession to figure out what they were doing and what they

were about.

I had to. I had to know.

I had to get a piece of it and become part of it.

I finally gained enough trust with them, and I almost think it was a drunk

moment.

I thought, well, you know, here we are alone. I might as well ask them.

So I went on ahead and asked them what exactly was it they were doing.

So what kind of business are you guys in?

The answer shocked me. It shocked me.

We bring marijuana in from Mexico in cars.

It turns out they were smuggling marijuana in different cars every time

came in. So that's what they were doing at the garage.

He was telling me about a crime, so as soon as I heard it, it was like... I got

that scared adrenaline rush.

But I thought, this is a great opportunity for me.

In that moment, I asked, Do you think I can get in on it?

And he just said, OK. He goes, I'll talk to his older brother about me.

The oldest brother showed up and said, we're going to set you up with

I felt like one of the crew when he told me what I had to do.

It excited me, but at the same time, I thought, wow, you know, dangerous.

The first thing I had to do was cross the border into Mexico.

You have to walk over this bridge and you end up in the city of Juarez,

So much was going through my head.

Now with a drug transporter versus just a nobody sitting in a garage, I didn't

think there was any consequence, or if there was, it was very little.

I didn't like where I came from, but I wanted to go forward with it.

The boss told me the car's parked on the other side, parked in the parking lot.

He told me exactly which one and where I would find the car.

My heart's pounding. I'm nervous.

I'm jittery.

I just remember the first thing I did was look at myself in the mirror.

I know this car is stuffed with marijuana.

I saw a scared little kid.

My job was to get it back across the border and to the United States.

So I get to the border. I'm feeling myself getting nervous.

And I'm getting a little anxious.

What was I going to get asked? What if I get caught? What if?

What if?

What if? What if?

I started thinking, hey, you know, maybe we should turn back and get out of this

car.

But I was stuck in this line.

So I had to try to find a way to calm myself down.

The deep breaths weren't working, so I figured I got to do something. What can

do?

So what I did at that point, I rolled up all my windows.

Just took a deep breath and just screamed as loud as I could.

But again, I

just, you know, calmed myself down. It'll be okay. It'll be okay.

You're just visiting your aunt. You're just visiting your aunt.

So my turn came up to go through the toe booth.

He just barely even looked at me, just with his hand waves for me to continue.

I felt relief.

Then I'm finally getting out of there.

I was excited because I knew I was going to get paid.

No big deal.

It's like, wow, I can do this again.

I had no idea what they were going to give me.

Right after I handed him the keys, he handed me $300.

Hands felt full.

It seemed to be, you know, the great escape ticket to the perfect beginning

something great.

I felt more powerful.

I was more accepted, more trusted now.

I had passed my initiation.

The boss asked me if I wanted to get into the bigger game.

You really wanted to step up?

And I immediately said, yes, of course.

Yeah? I knew I was a soldier. I had to work my way up.

He said the risks were bigger.

It involved going all the way into Mexico.

Around a 24 -hour drive, pick up drugs, load them up into the car, and then

bring it across the border and through another checkpoint and further into the

United States, into Denver, Colorado.

It kind of scared me, but then again, it was bigger money.

He offered me $3 ,000, and I thought that was a huge amount of money.

I felt I'd get rich off of the one trip.

The next day, I got a map.

I had to figure out the way to Michoacan and just kept driving.

The big picture of the money was going through my head.

I wish somebody would have told me, hey, you know, you could be the fall guy.

The fall guy meaning the one to take the fall for everybody.

The plan was that I was going to wait for them in MetroCon.

But when the boss finally made it into town, it wasn't the same anymore.

It was different.

It felt very serious.

Nobody was laughing and joking anymore.

I didn't know where I was going.

Driving up felt very uncomfortable.

I always thought to protect myself from never going to something that I don't

know how to get out of, and that's exactly what I was doing.

I mean, do you really know these people?

And I didn't.

I had no idea who they were. I just vaguely knew them.

In all reality, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

There was nothing but trees, absolutely nothing, no people, almost no

civilization.

And then a little bit further up, I see this kid

with some type of a rifle.

It was pretty shocking to see somebody stare at you that way.

It sounds very quiet.

There's almost nobody walking around outside.

I felt like we were being watched.

It was unsettling. It felt weird.

It was just very odd that we were exchanging drugs and money, you know, in

public.

And it, of course, made me nervous and scared.

But the guys, they were very calm about it and nonchalant. You know, it was no

big deal.

I just would not let myself panic. I was able to calm myself down and just go

with it.

After about 15 minutes, this guy pulls up in his truck.

And in the back of the truck, these huge bags, like pinto bean bags that you

find at the grocery store, with the big industrial -sized ones.

The first thing was helping him on the lower.

I grabbed one, and then you could smell it.

But I've never seen anything like it. It was somewhere around 100 pounds or

more.

How can I get all that across the border?

I kind of knew, okay, they're going to show me.

And when I found out their system, I was very impressed with it.

They made these boxes.

And then you fill up the box with marijuana.

And then we took a sprayer and sprayed it all down with marijuana tea for it to

be able to stick to itself.

With a bottle jack, you compress the marijuana into this box.

You come up with these bricks of a pound or two and do a few rolls of saran

wrapping them.

Start sprinkling coffee.

And the coffee was, you know,

because it's milk.

And, you know, we did that all day.

I thought, God, these guys are genius.

In my mind, I was very confident that nobody would ever catch us.

In the trunk right by the tire compartment, there's the hollow space,

where they were storing.

The marijuana.

They said I had 33 pounds.

Now we're going all the way into Denver, Colorado.

In Mexico, there was always the chance that I would get pulled

over by police.

But it didn't even worry me.

If I was to get pulled over, I would just offer up money.

Because in Mexico, all cops are corrupt.

That's what I was told.

Just drove straight through without any problems. Didn't even run into any cops.

But my next step would be crossing over the border.

But I can't take the car over like this. It's a car from a road trip.

It's going to bring up... You know, the red flags and suspicion, and I'm going

to get searched.

I've got to get it cleaned up.

I get to the border.

The last trip, everything went fine.

So I didn't think of big what -ifs.

As I'm driving up, he just kind of looked at me.

He waved me on through.

Okay, go.

My neck popped.

It's going to be crossing through a second checkpoint.

There was more risk. They're checking every single car.

So I know I'm going to get questioned.

I knew they would ask where I was going, so I had to figure out a plan.

I'm thinking, brainstorming, and I come up with, hey, well, you're a mechanic.

You know, get your mechanic's clothes on.

Tell them, I got a car broken down with a customer in the next town.

So I went to the tire shop.

I got mechanic's clothes.

Took some tools.

Threw it in the back seat and headed on my journey.

I'm getting to the checkpoint. I still have that chance that it's not going to

be manned.

And it was.

I'm going to get questioned.

I'm just scared.

Almost freaking out.

Am I going to stutter? Am I going to show nervousness? Which right away would

raise a red flag and get myself searched.

He actually... stop to ask me a question.

Citizenship? U .S.

Yeah, where are you heading?

Listening to myself tell the story. I think I pulled it off very good.

I'm a mechanic.

I gotta go help this guy who's broken down on the cruises.

I didn't stutter. I was calm about it. I don't know why people get on the road

who can't fix their own cars.

Then he says, okay, but doesn't wave me through.

Turns on his flashlight and starts looking in the back seat.

I'm thinking, oh my God, this is it.

I'm going to get searched.

He took a moment and then started to walk towards the back by the gas tank.

I'm thinking, oh, my God, this is it.

You know, it's there. He knows it's there.

I'm getting busted.

I'm getting busted. There's no way around this anymore.

I'm getting busted.

I'm getting busted. There's no way around this anymore.

He stops to look around, then starts walking back towards me.

I come up to the window and just, okay.

All right, you can go ahead.

Thank you.

As I'm driving away, I'm seeing him get smaller and smaller in the rearview

mirror until he's finally gone.

I started shaking.

I'm starting to sweat.

Oh, my God, I was just so nervous, all the adrenaline.

It starts coming out. I can't hold it back anymore.

I ended up pulling over and throwing up.

I'm kicking myself in the butt. What the hell are you doing?

Is this really what you want to do?

A decision had to be made whether I was going to

take the money and walk away free and clear.

I wanted it all.

So there was no way I was going to let myself walk away at that point.

I wanted to do the next trip, so I went ahead and called the boss, and he said,

go ahead and go.

I had a friend that I knew who was struggling.

So I invited him to come along with me.

The trip was very fast. We got there quicker than I did the last time.

Everything was going great.

Everything was feeling perfect, like nothing was going to go wrong.

On the way down to Mexico, we met up with the boss.

We switched cars.

We went ahead and got the merchandise, loaded everything up, and got

going.

No tension at all.

So as we're driving up these curvy, windy roads,

They finally turned the corner. There's a cop sitting at the side of the road.

As I'm passing him, I could see him staring at me.

It just didn't feel right.

I knew that I had to pull over.

In my mind, I'm battling what am I going to say to him, what's going to be my

story.

I'm worried, I'm scared, and I'm trying to calm myself down at the same time

trying to calm him down.

It just didn't feel right, especially after seeing that look in the cop's face

when he saw me.

He asked me, let me see your registration.

Where are you coming from?

I immediately go to tell him that past town that I was just at, and I can't

remember the name.

At that point I froze.

He's got to know what's going on.

I saw him in my mirror go straight to his car, tell his partner to get out.

I'm freaking out.

And they both approached the car.

He walks up to me and tells me, you're carrying something.

I was like, no, no, I'm not.

He's like, no, you have something.

And I'm like, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Let's talk about this. And he just started telling me, no, be quiet, get

the car, get out of the car.

We'll talk at the station.

I'm like, oh my God, what the hell did I get myself into?

I still thought at that point that we had the option of buying our way out if

need to.

I was told in Mexico all cops will take money.

So I told them, hey, you know, let's make a deal.

I've got money.

How much? I don't know. You tell me how much you want.

$5 ,000, $10 ,000? And he just laughed at me.

That's not even enough for play money.

I'm like,

oh, my God, something's not right.

I asked for a phone call. They're like, no phone calls here.

So they take us into this grungy building.

I knew that this was just the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

I've got to get the hell out of this place.

I've heard horror stories about the police.

If the gang don't show up, I can only imagine what's going to happen.

Little did I know and realize that something bad was really about to

The worst was just yet to come.

In my mind, I was still in denial, thinking that everything was going to be

fine. These people were going to come and get me, and everything was going to

just great.

And little did I know that the worst was about to happen.

About two days later, they called my name out.

They asked me to tell them where I had gotten the marijuana.

I had to make a choice whether to go ahead and spill everything out or maybe

face something worse.

I can't snitch off the people I work with. They're going to come and get me.

So I told them I didn't do anything. I don't even know why you have me here.

They walked me out to the backyard.

Ahem.

You're going to tell us what happened. I'm like, you know, I don't know what

you're talking about.

You want to play games?

We're going to show you how to play games.

They put a plastic bag over my head.

So I'm sucking for air, trying to breathe.

I end up sucking the bag into my mouth, so I bit into it.

And tore it as best I could and got, you know, whatever little air I can get out

of it.

So the guys grabbed the bag.

I get punched in the stomach again and get dunked into the water.

Just gasping and swallowing water.

That desperate feeling of not being able to breathe I remember the most.

Freaking out. I'm thinking, I'm dying.

There's no way I can get through this.

That desperation, it's an indescribable feeling.

And I said, okay, okay, I'm ready to talk.

So I figured I'll just tell them I went into the town on my own and I found a

random person.

I don't even know his name.

And that's exactly what I said.

They accepted the story and they sent me back to the holding cell.

You know, it just brings back some bad memories.

It's a place that I didn't like to be at.

Well, after 14 days, they finally took me out to the main prison.

If you're a drug smuggler in Mexico, you don't have the option of bonding

yourself out during your trial.

So I got transferred to Morelia, Michoacan.

This is a prison full of murderers, rapists, you know, everybody.

And everybody looked alike.

Nobody looked like they were a murderer.

You just couldn't tell.

They had no care for life. It didn't matter to them. They would kill somebody

without a problem.

Like, it didn't matter if you lived or died.

You know, I'm just thinking to myself, God, you know, this is hell. This is,

know, the worst place I've ever seen in my life.

I thought there was a big possibility that I could die there.

I mean, there was no value for life in that place.

I finally broke down and called my mom.

It had been nine months the last time I spoke with her.

Where are you, son? I've been worried about you.

I'm in Morelia, Mommy, in prison.

It was hard to hear her cry.

No, son.

I love you so much, son.

It hurt in her voice, just, you know, it broke my heart.

I love you too, Mom.

Yeah.

Felt like I let her down.

Okay.

Bye.

I'm sure she had better hopes for me, you know.

Wanted better things for me, even though she didn't show it.

Yeah, I'm sure she did.

After a year of being there, I had adapted to the surroundings and pretty

just became one of them.

A friend of mine who had a girlfriend in the women's area, he asked me if I

could go over there and pick up his food for the day.

And he would share with me and whatever.

I got over there and washing dishes with this girl.

I was immediately attracted to her.

I had to get to know her.

We just completely fell in love with each other.

I found out she was an accountant for a company.

Her manager was embezzling money.

She just got caught in the middle because she was the one signing the

Her crime wasn't very big. She wouldn't stay there very long.

But I had been sentenced to a lot of years, and I didn't want to leave her

I wanted to be with her.

So I began to think, you know, I'm going to try to escape.

I'm going to get out of here.

I started to associate with people.

One of the guys that I started associating with, they called him Flaco.

He had escaped before from another prison.

He was also a kidnapper.

So he was, you know, somebody who had done things and could get things done.

He was like my right -hand man.

He was my best friend.

Any fights that went down, he was right there with me.

El Diablo, we brought in as muscle.

He was an ex -gangster from L .A., tattooed out and just a really tough

Their whole intention was to try to escape.

Started watching the guards in the towers, watching their moves, see what

were doing daily.

The one thing that they did daily was the cleanup.

Every single morning, they'd bring them up in a broom,

walk into each individual tower.

The guard would come down, open the door,

and meet these guys.

The guard would receive them up in the room, go back up, clean this tower out,

and then throw the things over the side, and they would continue to eat the

tower during this.

Flaco figured if we can get inside this chain and fence before they locked the

gate, catch all three guards, With the door open,

we could take over these guards and get out through this tower.

It was a 10, 15 -second window.

Otherwise, he locks it and goes back up, and there's no getting in.

I know they have guns, and we needed to disarm them. So am I going to be able to

kill, or am I just going to get killed?

The one thing that they didn't know about me is I wasn't a killer like they

were.

You know, I bragged to them that I could if I had to, but I'd never actually

done it.

It was a dangerous and a scary situation.

It scared me.

That morning, everything fell into place.

The plan was perfect. We were all ready to go.

The guards went through with their routine.

They opened the gate.

I had a hollow feeling in my stomach.

The adrenaline rushing, the nervousness.

The guard came down the tower, opened the door.

As he opened the door, the gate was still open.

Negro looked up at me.

and nodded his head as a signal.

And I froze.

I just couldn't go through with it.

I'm looking, just staring, and finally I focused in on what was going on.

I thought, okay, I got to go, and I jumped in.

My cop took off running.

I'm chasing him.

I'm focused on his gun.

So this guy trips and falls.

When he falls, I'm going to grab his gun.

So I'm focused on his waist.

I'm noticing he doesn't even have a gun belt on.

Because he didn't have a gun, I didn't have to kill him, but now I don't have a

gun at all.

As I'm clearing the top of the tower, Diablo's behind me yelling, Las

Where's the shotgun?

We knew there was a shotgun in there somewhere, but we didn't know where.

I go to the other side, and there it is.

I immediately thought, you know, what am I going to do with it?

I don't want this gun in my hands.

If I keep it, I might have to use it. So my first thing was get rid of it.

I stuck my head out and yelled, and I just said, here it goes.

I went ahead and dropped, landed.

I saw Flaco running towards the houses.

As I'm running, I can see off the corner of my eye that there was a police car.

All of a sudden, I hear a pop and then a whoosh.

They were shooting at us.

I turned around immediately and yelled at Flaco, shoot at them, shoot at them.

He was left -handed, and he couldn't unlock the safety on it.

We turned the corner of the houses, and about two blocks down, we could see the

car that was supposed to be there waiting.

It starts speeding off.

A cop car turns the corner in front of us.

I just couldn't believe that I was caught.

No longer was me and Claudia going to be able to be free and together.

We're going to have to go back to the plan of me being inside and her outside.

Months passed after that, and I'm still waiting for my sentence.

I'm hungry.

Me and Diablo are walking to the store, and we see the warden.

They said, oh, well, they're going to transfer you out of here to the United

States. Papers just came in yesterday.

I was just reading them this morning. And I looked at my friend and we're

really? I knew that if I did get transferred to the States, I

would be, you know, it would be a shorter time before I got out.

So I'm in shock. I'm like, there's no way. There's no way that this can

I didn't think it was ever going to happen, and here it was.

It's finally the day.

Claudia came to my cell.

She was a little sad, but excited.

She had some news for me.

She hesitated a little bit to tell me, and then she broke down and told me.

She had missed her last period.

I didn't know anymore what to do or what to decide.

It kind of left me in shock.

Knowing that she

was pregnant, it was scary because I knew I was going to have to leave her,

I didn't want to.

I didn't want her to be alone, and I didn't want to leave her side. I wanted

to be with her from now on.

Knowing that she was pregnant, I got scared.

Scared, excited.

You're pregnant?

I didn't know what to do or what to think.

That's great.

See? It's amazing.

See? Yeah.

All of a sudden I hear my name being called.

I knew I was going to have to leave her and I didn't want to.

She started crying, and I wanted to take her with me. I didn't want to ever be

away from her.

The guard saw Claudia crying, and he saw me, and he

said, You have a choice. You don't have to leave.

The choice that I had was to go back in.

You know, be next to Claudia, but run the risk of staying there for a lot of

years. My other choice was to go away and leave Claudia behind with the

guarantee that I was going to be getting out soon.

And as soon as she gets out, she can be with me.

So I made the choice of being transferred.

In my mind, I thought, hey, I won.

I'm still going to get Claudia.

And I'm still going to get my freedom.

To me, I won.

That's everything for me. Everything was going to be perfect from then on.

Come to find out, I was only going to be able to keep one of them.

During the time that I lost contact with her, she became scared.

Didn't know what to do. She was pregnant and ended up finding another guy.

I still think about her.

I still think about her and wish that I could see her again.

And more than anything, I wish I could meet my daughter because I haven't met

her. I never got to see her.

I hope that somebody

sees my story and takes to heart what I've done

and sees that.

that they become aware of that fake money, that it's not there, that it's

facade that's there, that doesn't actually exist and changes their life

and gets away from the drug world.

If at least one person can do that, I think that would be a big