Banged up Abroad Nat Geo Caught up abroad Nationalgeographic
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00:00I was a city boy. I had my Hermes tie, I had my brogues, my pinstripe suit and you
00:16know I enjoyed having a bit of money in my pocket and pretending that I was
00:22really quite important. I'm quite a little city gent but because of the
00:31general business environment there was a lot of stress. I was working long hours,
00:36not much time off, not really enjoying it that much and I think ultimately that
00:41that led to me becoming ill. I literally lied on my mum's sofa for a year
00:48experiencing the most bleak clinical depression. The depression was brought on
00:56by having not enough thyroid in my system. I couldn't speak a whole sentence.
01:00I couldn't walk. It was certainly the lowest point of my life. When it was
01:07warmer in England I felt better. Thyroid is used to create body heat and when
01:14you're in a warm climate your deficiency is much less obvious. So I thought well
01:19if I go to an even warmer climate maybe I'll feel even better. I decided to go
01:24travelling.
01:27I ended up going to Singapore, Malaysia and then ended up in Thailand and sure
01:31enough it was a big tonic. As soon as I landed in a warmer, freer world I felt an
01:40awful lot better and you know it proved to be a good move. I could really live
01:45like that for the rest of my life. An idyllic existence I was well was staying in a wooden hut on the
01:49beach, frolicking around in the surf during the day and eating lots of lovely
01:54food and then starting drinking fairly early on and trying to get off with any
02:01number of gorgeous female tourists. It was a three-month existence of pure
02:07hedonism and fun. Sometimes going home alone, sometimes not, but living to
02:14frolic another day.
02:21It had all the elements of a sort of dreamlike existence for a young man who
02:26wants to just get stuck in to a few adventures and that's exactly what I
02:32ended up doing.
02:38Hong Kong was a cultural shock because just literally the amount of people in
02:46the buildings. I was used to space and beauty and suddenly it's just this noise
02:50and bustle. There was this bloke in my hostel called Oz who arrived after I'd been
03:00there for about a week and I just kind of took him under my wing. He seemed a
03:06bit naive in terms of drinking and going out and having fun and I just
03:10showed him how to do it.
03:16I was no expert but we went out drinking and he soon picked it up. He was a very good
03:22student and we soon became very firm friends.
03:28We both had dwindling reserves of cash. I had frittered it away on booze pretty
03:35much. I clearly needed to work if I was going to stay away from England and I
03:40certainly wasn't ready to go home.
03:44Oh, there he is, Jeffy boy, how you doing son? Marsha, do me a favour, let me get a bottle of beer.
03:48Rhett moved into the hostel. He gave guided tours to German tourists because he spoke
03:53German but was American.
03:55He was tiny, he was like a midget. You should have seen his wife, man. She looked like she was in the NBA, man.
03:59She was like 6'6", 6'7". She was huge.
04:02He wasn't a particularly likeable character from the start. He was quite a loud mouth.
04:07Bottoms up, buddy.
04:09Literally loud.
04:11Yes, that is what I'm talking about.
04:13And he was sort of boastful and whatever.
04:15I'll take that, keep the change, alright?
04:16Not really my kind of guy but slowly we got talking and slowly it emerged that being a tour guide
04:25wasn't his only source of income.
04:28So, you boys want to make some money?
04:35If you want to make good money, boys, you've got to get into gold.
04:38Gold.
04:39Get into it.
04:41He revealed that he had been taking some gold over to Nepal and this sounded like extraordinary.
04:48What on earth are you doing?
04:50All you've got to do is take the gold on a plane, spend the weekend in Kathmandu,
04:54take a look at the mountains, fly back Monday.
04:56Kathmandu.
04:58And that he was going to do it again and that there were spaces for other people to go with him if I wanted.
05:06You know the guys at the airports, custom officials, that sort of thing?
05:09They're all in on it. Every single one of them.
05:12It just sounded frightening, scary, involving people I didn't know in countries I didn't know
05:20and that it could go horribly wrong and I wasn't in that desperate a situation.
05:25Listen, fellas, take it or leave it.
05:28Leave it, thank you. What about you, Oz?
05:30Mate, I'll think about it and no.
05:33It's all good, boys. I'm not going to twist your arms.
05:40Oh!
05:41You all right, boys?
05:42You all right, mate?
05:43Who's coming for a beer?
05:45Don't drink, mate.
05:46He disappeared for a weekend, didn't tell us where he was going
05:50and came back with a wadge of dollars.
05:55A big, fat, green wadge of dollars.
05:59You know, we were just transfixed.
06:02I think Oz and I just were sitting opposite him and we just thought, well, that's a lot of money.
06:07It was actually $2,000.
06:09It wasn't a great deal of money, but to people who were travelling and running out of cash,
06:15it was a lifeline.
06:18It seemed so tempting.
06:21Just a weekend away, not that difficult.
06:25Money in your hand, dead easy.
06:29And we were pretty much doomed from then on.
06:32Oz and I approached Rhett and said,
06:35we're on for the next run.
06:38He was pleased and he said,
06:41the next phase was,
06:44we had to go with him one evening to Chunking Manor,
06:48which is a place where you can get a good deal of beer.
06:52It's a place where you can get a good deal of beer.
06:55It's a place where you can get a good deal of beer.
06:58It's a place where you can get a good deal of beer.
07:01We went to Chunking Mansions, which was a notorious tower block
07:04where all sorts of nefarious activities went on.
07:08So one evening, Oz, Rhett and myself went downtown
07:12and met the fourth member of the team.
07:16Guys, this is Eric. He's French.
07:19A guy called Eric, who was a maitre d' at a restaurant in Hong Kong.
07:23Nice guy. We got on well with him.
07:26Let's go.
07:27In many ways, it was a bit odd.
07:30It was a bit like a joke cos there was me, the Englishman,
07:33there was the American who was Rhett, there was Oz, the Australian,
07:37and there was this Frenchman who just turned up called Eric.
07:40And we were all going into this very dodgy-looking tower block
07:44to meet up with two even dodgier Nepalese gangsters.
07:48It was rather exciting cos I'd heard about this place
07:51but never been there and it had quite a reputation
07:54for being a centre for prostitution and smuggling
07:57and, you know, you could hire a room by the hour
08:00and this was one of those places where dodgy deals could be done
08:05and no questions would be asked.
08:09Then we went up the lifts to some floor near the top...
08:18..to meet up with two Nepalese men who had been waiting for us.
08:30We got on well with them.
08:32It was a bit like a joke cos I'd heard about this place
08:36but never been there.
08:51The first thing that hit me was that one of them was wearing
08:54a shoulder holster and the end of his gun was sticking out
08:57from under his arm.
08:59And I must say, your stomach sort of sinks a bit.
09:06There was a gradual dawning realisation
09:11that suddenly we were involved in a very serious world
09:17and we were to be on best behaviour.
09:26They had one multi-pocketed denim waistcoat
09:30which had $400,000 worth of gold in it
09:33and he wanted to see whether we were physically strong enough
09:36to pick up this vest and put it on.
09:46It weighed over four stone.
09:55Obviously, you go from being 11 stone to 15 stone suddenly.
10:00It was just very heavy and you could feel your feet, you know.
10:05You were a bit like Robocop when you were walking with that on
10:08because suddenly you were four stone heavier.
10:12We all wanted to prove ourselves to each other
10:15that we could handle it.
10:25But, you know, we were all physically strong enough,
10:27we all managed to do it and we satisfied them
10:29that we would be good mules.
10:32My only question was, what happens if we get caught?
10:47Nothing, man.
10:48Sent home, deported, one night in prison, that's it.
10:53So it seemed there wasn't any real downside in this.
10:56One night in prison, I mean, we can all deal with that, can't we?
11:03We had a good drink that night because we were rushing,
11:05we were buzzing from the adrenaline of agreeing to do this.
11:10You know, being in the presence of some serious gangsters with guns.
11:14This is all good stuff, as far as we can tell.
11:19It's frightening as well.
11:21But without that fear, you don't have the excitement.
11:25So it's all part and parcel
11:27of this progressively crazy adventure.
11:33There was a week between trying on the jacket and doing the gold run.
11:37During that week, there were times when I would ask myself
11:40what the hell I thought I was doing.
11:42I've still got time to pull out and why don't I just be sensible?
11:47It came round to be a definite yes.
11:51Not so much because of the money.
11:55But more because the more I considered it,
11:57the more I believed it to be a huge adventure
12:02and it became me wanting to prove that I could do something
12:06as dangerous and as stupid as that.
12:11I'd been ill and restricted for a long time.
12:14This became an expression of my being better and my freedom.
12:19This was proof that I was back.
12:21And not only was I back, I was back with balls.
12:25MUSIC
12:51The plan was to arrive at the airport,
12:54check in, go through to the departure lounge
13:00and there, somebody would meet us
13:04and hand the gold over to us in the toilets.
13:12There was a lot of nerves at this point.
13:15There was tension.
13:17We're sitting around waiting, thinking, you know,
13:19where is this guy?
13:21The first group of people on our plane have got on a coach
13:24and have driven across the tarmac to the plane
13:27and still this guy isn't here.
13:29It's like, what's happening?
13:35And you think, are we being watched?
13:40Do people keep an eye out for people who look nervous?
13:51BANG
13:55And eventually he turned up at the very last minute.
14:01Eric followed him into the toilet first
14:04and then we all went in one by one after that.
14:16I was almost forcing myself to do something
14:19which was against my nature.
14:21I was, you know, just a middle-class kid,
14:24backpacking around, suddenly doing something totally illegal,
14:28which was probably the first major illegal thing
14:31I'd done in my life.
14:42The guy was standing outside a cubicle
14:46and on the floor of the cubicle
14:48was the denim waistcoat containing the gold.
15:04We had to wear jackets and shirts
15:06in order to provide two layers
15:08to conceal what we were carrying beneath.
15:16And he looked me up and down and said,
15:18yes, that looks good.
15:20I looked in the mirror and...
15:23..and there was this kind of ashen-faced,
15:26rather sort of sweaty, wide-eyed individual
15:29staring back at me, saying,
15:31you really think this is a good idea?
15:33This is the first call for flight number 562.
15:37All maintenance passengers...
15:45That was the dawning realisation
15:48that there was no turning back now and it was going ahead.
15:54It was just an intense...
15:59..fear, primarily.
16:02Fear of the unknown
16:04and what one was letting oneself in for.
16:07This is the last call for flight number 562.
16:10All remaining passengers, please make your way to gate number 18.
16:14Ready?
16:28This is the last call for flight number 562.
16:31All remaining passengers...
16:35We didn't want to stand out like a sore thumb,
16:37but there we were, the last people getting on,
16:39delaying everyone else,
16:40delaying even the take-off of the plane, probably.
16:45Carrying four stone of gold is a lot easier
16:47when you're charged with adrenaline
16:49and you're therefore a lot stronger than you normally are.
16:53All remaining passengers...
17:02I have some vague recollection of Rhett saying
17:05that he felt that he was carrying even more than usual.
17:11And that was really the only indication
17:14that perhaps we were carrying right up to the maximum
17:19of what could possibly be taken by someone.
17:31It seems that the deal with gold smuggling
17:34was that you can fly it over to Nepal
17:38where they have no metal detectors at the airport
17:42and the customs people in Nepal were paid off
17:46to allow you to go through without any trouble.
17:49Then it's taken across land to India
17:52where they do have metal detectors at the airport
17:55and it's sold in India for a vastly higher price.
17:59What you haven't done is paid the tax
18:02for bringing it into either Nepal or India.
18:06So that's where the arbitrage is.
18:08That's where, you know, people make money from gold smuggling.
18:18We get off the plane and it's hot.
18:22It's right in the middle of the day
18:24and you get hit by this...
18:26It's right in the middle of the day
18:28and you get hit by this wall of heat
18:30and obviously we're not really appropriately dressed.
18:35So we're kind of sweating.
18:37When you add to the fact that we're obviously quite nervous as well,
18:41we're sweating quite a lot.
18:43But anyway, we go through, we queue up
18:46and passports are fine, we hand over the money
18:49and then we go through these big double doors
18:52into the customs hall.
18:56And it is bustling and noisy
18:59and there are four gates
19:02which consist of a table
19:04and somebody searching people's luggage.
19:07And suddenly Rhett stopped and looked puzzled
19:10and I thought, you know, what's the problem here?
19:15OK, he's not there.
19:18The problem was he'd been told to go through gate four
19:21but the usual guy
19:25who manned gate four wasn't there.
19:27It was a woman in a purple sari.
19:29This has worked every single time. I've done it three, four times.
19:32It's been the same guy every single time.
19:34I blame you entirely.
19:36I didn't twist your fucking arm.
19:38Shut up.
19:40There was literally an awful, I don't know,
19:43three or four minutes, it dragged on forever,
19:46whereby we were just sort of
19:49trying to look cool
19:51but not moving
19:53and therefore attracting more attention to ourselves
19:56whilst trying to have these conversations.
19:58What are we going to do then? We can't just turn here.
20:00Rhett, what's the fucking idea?
20:02I don't know.
20:04And eventually we looked over
20:07to the woman in the purple sari
20:10and she could see that we were struggling
20:13and she just sort of...
20:15Four waves, what does that mean, four waves?
20:17What does that mean? Do you know her?
20:19Of course I don't fucking know her.
20:21I know one guy. I told you. Have you got a better idea?
20:23Of course I've got a fucking better idea.
20:25If you don't have a better idea, then why don't you shut the fuck up?
20:28Go on.
20:35Rhett was first. He put his bag down.
20:40Thank you very much.
20:42Oz was next.
20:52I was last.
20:56I'd rather not have been last,
20:58but everything seemed to be going fine.
21:03Until suddenly, on the other side of the customs hall...
21:05Stop!
21:07There wasn't really a thought in my head at this point.
21:12I just sort of...
21:14couldn't really take on board what was happening,
21:16but there was this little guy with a moustache.
21:19He grabbed Eric.
21:24My worst fears are...
21:27kind of being realised.
21:29He gets out and he says,
21:31My worst fears are...
21:34kind of being realised.
21:36He gets out a metal detector.
21:42And it goes off with a noise like a car alarm.
21:58Hey, you! Come over here!
22:01I had to walk towards him.
22:07But, you know, I thought, what can I do?
22:13He just pushed us both
22:15in the direction of this room
22:17to the side of the customs hall,
22:19and just, like,
22:21ashen-faced, in total shock,
22:24we went into this room
22:27and there was this man
22:29in this room
22:31and there was Richard Bedlam from there.
22:55Whilst Eric and I are sitting in this room,
22:58Oz and Rhett have walked through
23:00and are on the other side, waiting for us to come through.
23:03You've got to check out the monkey temple while you're here.
23:05Yeah, right there. Do they have elephants here?
23:07No. They're not in the city, mate.
23:14Get the fuck off me!
23:16Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop!
23:19But instead of us coming out,
23:22it was four or five armed policemen coming out.
23:28Quick, quick!
23:53As they started opening it, you know,
23:56I was feeling pretty awful at the time.
23:58And then suddenly I thought, well, hang on.
24:01I hope that it's just gold I've got in my vest,
24:04you know, that there isn't a couple of packets of heroin as well.
24:11You know, I just thought, well, how stupid have I been?
24:17Quite remarkably stupid in retrospect.
24:26Thankfully, though, there was no sudden appearance
24:29of any packets of white powder.
24:36We had never seen the gold before, obviously.
24:39We'd only felt how heavy it was.
24:47And we'd just seen sort of denim pockets
24:49and knowing that the gold was in it.
24:51So to actually see what we were eventually smuggling
24:55was quite a revelation.
25:13And it was quite a revelation
25:15to the customs officials who were gathering around.
25:19We later discovered it was the largest seizure of gold ever
25:22in the history of gold smuggling in Nepal.
25:25So they were naturally rather amazed
25:28at the amount that we had had the audacity
25:31to try and smuggle into their country.
25:36Forms were produced which were written in Nepalese
25:39which they wanted signatures to.
25:44We didn't know what they said.
25:46We didn't have any legal representation.
25:48We didn't have anything.
25:52OK.
26:03But, you know, with people shouting angrily in your face
26:06and thrusting a pen at you...
26:10..you don't want to cause unnecessary trouble
26:13but you don't want to sign your life away.
26:18In the end, we signed them
26:20because...
26:23..we didn't want to be seen to be causing trouble.
26:33Then what happened...
26:36..and this was the only time I must have come close to...
26:42..I suppose...
26:45..emotionally, this was a difficult, very difficult moment.
26:50I've never been in handcuffs before.
26:54And they were big, rusty, very Third World handcuffs.
27:00That was just a powerful, symbolic act of putting on handcuffs.
27:10That's when you truly lose your freedom.
27:16Four of us were put into a jeep
27:18and I think there were four armed guards with us.
27:23We didn't know whether we were being sort of kidnapped
27:25or anything like that.
27:28And we were just driven off into the night.
27:35It was dark and we couldn't see the country that we'd landed in.
27:40We eventually pulled up outside this sort of wall.
27:44We were pushed through this hole in the wall, all four of us.
27:50And we were in prison.
27:53We realised we were in prison.
27:58And...
28:00..it was sort of dark and there were just rows of men
28:03sleeping all over the place.
28:06We thought that we were being put in a sort of holding place
28:11prior to being thrown out of the country the next day.
28:15That's what we clung on to.
28:24Strangely, I slept incredibly well.
28:27It was an exhausting experience the whole day
28:30and by the time we got there, I shut my eyes
28:33and I did manage to sleep and woke up the next day.
28:37You know, surrounded by this mess.
28:39You know, surrounded by this hubbub
28:41of being in the middle of a prison.
28:46I just could not believe I was there.
28:49I sort of woke up and thought, well, what's going on here?
28:52Oh, right, yeah, I was arrested last night for gold smuggling.
28:56I've been slung in prison.
28:59Here I am.
29:03There was a call from the front gate
29:05and we had to get back into a jeep with some more assaults in
29:08and we were driven back to the airport.
29:16And we thought, excellent news, yes.
29:18Right. Ha-ha-ha.
29:20That was an interesting little stay in prison.
29:22They've seized the gold, they're happy with that.
29:24We're obviously going to be put on the first flight out of here.
29:27Get out of here, you idiots.
29:30First flight home.
29:31First flight home.
29:34But when we got to the airport,
29:36we were taken to a building on the airport grounds
29:41which had a sign outside saying Customs Court.
29:48And it quickly transpired that anyone caught smuggling
29:53at the Nepalese airport was tried at the Customs Court.
30:00But then it turned out that the Customs Court was simply an office,
30:05a rather shabby, small office with a bit of paperwork in it
30:09and that the judge was actually the Chief of Customs
30:14who was the bloke who'd arrested us the previous evening.
30:20And we thought, well, this is just crazy here.
30:22I was expecting, if we were going to have to go to a court,
30:25I was expecting something that resembled a court,
30:28somebody that resembled a judge.
30:30We just didn't know what to do.
30:32We were just, like, alone on the other side of the world
30:35being shouted at by the bloke who arrested you
30:38who's also your judge.
30:39It's like, this is not...
30:41This is not a planet or a legal system that I'm familiar with.
30:49From where you brought it?
30:53From where you brought it, this gold?
30:55OK.
30:59There were some questions about, do we know whose gold it was?
31:03I don't know.
31:04We just take the gold, pick it up in Hong Kong,
31:07take it to Kathmandu, and we find out when we get here,
31:11we give it to...
31:12I think, satisfied that we didn't really know anything about anything,
31:16he pretty quickly said we'd all been sentenced to four years.
31:22Four years?
31:24Yes.
31:25In jail in Nepal?
31:26Yes.
31:28Not deported?
31:35You have brought 112 kilos of gold.
31:38As per rule,
31:40the cost which includes the 112 kilos of gold,
31:44the same amount you have to pay.
31:46Unless we could pay the value of the gold,
31:49unless we could pay the value of the gold seized in a fine.
31:56Since we didn't have $1.6 million gold on us,
32:00that was looking rather unlikely, so...
32:04Stunned, shocked,
32:07and still in a state of sort of disbelief,
32:10we were taken back to the prison to begin our sentence.
32:14You know, just...
32:18unable to really comprehend
32:21what had happened to us in the previous 48 hours.
32:35I wondered what had gone wrong.
32:38Why didn't this operation go smoothly,
32:41like all the other ones had done?
32:43Who was the guy who, first of all, apprehended Eric and then myself?
32:48Why did that happen if everyone was paid off?
32:53We were later to find out that, you know,
32:56there were other things afoot.
32:58But for...at that time, we had not a clue.
33:06Life in prison in Kathmandu
33:08Life in prison in Kathmandu was very frightening.
33:11We didn't know whether there would be violence,
33:14whether there would be sexual violence.
33:17It was a prison that just had
33:19everything from murderers and child molesters and rapists,
33:22thieves, drug addicts.
33:24The whole range of criminality was there.
33:29On the first or second day,
33:31I was introduced to the only other white guy in prison.
33:35He looked simply quite extraordinary.
33:38He looked like some sort of wizard from another century.
33:42And he talked in riddles, he talked in total gibberish, basically.
33:50I discovered that he had been a gold smuggler,
33:54had been in for nearly four years, and had gone mad.
33:58This was particularly frightening,
34:00because my greatest fear now was, I don't know,
34:04depression or being cut off from your friends and family.
34:07You know, you don't know where that's going to take you, mentally.
34:11And it seemed to me that here was potentially the future of me.
34:15Just bonkers.
34:24I composed a very difficult letter to my mother,
34:29saying, don't worry, I've ended up in prison,
34:33it's in Nepal.
34:35I didn't tell her I was going to Nepal, but I'm here.
34:38And, you know, I felt stupid,
34:42selfish, pretty wretched, really, you know.
34:49All of the sort of bravado had drained away like dirty bathwater
34:55and was left with a slightly scared young man
34:59wishing he could go back in time and reverse some decisions
35:03that had proved to be less than sensible.
35:12After three or four days in prison,
35:14we received an American visitor who asked to speak to Rhett.
35:18And his name was Ian,
35:20and he was somebody that Rhett had met on previous visits.
35:24So, how's it going, man?
35:26How's it going? I'm in Nepalese prison. Pretty fucking shit.
35:29Brought you some stuff, though, from our friends in education.
35:32He worked for the Nepalese gangsters
35:35and he brought with him food and bedding
35:38and basically his message was,
35:40anything's possible in Nepal, we know who to speak to.
35:44Pay a couple of people off here or there
35:47and, you know, money talks and we'll get you out.
35:52There was an enormous sense of relief
35:55and excitement and hope
35:57that, you know, we hadn't been forgotten about.
36:05We received regular visits from Ian
36:08every week to ten days,
36:11with more money, with more food, whatever, you know.
36:14We were constantly being promised
36:17that our release was just around the corner.
36:20We just carried on waiting and hoping
36:23and eventually the weeks turned into months.
36:26Then one day, after about three months,
36:29the planned day of the visit turned up
36:32and no-one visited us
36:35and that was it. No-one visited us after that.
36:42One of our friends in the prison, a Nepalese guy,
36:45he was actually a silver smuggler,
36:47he explained to us the Nepalese system.
36:49If you're in the jail, if you're in the jail,
36:52for two months, you can't appeal.
36:55Can't appeal. Can't.
36:57If we stay for three more months, we can't appeal.
37:00So we've got three more months to appeal,
37:03after doing three months. No.
37:06If you didn't lodge an appeal against your sentence
37:09within the first three months,
37:11then you could no longer lodge your appeal.
37:14Two months. Three months.
37:16Can't appeal. Can't appeal.
37:18Can't appeal. Can't appeal.
37:21Three months had gone by
37:23and we'd been told by the Nepalese gangsters to keep quiet
37:26and as soon as that three months was up, they dropped us.
37:31And so we were left with no chance now of getting out.
37:39It became very clear that we'd just been strung along from the beginning
37:43and we had to think of other ways how we were going to get out
37:47without spending four years there.
37:51MUSIC STOPS
38:11Uncle Tony actually wasn't an uncle.
38:13He was something like a second cousin,
38:15but he was always an uncle to me.
38:18I also knew that, you know, Uncle Tony had been in the RAF
38:23and had quite a distinguished career there
38:26and I knew that he'd afterwards had some sort of slightly more shadowy role,
38:30which made him a kind of James Bond in my eyes.
38:33He was a kind of like, you know, a bit of a hero figure for me.
38:39I received a call from the front gate
38:42and there waiting was Tony
38:45in a big green barber, the same one he used to wear on his farm.
38:51And it was quite an emotional moment
38:54because suddenly there was one of my family here
38:58to try and help get me and my friends out.
39:04Tony had done his research
39:06and we knew that once a year on the king's birthday,
39:09the king, in all his mercifulness,
39:12agrees to let out certain people on a pardon.
39:17Tony got us writing paper
39:19and we composed a nice letter
39:23to His Highness saying,
39:26could you let us out on your birthday, please, Your Highness?
39:32We were guilty, but we're sorry
39:35and we'd like to go home.
39:37Tony's role was really
39:39to act as our representative on the outside.
39:42You know, we just wanted Tony to meet as many people as possible.
39:47We didn't know how any one contact might be able to help us,
39:51but we understood that if you were going to get out
39:54via writing to the king,
39:56you had to have political support on the inside,
39:59and that's what we did.
40:01We understood that if you were going to get out
40:04via writing to the king,
40:06you had to have political support on the inside.
40:09And so Tony met up with an interesting guy called Lucas.
40:15Lucas, it transpired, was an American
40:18who worked with the Nepalese gangsters.
40:21In fact, he was closely involved
40:24in organising the greasing of palms
40:28of the customs officials at the airports in Kathmandu.
40:32But he wasn't in the country at the time when we were arrested.
40:38He had been called away by the Nepalese gangsters to Hong Kong.
40:47So whilst we were heading for Nepal,
40:50Lucas, who would normally be overseeing
40:53the bribing of the customs officials,
40:56is arriving in Hong Kong.
41:00Lucas pretty soon realised that we had been set up.
41:05They invited him over to Hong Kong
41:07so that he didn't meddle in our arrest.
41:11Our arrest was planned from the start
41:15by the two guys that we had met in Chungking Mansions.
41:20They packed us to the gills with as much gold as possible
41:23and told the chief of customs that we were going to be arriving.
41:28And the deal was, if you inform on any gold smugglers in Nepal,
41:33you get a quarter of the value of the gold seized.
41:37So the more you put on your gold smugglers,
41:40the more money you get.
41:43We end up spending four years
41:45and they end up extremely wealthy men.
41:48It felt pretty bad
41:51when we realised we were the victim of a set-up,
41:54but it felt pretty good as well
41:56because suddenly our chances of getting out increased...
42:04..increased quite significantly.
42:09Lucas had contacts, or so he claimed,
42:12at pretty much every level of government,
42:14right up to the prime minister.
42:16He told Tony on that first meeting
42:18that he was very interested in helping us get out
42:21and he would do everything in his power to get us out,
42:25despite the guys who got us in.
42:31It was December 17th
42:34and I remember the cry of English from the front gate.
42:40There was a man in a suit,
42:43and from the front gate
42:45there was the English vice-consul from the embassy.
42:49She said,
42:51I don't know how or why, but I've come here to tell you
42:55that we've been informed this morning
42:57that you're going to be released on the king's birthday
43:00on December the 29th.
43:02And...
43:05..I don't know, I mean, it was just an extraordinary...
43:09..extraordinary feeling.
43:12I then had the rather pleasant task
43:15of going back inside the prison,
43:17gathering Oz, Eric and Rhett around
43:20and telling them that we were getting out.
43:34We'd been very stupid in getting in
43:36and we'd been very lucky in getting out,
43:38but we were incredibly relieved
43:40that it looked like our ordeal was coming to an end.
43:43CHEERING
44:08I went in search of adventure,
44:11but the plan for proving oneself
44:13had gone about as dramatically wrong as it could have gone.
44:18I still dream...
44:20I have regular dreams where I've tried to smuggle again
44:24and I've failed again and I'm back in prison
44:27and I'm counting the days again.
44:30And it's never a particularly nice dream.
44:34I wouldn't want to experience the thrill of smuggling
44:37or attempting to smuggle ever again.
44:41HE SIGHS