In the end, I got to Caracas fine and picked up the ‘goods’. On the way out at the airport, the cops moved in on me. I ended up in my own Banged Up Abroad. I was convicted for drug smuggling and sentenced to eight years in Los Teques jail.
I deserved it, you say. Drugs are bad, and anyone involved with them should be locked up and have to suffer. I accept that. I had no problem doing the time. But I was locked up in a cruel, violent world where I was abused, dehumanised, stabbed, had to dodge bullets and nearly lost my life. No one deserves that, I say.
And if the purpose of prison was to punish me for smuggling drugs and reform me, that didn’t work either. I quickly went from a drug mule to a dealer inside Los Teques. It was the only way I could survive, the only way I could buy basics, such as a floor cushion to sleep on and a plate and mug to eat and drink with. Nothing was ‘on the house’. I then went from dealing cocaine to becoming psychologically addicted to it. I needed a few lines to get through the day and night. All in all, I was sentenced for smuggling cocaine, then sent into a world where there was more coke than in all the streets of Ireland and Britain. No reform there.
Walking through the gates of Los Teques was like walking through a time warp. It was like going back 100 years into a Victorian jail. I had to sleep on the floor of a toilet for months and was later ‘promoted’ to a spot on the floor in the wing yard. Only after about a year did I get a bed – and only after paying about 150 euro to a cell-block inmate boss for the privilege. I had to share a toilet with up to 200 men and often ended up going in a bag when my bowels couldn’t wait for the queues to end. The Venezuelans fought back at the authorities the only way they knew how – by kidnapping the visitors and hunger striking to have their demands for better conditions met. They rarely were, and the cycle went on. For some, the conditions and daily mental and physical torture became too much and they escaped – by cutting their own throats.
In Los Teques the cell-block bosses, or jefes, ran the show. They were inmates who ran their wings with their elected ‘army councils’. They upheld the rule of law armed to the teeth with Uzis and grenades. They decided who lived or died and how much causa, or protection money, the prisoners in their wings had to pay them. Rows that erupted between rival cell blocks left scores dead and injured, and made headlines around the world.
The National Guard troops, who police the jails, had a hands-off approach to what went on inside the prison. Their job was to count heads and lock gates. They let the jefes run the show inside, while they sat back and profited from selling coke and arms to them – guns they would seize in ‘random’ searches and which miraculously ended up back in the hands of the inmate bosses. If I had been locked up for being a criminal, I often wondered which side of the bars I should be on. Even most of the lawyers and prison cops were bent – always on the take, offering to get us out for money. Yet few did. It was all one big rotten cesspit. An upside-down world. Surreal. I often expected the walls to open up and to see Steven Spielberg with a load of cameras.
From day one, my goal was to get out as quick as I could. I aimed for parole after 18 months inside and got it, thanks to a great lawyer. I was supposed to stay in Caracas for the next five years on parole. But after just a few days in the city I knew I had to get out of Venezuela altogether. I had a family to get back to. With my wits and some money, I fled across to neighbouring Colombia and then home.
I’m writing this story because I have to. It helps me deal with my demons. It is a tale of a stupid drug mule locked up in an evil world, and if it stops just one person from doing what I did, it will be worth it.
Chapter 1
GROUNDED
I HEAR A NAME CALLED OUT OVER THE AIRPORT’S PA SYSTEM: ‘PASSENGER Keany, Paul.’ Jesus, it can’t be. I think I’m hearing things. ‘Passenger Keany, Paul.’ Again. No doubting it. My stomach knots. I hear it again, but this time among a dozen or so other passenger names. I begin to relax. Must be just some formality.
I’m leaning against a wall at a crowded boarding gate. I’m looking out at a twin-engine Airbus parked on the airport apron outside, its nose pointing towards the departures. I walk up to the Air France boarding gate. I join a queue with the other travellers called to step forward. I’m at the back. Two air stewardesses are checking passports. We step forwards one by one. I presume – or hope – we’re being called to file onto the back of the plane. I know I’m seated there. The hostess glances at my passport and gives me a smile. ‘Enjoy your flight, sir.’ I nod and walk on. I’m a respectable businessman, of course, standing there in a suit – a sharp jacket, Ralph Lauren shirt and a tie, dark-blue slacks and black dress shoes.
Another stewardess ushers the group into the tunnel that leads to the aircraft – my lift home. A door suddenly opens to the left. A gust of hot air whooshes in. A male flight attendant waves us out the door. I step through and squint in the blinding midday sun. Below, I see two cops standing at the bottom of a concrete staircase. They’re wearing bulletproof jackets. ‘Policía’ is emblazoned across the front. Their hands hover near their pistols.
Oh my God. Alarm bells go off in my head. This looks like it’s going wrong.
I follow the others. We file down the steps onto the tarmac below. The two policemen call us forward – a mixed bunch, mainly young backpacker types dressed in shorts and T-shirts. I hover at the back of the group and we walk under the terminal. The cops walk close behind me. They lead us over to an area into the bowels of the airport. Awaiting us are about 20 security personnel: airport police, cops and the Venezuelan National Guard. Then I see it: the ‘Antidrogas’ emblem on one of the officer’s uniforms.
My heart sinks. I panic. What have I done? What about my family at home? How will I tell them? My son and daughter, how will I break it to them? This was just supposed to be a free holiday in the sun. A few quid for carrying a suitcase home.
Two Guardia Nacional (National Guard) troops in olive-green uniforms each stand next to a suitcase. The passengers I see are all travelling alone – like me. The guards, armed with Kalashnikovs, call them over to their luggage. I also step forward. The cop beside me puts his arm out and stops me. ‘Tú, no,’ (‘Not you’) he says.
It’s over. I can feel it. I want to vomit.
The troops busy themselves opening the suitcases next to a machine that looks like an X-ray scanner. Cartons of cigarettes are pulled out. The boxes are ripped and thrown on the ground. There are also bottles of Venezuelan rum. The cops open them and sniff inside. ‘No, no,’ shout the French passengers. Their protests fall on deaf ears. The cops continue the search.
Now the check of their bags is over and they start to file off. One by one I watch them leave. I watch the last one walk away, wanting to run after him. I want to scream, ‘It’s him, it’s him you’re after.’ But I don’t.
Out of the corner of my eye I spot my suitcase, wrapped in the cellophane I thought would provide extra security. I paid about five euro in the departures halls for the shrink-wrap service.
All the guards and airport police are watching me now. I feel their eyes burning into me. I feel my life slipping away. The search of the other passengers was all just a decoy to get me – the big fish. I know it now. Keep your cool, I tell myself. It’s not over yet.
I hear the footsteps of one cop behind me coming closer. He stops. More officials are everywhere now: customs, police, the drug squad, army, about 30 of them. The cop waves me forward. He babbles in Spanish something about a maleta (suitcase). I shrug; I haven’t a clue what he’s saying. But I know what’s going on. I’m sweating now. I look around. Nowhere to run. One of the soldiers walks away. All the cops seem to be waiting for someone. Minutes tick away like hours.
Now an older officer in his 40s arrives and steps in front of me. ‘This you case?’ he says in English, interpreting for another cop. His face is stiff. No expression.
‘It looks like mine, but I’m not 100 per cent,’ I say, looking at my name scrawled in my handwriting on a tag hanging of
f the handle.
‘Sí,’ he tells the other guards, not bothering to interpret my false doubt. ‘We have reason to believe you have contrabanda inside,’ he says.
My eyes drop down and I see that the handle is sticking out, not sitting right. I want to puke. I can’t believe it. Bollocks. This has got to be ten years minimum. Fuck. The boys back at the hotel must have got greedy and messed up packing the case. Fuckers – they should be here, not me.
The guard now cuts off the plastic wrapping around the case, like a metaphor for my life peeling away in front of me. Three tiny black darts are poking out of the side of the case, a technique they must use to find coke packed into luggage. Small white circles of powder have formed around the arrow tips.
The boys in green move in closer. A skinny guard opens my case and rummages through my belongings. He pulls out the fake designer clothes I was bringing home as presents for my son and daughter, and others in my family: a Hugo Boss T-shirt and Ralph Lauren shorts, a polo shirt. Now he pulls out plastic bags and scrunched-up newspapers packed in to fill out the case. The officers know the score. They easily spot the telltale signs of a mule’s luggage. The troops and cops gather round, forming a circle. Their smiles widen. My tie feels tighter.
The guard leans over the black Wilson suitcase. He pulls out a small knife and rips the lining inside the case. At the bottom I can see a layer of black plastic, which is carbon paper meant to fool X-ray scanners. So much for that. He cuts the material again. The cops behind me move in closer. Others are standing on tables to get a better look. The guard cuts again. This time there’s a layer of clear plastic, revealing white, densely packed powder. I slowly shake my head. This can’t be happening. The circle of cops moves in closer again and starts to crowd me. I can see one guard, his hand resting on the barrel of his pistol. Others train their mobile-phone cameras on me.
Saturday, 11 October 2008. I was about to be a star.
* * *
Earlier, I’d stepped out of a taxi at the departures. The cab was a beat-up ’70s sedan from the US. I flagged it in the centre of Caracas, where the cab inched through the city’s grinding traffic jams while motorcycles whizzed in and out between the cars. Outside the urban sprawl of the city we reached a motorway. The traffic eased and fanned out across about six lanes. I watched the city pass by, soon leaving behind the hazy fog of fumes, the grim buildings of the urban centre giving way to the shantytowns of little red-bricked houses clinging to the hills around the valley walls looking down onto the motorway. The crudely built homes with tin roofs are where the poor live in Caracas, Venezuela’s teeming capital city of some three million people.
I rolled down the window a bit. Hot air rushed in at me, but it was a fresh breeze blowing in north from the Caribbean. I ran through the events of the last couple of weeks in my head.
I followed orders, arrived in Caracas and checked into a hotel to wait for the call. ‘There’s been a delay. Get yourself a hooker or something to pass the time.’
That I didn’t do. Instead I passed my days in a bar in Sabana Grande, a shopping area for cheap designer goods in Caracas. By night it was deserted – even the rats didn’t seem to venture out amid the hundreds of bags of rubbish that clogged up the streets. I drank my time away in the pub, sipping beers while writing a crime book set in Dublin. Other than that I watched a bit of football, catching the odd Manchester United game. At night I had a meal, drank a bottle of rum and headed back to my cheap hotel.
Then the second call came.
‘The bar on the corner. Five minutes.’ A Dublin accent. Had to be him.
Damo sat in a booth. He was a tough-looking guy, stocky with a bald head. It was the first time we’d met. I slipped in beside him.
‘Paul, sorry. You’re getting on OK?’ He seemed distant.
‘OK.’
‘There’s been a change of plan,’ he said, drumming his fingers on the neck of a bottle of beer. ‘We need you to stay a bit longer. We haven’t got the stuff yet. Can you change your flights and stay another week? We’ll give you the money for it.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. I was thinking of my plumbing business back home and my teenage daughter, who was living with me, and the story I’d told everyone about going away for two weeks, not three.
‘Look, I know you’ve a business back home and I understand if you have to go.’ He was giving me a way out, which surprised me, for a drug smuggler. I thought for a minute. Another week, I can swing it.
‘Yeah, it’s all right, I can do it.’ It was a decision I would regret for a long time.
The next day, on Damo’s advice, I moved to Altamira, the banking district of Caracas. It was an upmarket area: lots of tall glass buildings; wide, leafy avenues lined with palm trees; four-by-four jeeps cruising into the drive-thrus of McDonald’s and Wendy’s. Little Miami. This was where the other half lived. It was the place to be, Damo said. ‘The cops won’t hassle you down there.’ And they didn’t. In Sabana Grande the police stopped me for a shakedown three times. I was pushed against a wall, spread-eagled and patted down. The sight of a gringo there was like waving a red flag to a bull. The cops knew what many were up to. But I never had anything on me.
* * *
I was in my hotel room, crashed out on the bed watching the TV. The only thing in English was the CNN news. The local stations in Spanish all seemed to show the same thing every evening: Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez dressed in a red shirt and beret and endlessly talking about a revolución.
Three dull thuds banged out on my hotel door. I sat up with a jolt. I stood up and slowly eased the door open. I saw Damo’s baldy head.
‘We’re in the hotel in another room. Number 443. Come on up.’
A dark-skinned Venezuelan guy was in the room gathering up plastic bags on the floor. He looked up at me but didn’t bother saying anything. ‘It’s all tidied up,’ said Damo, on his knees leaning over a suitcase on the ground. ‘Everything will be grand,’ he said, now rolling up old newspapers to fill out the inside of it.
The room was clean and unused. Two single beds were still made up. Two bars of soap were propped on fluffed-up pillows. No other luggage. The lads weren’t sticking around.
Damo stood up. ‘There’s the case, good luck,’ he said, passing me the handle so I could wheel it. He looked relaxed. A normal day’s work for him, I supposed. ‘Be cool when you get to the airport. Nice and tranquilo. When you land in Dublin, call the lads. Somebody will meet you. Give them the case and you’ll be sitting pretty, ten grand richer.’
I thought there should be more to explain. There wasn’t.
* * *
The guard cuts into the plastic and takes out a sample of the white powder, balancing it on the knife blade. He puts it onto a piece of paper, opens the lid of a bottle and pours on a chemical. The National Guard and the airport cops are laughing now, jostling each other. My hands form fists. I know the test is a formality, but I want the gods to be on my side. Please let it be a bag of talcum powder.
The white powder fizzles orangey-red, then blue. ‘Es positivo,’ he says. It’s the real thing. Game over.
‘Muy bueno, gringo! Muy bueno,’ (‘Very good’) roar the soldiers and police standing around, laughing and cheering. I can’t believe it all. Cameras flash. Snap. Bit early for the press, I think. The guard tilts the case up so they can get clear photos of the booty. With a further probe with his knife the cop rips the lining on the other side of the case and finds another stash of cocaine packed across the entire side. Now several of the soldiers take turns putting their arms around me and posing for pictures, like holiday snaps. Another gringo mule bites the dust. More cheers, louder this time. ‘Heeeyyyy.’ Hands clap. The soldiers step in for more photos with their catch. It must have been six months since they caught their last drug runner. I wonder how many mantelpieces around Venezuela will be decorated with my mug shot.
‘We’re arresting you for the transportation of illegal drugs,’ says the interpreter, cool a
s a cucumber. Just another day’s work catching a mule. The guard standing behind me slips handcuffs on me that bite into my wrists. Two soldiers lead me away.
* * *
Simón Bolívar International Airport, Maiquetía: 30 minutes’ drive north of Caracas, set amid gentle hills covered in lush vegetation that seem to spill into the sea below. A runway peppered with weeds poking out from worn tarmac. Jets take off and soar over the sea a few minutes north. Waves wash up on the Caribbean shoreline there that stretches west to Colombia and east towards the islands of Trinidad and Tobago, a short hop off the mainland.
Venezuela is a major route for smuggling cocaine from neighbouring Colombia, mostly to Europe. Some 200 tonnes of the drug pass through its borders every year, US anti-drug chiefs say. The Venezuelan government fires back by saying there wouldn’t be this problem if gringos didn’t want to shove it up their noses. The oil-rich country shares a frontier with Colombia – the world’s biggest producer of cocaine after Peru – stretching more than 2,200 km along Venezuela’s western border. Much of the frontier is porous, made up of mountains, jungles and even a desert to the north, making it impossible to entirely secure. The Venezuelan authorities have a mostly deserved reputation of being crooked, which doesn’t help seal the borders to tonnes of cocaine in the multibillion-dollar global business. Much of it is smuggled out in freight containers or aboard private planes, mostly bound for rogue West African states, where it is processed and shipped to Spain and the rest of Europe. Smaller hauls of single-digit kilos also form part of the coke business, swallowed in condoms or hidden in suitcases on commercial airline flights. The people behind it are drug mules – people like me.
The Cocaine Diaries: A Venezuelan Prison Nightmare Page 2