All language subtitles for Banged Up Abroad - S07E01 - Peru

I needed $3 ,000 a month for the
mortgage to complete my home.

Johnny said, I'm going to pay $10 ,000
American dollars.

This isn't an answer to my problem.

I can't believe I'm even considering
buying cocaine from a Peruvian police

officer.

This is just getting way out of control.

I was scared to death.

I'm in really big trouble.

This was a life or death situation.

My biggest fear was that I would never
see my children again.

I had to plan an escape.

In 2004, I had a very good life.

I was 43 years old.

I was married to my second husband.

We were very happy together. We loved
each other a lot.

We used to ride motorcycles.

I loved the feeling of freedom.

I had three children by my first
husband.

My daughter lived with me and my two
other children lived with their dad.

We just had a really great time in life.

And then my whole world falls apart.

I lost my job.

I was pretty devastated.

Little did I know that my life would
actually get... Worse after that.

On Christmas Eve, my husband left me.

Now I'm by myself and trying to figure
out how I'm going to come up with almost

$3 ,000 a month for the mortgage so I
can keep my home.

It kind of slipped into a bad
depression.

I didn't know how I was going to do with
anything, how I was going to function.

All these things just affected me to the
point I couldn't go out and look for

work. I just wasn't up for it.

I got in touch with friends from
Austria.

Johnny and Biggie.

They were friends with me and my second
husband for many years.

I was telling them, Billy and I broke
up.

They felt bad for me and they said,
we're buying you a ticket to come over

visit. You need to get away from your
life there because it's too depressing

you. That would be great.

And so I thought, oh, this is a great
idea. I'll go to Austria and get away

the ugly scene here.

Hi, it's Ruthie.

I called my daughter's father, my first
husband, to come and pick her up.

Then I go to Austria.

Johnny is a tattoo artist. They have a
tattoo studio.

Thanks for having me here.

They were kind of watching out for me
and making sure that I was okay.

We were talking about my inability to
pay my mortgage on my house at almost $3

,000 a month.

Things are a little rough right now.

Then Johnny started telling me about a
business idea that he had.

that involves bringing something back
from Peru.

What kind of stuff?

He says it is cocaine.

I would be transporting cocaine.

I'd seen the movie Midnight Express.

I was a little bit scared about that
kind of thing. I knew there was risk

involved.

But Johnny said, well, I'm going to pay
$10 ,000 American dollars.

$10 ,000 is a pretty fair amount of
money when you haven't worked for a long

time.

And he says, I got a guy down there
who's going to take one of these

And he's going to put some cocaine
inside of the mattress.

So you wouldn't be able to see, like, a
package.

Totally flat.

And it looks just like it came from the
factory.

It goes through airport security. You
can't see a thing.

I mean, the dogs wouldn't smell
anything.

And all you got to do is bring the
mattress back.

It's full proof, right?

Easy job.

$10 ,000, right?

I thought to myself, I can have money to
pay my mortgage.

Getting myself out of the mess I was in
today.

You want to do the job?

It sounded like a foolproof message.

So I'm like, hell yeah.

Great.

Deal.

So a month later, I set off on this
crazy job.

I arrived in Lima.

A little apprehensive.

I'd never been to South America before.

I was doing something I've never done
before and didn't know exactly what to

expect.

Johnny's proving a contact.

Juan was waiting for me with the sign
with my name on it.

Went and greeted him like we were old
friends.

We got in a taxi.

And as we're driving along, I just
remember looking at so much rundown

buildings. I didn't like it too much.

I started thinking, why am I here?

I don't want to stay here too long.

Juan took me to a hotel to stay in.

Told me I would be in Peru maybe a week
or so, give or take.

I'll call you later.

Just until all the business was settled.

While we were waiting for everything to
go through, I would go out and find

things to do.

There was an awesome bar right near my
hotel, and it was a heavy metal club.

I had the best time there.

Then the next day, Juan came to my
hotel.

He was carrying a backpack.

He was kind of funny because he always
called it special stuff.

Johnny had told me how we were going to
do it. It was going to be like spread

out, but when I unrolled the mattress,
it was actually

all in one spot at one end of it.

Watch this.

I started to kind of get worried at that
point that it could possibly show up.

I didn't know what to do at that point.

I was terrified.

It was right before I was catching my
flight.

I was just going to have to take it like
it was.

I just had a bad feeling about things to
come.

When I arrived in the Lima airport,
there was a lot of police

with guns and dogs.

So I'm starting to get pretty nervous.

I had to go through the security, and I
didn't like the way the mattress looked.

I started to kind of get worried at that
point that it could show up when it

went through the x -ray machine.

I'm watching the people that are
inspecting the x -ray screen to see if

any change in their expression.

Suddenly the conveyor belt stopped.

They looked closer.

I was very nervous inside. I thought my
heart was going to beat right out of my

chest.

This was a life or death situation.

It could get very bad.

I'm watching the person who is scanning
my bag, which contains a kilo of pure

cocaine, hoping that as it went through,
it wouldn't look suspicious.

I was scared to death at that point.

And then finally, my bag comes through.

That was a relief.

Then I'm home free. I'm ready to go get
on the plane.

Vienna was probably one of the most
relaxed airports I've ever been in.

Nobody came and approached me or hassled
me.

I got off, went and got my luggage and
out of the airport.

How was it? Everything smooth?
Everything fine?

Great. Johnny seemed very pleased and
very happy.

I feel great.

Thanks, Booty.

I've just made $10 ,000.

After I got paid for this trip, I got my
mortgage company off my back.

I called you.

And I was ready to go and make some more
money.

Over the next three and a half months, I
made two more trips.

I wouldn't exactly call it easy money
because it is a very nerve -wracking

But everything went like clockwork.

As soon as I got paid, I would go back
to the United States, pay the mortgage,

and spend some time with my children.

It was my third trip when things started
to go wrong.

I was carrying two kilos of coke, and I
was probably getting a little bit

complacent because everything was going
nice and smoothly.

Suddenly, a couple of scary -looking
guys with guns approached me.

I've seen you here several times, you
know, while you've been to Lima so many

times.

Oh my God, I'm carrying a big bag full
of drugs over my shoulder while I'm

talking to a cop.

I have to be cool.

When I say I just come up with something
off the top of my head.

I'm selling tattoo supplies.

We have a tattoo company in Europe.

I can't be...

acting all weird or nervous and start
sweating or anything like that because

it'll be a dead giveaway I'm doing
something wrong.

So I pull up my sleeve.

They kind of scanned over my tattoos and
looked at them.

And they just accepted it.

I was like...

Narrow escape.

I was worried that they were paying too
much attention to me now.

I thought to myself, maybe it's time to
take a break.

No.

But my financial situation is still not
good.

It was just too hard to catch up with
all the months I was behind.

I started getting letters from the
mortgage companies that threatened the

foreclosure.

I didn't know what I was going to do.

And then Johnny called and said, I need
you to go again.

It was dangerous.

But I didn't want to lose my house.

I thought about, yeah, okay, so I go to
work for one week, I get 10 grand.

Yeah, I got that.

So it was back to going to work and
paying the mortgage.

This time when I got to Lima, things
didn't work out so well.

I told Juan that I needed a kilo, and I
gave him $2 ,000.

He told me that there was a crooked cop.

He suggested that one buy the coke from
him.

I'm not sure if he was just trying to
sell a kilo of coke and make some extra

money, or if he was really trying to set
us up. I

can't believe I'm even considering
buying cocaine

from a Peruvian police officer.

But if I came home empty -handed, I
wouldn't get paid and I would lose my

I

had to go

ahead and make a deal.

This is just getting way out of control.

The more that Juan spoke with him, he
got the idea that it was going to be a

deal.

That this cop could be trying to set us
up.

At

the

last minute, I decided there was too
much at risk.

I canceled the whole transaction.

I don't want to do it. No.

So I did not make a dime on this trip.

I decided pretty much that I didn't
really want to do this anymore, and

it was really time to get out.

After that was probably one of the worst
times of my life.

The mortgage company, when you get so
far behind, they order the foreclosures.

My daughter helped me move out of the
house and pack up all my stuff, and that

was hard.

My daughter took it pretty hard, too.

Don't worry, honey.

My kid is back on her feet.

My daughter went back to her father's
house in Miami.

I had nowhere to move to. I was pretty
much homeless.

I needed to get some money fast.

And then Johnny called.

I was in such a bad situation.

I decided I'd do it one last shot, and
then that was it. No more.

From the

get -go, I had a bad feeling about this
one.

And when they gave me my boarding pass,
they wrote a red magic marker quite

large.

I don't know what it really meant.

I should have listened to my gut
feeling.

When I got over to the security
entrance, they looked at my

boarding pass.

And they said, oh, no, you go over on
this side. Please, wait here.

And I'm like, oh, God, what now?

The police come up to me. Are you Ruthie
Lambert? And I'm like, yeah, come with

us.

I was...

Very nervous inside.

So they put me in a little room.

Then they pull all my stuff out of my
suitcase.

They started asking me a lot of
questions. What is your job?

What I've been doing in Europe, what
I've been doing in Lima.

And the police didn't really believe me.

And they come out with these big pads
and they start wiping everything down to

see if there's any drug residue on
there.

Like they thought that I was trying to
smuggle drugs out of the Miami airport.

But my things were clean.

But I realized that if the American
police are on to me, obviously I'm

becoming... Hot.

It was really time to get out.

I told Johnny.

I don't want to do this anymore.

Like, fine, fine, if you want it to be
your last trip, that's fine. Just get

this one taken care of.

Yeah, this will be the last one.

I should not have gone.

Goodbye.

Hindsight's 20 -20, but it's too late
for that now.

On this trip, I was picking up three
kilos.

Now I had to package it myself.

I didn't have very much time and I had a
lot of work to do.

Sprayed it up in a big, giant tub.

Then put it inside of the food saver
bag.

Sucked the air out.

Seal it.

Another bag.

Duck the air out.

Seal that one up.

I needed to stay awake as long as I
could.

Next, I still had the mattress.

Cut the end off.

Slit the foam.

Open it up.

Plus the cocaine inside.

But three kilos was way too much to try
to stuff inside of one mattress.

It was so fat with cocaine that

it was really difficult to roll my
mattress up.

And I started to get worried at that
point.

I was supposed to be on my way to the
airport.

It wouldn't even fit inside of the
sleeve.

It was a real job to get it inside of
the backpack.

I was afraid it could potentially give
it away.

But there was no time to go and redo it
over again.

I was very late.

So I was just going to have to take it
like it was.

And that was probably the worst decision
of my life.

And even though I was still having a bad
feeling about the trip, I just kept

telling myself that I'm being nervous.

for nothing this is just like any of my
other trips it was going to be fine

we drive up to the departures

and i open up my door suddenly a guy
like a porter he ran across

said hey put your stuff on a trolley

The alarm bells start going off in my
head that this is different.

And all my times that I've been here,
they've never come out to greet me with

baggage cart.

I was getting definitely kind of spooked
over all this different behavior.

Everything did not feel right, but I
told myself I was being overly nervous

no reason. I'd done this so many times
and everything had gone fine, but I just

felt very unsettled.

I walk inside the airport.

I'm already starting to think that
there's other things brewing besides me

late.

The porter who has my baggage is
standing off to my right, and he's got a

of police officers with guns and dogs
walking around my suitcases.

I was really nervous.

I walked up to the check -in counter and
gave them my passport and my ticket.

I could see them continuing to move
around the luggage.

I was so scared.

I could have walked away.

Suddenly the cops come up.

They say we'd like to search your
luggage.

Okay.

I was... feeling very apprehensive

they wanted to see my backpack and

i'm terrified they pull out the mattress
and they're kind

of looking at it i was just standing
there watching them

one cop gets out some sharp kind of
device and stabs at it

my stomach was definitely

upside down at this point.

There's nothing on it.

I'm like secretly smiling to myself that
they didn't find anything.

And so I'm thinking they're going to let
it go.

Nope, he stabbed it again.

And I'm like, oh God.

Pulls it out and he looks at it.

Still nothing on it.

So I'm, like, starting to really smile
inside, and I'm trying to keep the smile

from creeping out of my face.

He stabbed it a third time.

I see it come out.

It's coated with all white powdery stuff
at the end.

It felt like a 50 -story building
crashed inside of my stomach.

Well,

that's the end of that.

And they handcuffed me to the chair.

They said, you're being charged with
drug trafficking.

I was in shock.

They leave you handcuffed to the chair
for about 14 hours.

I went through a million moments of
regret that night.

If I should have listened to my gut
feeling, I should not have gone.

I was thinking about my kids and how
much I missed them.

I started to think about, oh, my God,
what I'm going to tell my family.

I'm in huge trouble.

I have no idea what the penalty is going
to be.

I'm sure it's prison, but I have no idea
for how long.

I was so miserable.

i couldn't believe i was in prison they
give you a mattress and find a place to

sleep people were in

there for stealing armed robbery drugs
murder was

horrible it was smelly it was dirty i
just thought about where i was and where

was going to be for a long time and that
i would not be in contact with anyone

that I care about or love.

There was a phone there.

So I called my daughter.

Hi, baby.

That's Mom.

She's frantic with worry about me
because she hadn't heard from me in so

I was really in a lot of pain inside
because I had hurt her so much.

The only thing I could tell her was that
I loved her and that I was sorry.

I didn't know how long I would go away.

I was just telling her that I was really
sorry.

And I didn't mean to hurt her, and I'm
sorry I let her down and disappointed

her.

You know, I ran out of time, and we had
to hang up.

Six years and eight months, that's a
long time.

I wouldn't see...

my children, my family, my friends.

I was devastated, knowing I'm going to
be suffering for years and years and

years, you know, the horrors of a
foreign prison.

I didn't know that it would get a lot
worse.

I started to notice some small bumps
around my eye.

They looked like almost like small
pimples or something like that.

Every day a new one would grow and every
day they would get a little bit larger.

Five years earlier I had had breast
cancer.

I knew that my cancer had returned.

I was getting very, very sick, and I was
also losing a lot of weight.

I was very weak.

I knew that if I didn't get back to
America soon and get some medical

intervention, I was going to die very
soon.

I figured I was looking at probably the
beginning of 2012 before I would

actually be able to return to the United
States.

And I knew with the health problems I
was having, I wouldn't make it.

My biggest fear in the whole world was
that I would die in Peru, never

see my children again, and never see my
family again.

I was very scared more than anything
that that would happen.

I had to make my way out of Peru any way
that I could.

I had to plan an escape.

I had a lawyer who knew somebody that
could help me get out of the country.

The cost of escaping Peru would be 2
,000 U .S. dollars.

My sister sent me the money.

He'd done this before, so I took his
word, but I was still a little bit

apprehensive. We are right here, okay?

He would drive us out of the country
into Ecuador.

What's the border like?

It's like a small marketplace.

You just walk through.

You walk across the border? That's it.
You walk through.

My lawyer got my passport back.

There was a strange mark on the back of
it written in like a white paint.

And I'm sure this is something that the
Peruvian police put on it to kind of red

flag people's passports when they've
been arrested.

I took like a dark colored pen and
scribbled all over it so it would

blend in a little bit better with the
cover of my passport.

Just in case, you know, it kind of stuck
out when I went through any airports.

I was ready to go, and we left a few
days later.

My escort and the sister -in -law picked
me up, and we got on a postal road that

headed north towards Ecuador.

I was feeling very nervous and very
apprehensive about the whole trip.

I didn't know what would happen when we
got to the border. I didn't know what

would happen when I got to the airport.

I was very weak.

My stomach constantly hurt.

Constantly I was in pain.

I was just hoping that I would make it
back to America in time to save my own

life.

Hours and hours later, we're out in the
middle of nowhere.

Suddenly, there was police officers out
in the road flagging cars over.

I'm really scared because I don't know
if they're going to find something wrong

with my passport.

I get sent back to Lima and have to go
back to prison to die.

The police came up and asked my escort
for identification and driver's license.

I just sat very quietly in the back,

hoping that he would let me go.

The cops looked over at me.

I was so scared.

At that point, I thought, oh, my God,
it's all over.

He was going to ask to see my passport.

Notice that there was that white writing
from the Peruvian police on the back.

But he didn't say anything.

He waved us ahead, and everything was
fine.

Stay open.

I was so happy to be out of there.

Finally, we stopped not too far from the
border, which was the middle of a big

marketplace.

My escort explained that we would walk
through the marketplace.

When we got to the other side, that we
would be in Ecuador.

I was very apprehensive because there's
always lots of police, lots of guns at

any border. So I couldn't believe we
would be able to cross so easily.

This was a big do or die day.

If I didn't make it, I would never see
my children again.

It was probably almost a mile from one
end of the marketplace to the other.

All the way down, I was just waiting for
the police or somebody to stop me.

I'm so weak, I'm afraid I'm just going
to keel over and pass out if something

bad starts to happen.

And then in front of us was like a big
banner that hung across the marketplace.

Signed it, you are leaving Peru and
entering Ecuador.

I couldn't believe it.

There was no police anywhere.

I was elated as I walked under the sign.

I'm not even going to look over my
shoulder. I never want to see that

again.

I can't even describe how happy I was to
actually have finally walked out of

Peru.

I couldn't believe it.

I didn't know what to do at that point.

I was so scared that we were going to
end up being arrested and thinking

it's over again, you know? I mean, I
can't believe it.

I didn't want to be showing anyone my
passport.

If they run my name, maybe they'll come
back. I'm supposed to be in Lima.

They would arrest me and send me back to
prison, and I would die in there.

We walked into the Border Patrol place,
and we walked up to one of the

windows.

The guard looks at my friend's passport
and he starts flipping through and he's

like, where's your stamp for leaving
Peru?

I didn't get my passport stamped on the
way out. I didn't even think about it.

So the man says, well, you need to have
your passport stamped when you leave

Peru before you come into Ecuador.

I was scared to death. I thought that
they were going to arrest me and send me

back to Peru.

My friend walked into this little office
with the man he was talking to.

And I was really freaking out.

I was afraid to go in this room. I knew
I was going to end up in handcuffs.

I heard him asking him, so what's it
going to take to straighten this out? He

says, you know, we need to get our
passports down.

The guard says, oh, it's the both of
you.

So now I'm terrified he'll flip my
passport over and notice that white

from the Peruvian police.

My friend pulled out a crisp $100 bill,
and he says, well, $100 would be enough.

I just stood there in the doorway
frozen.

I was so scared that we were going to
end up being arrested for bribing cops.

I'm thinking that, oh my God, it's all
over.

The guy took it, stuck it in his pocket.

He took both of our passports and they
got stamped.

Then he handed him back to us.

I'm so relieved. I was crying.

Trying to walk so calm, but I just
wanted to run.

And I can't keep from grinning. I got an
ear -to -ear grin.

When I landed in Miami after all these
years, I was in tears.

My daughter and my youngest son came to
the airport to pick me up.

I was like trying not to get too
emotional because they don't know what

been through. They don't know how sick I
am. They don't know the experience I've

had to live through for the last few
years of my life and how happy I am to

in my country, in my city.

I was so emotional. I almost got out and
kissed the ground.

My cancer has spread through my body.

It can't be operated on. It can't be
removed. It's going to be there. It's

going away.

The only thing they can do is try to
control it and try to prolong my life.

The price that I paid is way more than I
ever made out of drug trafficking.

I didn't just end up in prison.

I ended up with a death sentence.

Knowing that I could die in a foreign
prison made me realize what's really

important in life. And it's not money.
It's not houses or material things.

It's spending time with family, friends,
loved ones.

And every day that I get to spend with
them, to me, now, is precious.