01x02 - Episode 2

[bunniefuu]

The County Tyrone woman

accused of drug trafficking

in South America

said they had been forced at gunpoint

by an international g*ng.

That's me.

Michaella!

How do you feel? How is it?

Michaella McCollum.

Caught with 11 kilograms of cocaine

hidden in their luggage.

Aged 20, I became one half

of the "Peru Two."

- What is your nationality?

- Irish.

And owner

of the world's most infamous up-do.

They said

they'd been forced to carry the drugs,

but those claims turned out to be lies.

You might wonder how

a regular kid from rural Northern Ireland

could wind up here,

in a maximum-security prison

in South America.

Michaella McCollum

could be jailed for 15 years.

My family certainly did.

It was like someone had died.

And the whole world

seemed to have something to say about it.

- Michaella McCollum.

- Michaella McCollum.

If they're drug dealers,

if they're trying to smuggle

cocaine worth 1.5 million pounds,

then they deserve

all that they are getting.

Their family

were hounded by the media.

It is what people are talking about.

One bad decision

looks set to wreck my life.

The big question was why?

What made them do it?

She obviously made the decision,

but then what's behind it?

Well, this is the story

of how I got myself into this mess.

And

Michaella McCollum flew

into Dublin,

out of prison and out of Peru.

how I managed

to get myself out of it.

Camera speed, everyone ready?

Okay, Michaella, let's go.

I got on this plane thinking

I was making a quick round trip from Ibiza

to pick up Matteo's drugs from somewhere

on the Spanish mainland.

Sure, we've all made them decisions

when we're wasted, right?

But this was

in a different f*cking league.

11 hours and 15 minutes later,

I was landing in Lima

which by now I knew was in Peru.

In South of f*cking America.

When I got off the plane,

I just was just so annoyed

about the whole situation.

Nobody understood what I was saying,

first of all,

I was trying to ask for directions,

and they were like laughing at me

or being quite rude.

I had contacted Matteo.

I had to get a connection flight to Cusco,

and I only had, like, a short time

and I was panicking.

In my head, I'm thinking I'm going to have

to go to the jungle or something,

or, you know, actually probably go

and collect the cocaine from there,

and how am I gonna get it back.

This was officially

the worst come down ever!

All alone in South America,

just a week past my 20th birthday.

One thing was certain,

I wasn't doing acid again.

At that time, I kind of felt numb.

And because I had met this guy

for, like, a brief five minutes,

and yet I was letting him have

complete control over my life

and the decisions I was going to make.

I was trusting him.

It was like I don't even know what,

you know, what the f*ck I'm doing.

How the f*ck has my life came to this?

I thought she was in Barcelona

but a couple of days after she'd left,

I hadn't heard from her.

Yeah, I was really worried

about her, actually.

I didn't know what the hell had happened.

Yeah, it was it wasn't a great time.

It's like my whole season

just took a turn from being

this great fun time with Michaella,

my, like, best friend out there.

So to go from that to just, like, worry.

Yeah, it wasn't good.

And then that's when

her family contacted me.

Yeah.

Being the only person that knew

that she was transporting drugs.

Before she left,

she told me to tell her parents

and people that asked

that she was visiting a friend.

Um

in Spain. So that's what I said.

As the time went on,

I started to get more concerned

and questioned like what I was doing

and whether it was right.

And saying that she was going

to visit a friend,

part of me thought

like, you know, should I tell the truth,

but if I tell the truth,

is that gonna get her more in trouble?

Yeah, didn't know what to do.

I was beside myself, was kind of stressed.

Just had to kid on that I didn't,

I didn't know.

Didn't know where she was, but

in my head at the time,

I thought the worst.

As you do when, you know

you just don't know what's gonna happen.

You don't know who these people are.

Matteo had booked us

on yet another flight

to some place called Cusco,

right up in the mountains

in literally the middle of nowhere.

It was like no place I'd ever seen before,

only more so.

Like everybody in Cusco,

well, most of the people that we'd seen

at that time were dressed quite

differently.

I kind of felt like

I was going back in time.

I was with Melissa

and I was like, "Where are we?"

"Did you know this is

what it was going to be like?"

And she was like, "Yeah."

And I was just kind of like,

"What the f*ck?" Like

you know, "You knew like

this is gonna be what it's like?"

Like, "We're in South America, like,

are we gonna be going to the jungle?"

And she was like, "No, don't be stupid."

And then I was kind of, like, well,

"Clearly I am being stupid,"

when I didn't even really know

what was going on.

Matteo was the only person

from the g*ng we ever heard from.

But we heard from him a lot.

He booked us on this seven-day coach trip

where we had to make out like

we were regular tourists

having the time of our lives.

We are young, we run green ♪

Keep our teeth nice and clean ♪

See our friends, see the sights ♪

Feel alright ♪

I still didn't know

when we were getting the drugs,

or who it was who was

going to give them to us.

Smoke a f*g, put it out ♪

See our friends ♪

It was a weird feeling,

this thing of having put your life

in someone else's hands,

and then worrying

if you could really trust them.

So what was

on the itinerary?

Oh. Just like ridiculous things,

not ridiculous things,

but things I probably

didn't want to do at that time.

We are young, we run green ♪

We did the Machu Picchu.

Keep our teeth nice and clean ♪

See our friends, see the sights ♪

Feel alright ♪

Matteo just kept insisting that

this was the best way not to get caught.

It is a common methodology

that these organizations put together

to try to evade the police intelligence,

we see that here a lot.

Well, I know this from experience,

and all the time, the 18 years,

I've spent doing this job.

The crime is the crime

and whoever gets involved,

they'll face the music

when we catch them,

that's why we're here.

Melissa seems so cool,

so calm

that I was beginning to think

I wasn't cut out for this.

We kept meeting

all these different families and

they were like, "Oh, where are yous from?"

And "Oh, yous are English,

Scottish and Irish?"

And, like, making conversation,

and I was just like so annoyed.

I was just kind of like, "Oh, I couldn't

make conversation with these people,"

and they were just trying to act normal,

and Melissa was like,

"Oh, I'm a student nurse

and Michaella's a photographer."

And they were like,

"Oh, what kind of photo"

like just acting totally normal,

but I kind of felt like

I couldn't act normal

'cause I kind of knew I was doing

something really, really risky.

And, um, I kind of just

felt like really sh*t,

and, like, all of sudden kind of depressed

of like, "Oh, what have I done?"

And then we went for the bus

on the way home,

and I was looking out the window,

and Melissa said to me, like,

"Oh, why have you got a face on you

like a slapped a*s?"

And then I just lost it 'cause

I was just so annoyed,

and I was just kind of like,

"Look what we're about to do."

And I was shouting, and I never shout,

and I was like really

losing it on the bus

with all these other passengers, and

I didn't care who was listening to me.

I didn't care that these people would

find out that we were going to be,

you know, doing something ill*gal, like,

I was just so angry and pissed off

that I kind of just flipped.

And I was kind of like, "I don't want

to go and act like a tour,"

like, "I just need to be on my own."

Like, "Just leave me alone."

I need to kind of digest what's going on,

and I'm not going to sit

on some stupid bus

looking at stupid stuff

that I don't care about.

Like, "I'm don't want to do that."

Matteo rang me and I didn't want

to answer the phone to him,

so he was texting me going crazy, like,

"What the heck are you doing?"

And, you know, I was just kind of, like,

"Oh, I don't know. I'm just freaking out,"

and he kind of reassured me,

and I kind of felt like maybe there's

something wrong with me because

Melissa's acting fine and

Matteo's acting fine.

Everybody's acting fine,

and I'm having this mental breakdown.

You know, maybe it's just me.

It wasn't just what we were about to do

that was freaking me out,

it was what I'd already done.

It was nine days since I'd been

in contact with anyone,

and I knew by now my friends and family

would be worried sick.

Yeah.

So you were here

when everyone found out she was missing.

It was on everybody's lips.

'Cause people do go missing.

They go missing for two or three days.

They go out, their phone battery runs out,

and they turn up at a villa party,

and their mates are going, "Oh, my God,

we were so worried, where have you been?"

But this wasn't two or three days.

This was a week and a half,

and then it started to have

that darker turn and we all kind of

wondered if this was going to be

the one person that went missing

that turned up in a ditch.

We really went out of our way

to try and search,

posters, flyers, word of mouth,

social media.

You know, a lot of people

was worried about her.

For a young woman

to go missing abroad

from Northern Ireland,

that never happens, it's extremely rare.

And when it did happen, alarm bells rung.

And that really led to us

starting to look into the story.

This pretty, young, aspiring model

had been out in Ibiza

having the time of her life,

and now she's missing.

And as the week went on, her family

were posting social media messages.

It went so viral

that celebrities, sports stars

put out messages

to appeal for information.

It was huge, it really was.

And really

that's how this story started to develop.

Once we returned to Lima,

I don't know, I kind of realized

that I couldn't pretend anymore.

I couldn't go along with everything,

that it was fine.

I had to, like, get myself out of it.

I contacted Matteo and was like,

"Oh, I don't know if this is gonna work.

I don't really know if I want to be here.

Like I just want to go home now."

And he was just like,

"No, you're being dramatic.

Everybody is in on this," and like,

"You know there'll be people

watching you."

He said they were watching us

for our benefit,

but I began to think

they weren't watching us,

watching me for my own benefit.

They were just making sure

I did the right thing.

And because he knew, you know, kind of

my movements and things that I was doing,

and you know,

where I was at certain times,

I kind of just felt

really scared and paranoid.

I just thought that

everybody was staring at us

and became really, really on edge

and anxious.

We had spotted two police officers.

And I'd seen them looking at us

and saying something.

And then they were walking towards me.

I wanted to run.

"Why are they coming to us?"

"Maybe they know what we're doing?"

And I don't know, I kind of just felt

like all this now is in my head,

like, "They're probably

part of Matteo's g*ng,"

or like, "Why are they acting like that?"

Melissa's like,

"Shut up, you're being so stupid."

I've seen one of the police officers

putting his hand on his belt.

And my heart was just racing so fast.

Just wanted a photograph.

So we thought okay, it's

strange but okay, we'll take a picture.

So they took a picture

on their cell phones,

and you know,

we took a picture on our camera.

We found it really strange and kind of,

I was like, "No, like,

they know something,"

but of course they didn't know anything,

you know,

but I was just really,

really paranoid at that point.

Who controls drug trafficking in Peru?

Right now? I'm not sure any more,

but the same police are involved,

the same police

and high ranking commanders and generals,

that is how it works.

You know that if you open your mouth,

they k*ll you.

For an ordinary person,

it doesn't cost much.

90 to 100 dollars or something.

It's a world that when you enter,

you cannot leave.

I just didn't want to be there any longer.

I obviously wanted to be home

with my family.

I just wanted to, like, go home.

My gut was saying, "Don't do this,"

and then my mind was just saying,

"Just do what they want,

and it will be fine."

When her family heard

that Michaella had gone missing in Ibiza,

that must have come as

quite a shock to them, I guess?

Yeah, the family felt

very helpless and very hopeless.

When I went in to visit them,

it was almost like going into

what we would call a wake house

where someone had died.

There was just a sense

of anxiety and fear,

the not knowing.

I can still see the grief

and just the anguish

written on that mother's face.

And it was devastating

for the whole family.

Samantha, that's Michaella's sister,

she literally just broke down.

And I can still hear her crying

in desperation to hug her sister.

This was the one thing

that she really wanted to do

was to, to hold her.

That was a that was a frightening moment.

I wanted

to be back home so badly,

to not have got myself into this

to not be in South America,

to not be waiting for someone

to hand over the drugs.

Matteo text that the package

was ready to collect,

but it turned out it wasn't a package.

It was a f*cking load of them.

I had no idea

that it was gonna be that extreme.

Like I'd obviously never seen

that amount of drugs before.

A guy on the street

just handed it all over

like it was a perfectly

reasonable thing to be doing.

I know it might sound so naïve

to think, "Oh, you're hardly

going to travel all that way for

you know, a small amount," but

There was nearly 12 f*cking kilos

of this stuff.

It must have been worth millions.

All disguised as loads of little packs of

porridge.

Did we look like the kind of girls

who liked porridge so much

we'd take a suitcase

full of it on a flight to Spain?

Did anyone?

Matteo was quite strict

and said that it's so important

that it's only in the left-hand side

of the suitcase.

And I couldn't understand.

Only one package fits in the bottom left.

"Where is the other 18 going to go?"

And he was like,

"Oh, just wrap them in clothes."

Why was it so important before

that it had to go in that position

in the suitcase?

All of a sudden it doesn't matter

where it is.

I cannot talk

directly about Michaella's case,

but in reality, the person

giving 12 kilos to Michaella

knows that he can lose this 12 kilos,

and he doesn't care about

losing or not to lose.

It's like a Volkswagen

or a Citroen,

they know they have some losses per year.

It's, you know, the predicted

losses of an enterprise.

Pablo Escobar,

he received 80 million dollars per day.

80 million dollars over a day.

It's a lot of money, really.

So you know,

many times in cartels,

once the mule is arrested,

this is the truth

Seriously,

let's let's tell the truth.

They prepared police

because at the same time,

they are making passage through 300 kilos

in the same plane, you know.

This is one of the classical game.

This is called chivatón in Spanish.

Chivatón is like the birds

the birds' singing.

Chivatón, you know?

And they call the police, telling, "Okay,

there is a lady with some drugs

passing by."

At the same time, three guys are

making exit 300 kilos, 400 kilos of crack.

It's very common.

I barely slept,

but the time had come.

It was too late to back out now.

Matteo wanted his drugs back in Spain

just as much as I did.

He's done it before,

and all I had to do was keep my cool.

Really just tried to like change

my attitude towards it and

kind of stay positive, I guess.

Our bags, now 90 percent "porridge",

were packed.

Never in my life had I not

wanted more coke,

but this was a joke.

We could barely get them down the stairs.

If I tried to lift it, it would be

very obvious that I was struggling.

Um, so that was a problem.

People are gonna think,

"what has she got in her suitcase

that she's struggling to lift?"

But you know,

it was kind of, like, strange.

I started to think that, you know,

I can do this.

I was kind of in my little fantasy.

Because he kept saying constantly,

you know,

how, like, good I was and how his friends

were there waiting for me,

and, like, how he had

everything planned out,

and he was, like, question

why don't I trust him.

And has he given me

a reason not to trust him?

And obviously I was like no,

but obviously I'm afraid,

and he was like, "Well,

I'm telling you not to be afraid."

And he was kind of just,

every time I came with, like, a worry,

he would, like, back it down

and have, like, an answer for it. So

it kind of felt like, "Oh, maybe he's

telling the truth. Maybe I am just

freaking out a little bit."

I wanted to believe what I was being told.

I wanted to hold onto that hope.

If you think taking coke is a rush

try walking a million quids' worth of

the stuff into an international airport.

Matteo couldn't help me now.

Whatever happened next,

it was on me.

First thing I noticed

when I walked into the airport

was how much security there was.

I started to panic.

I went to the bathroom because I kind of

just wanted to be by myself,

and I kind of just wanted

to think about, like, what am I doing,

and I just wanted to be alone.

I wasn't ready to make that commitment

of checking my case in.

And I probably sat there

for like 20 minutes

'cause I just didn't know what to do.

Deep down, I kind of knew

this was never going to work.

I just didn't want to leave.

I just wanted to stay there

and close my eyes

and wake up in my bed in my mum's house.

I thought about calling my mum

and telling her that

I was stuck in Peru, in the airport,

and I needed to come home.

And then I dismissed it because I thought

it would cause her too much stress.

I don't know what the repercussions

would have been

if I had of made another decision,

but I feel like I could have

just walked away from it.

I don't think the consequences

would have been worse,

than, you know,

what they actually turned out to be.

I met Melissa at the line.

And we just stood there

and just waited until we were called

to check in our bags.

I think it's known worldwide that

every airport has undercover police.

They are specialists in

spotting characteristics of these people.

And they're rarely wrong.

At that time,

I couldn't really hear what was going on.

I wasn't even aware of everything

that was going on around me.

I was just in that zone.

The people get nervous,

they don't take their eyes

off their luggage.

They don't leave it alone.

Every two foot,

there was a military police officer.

POLICE

There was like 30 in front of me.

I was just watching them,

trying not to give eye contact

but trying to notice

if they were looking at me

see if they knew something.

I probably looked like a deer

caught in headlights.

As we get closer,

I start to get more nervous.

I see my case

passing through the conveyor belt.

I was counting down the seconds

because I thought

that is how I would get caught.

But weirdly,

the dogs weren't making a fuss.

I felt like I'm relaxing a little bit.

I can't believe what is happening.

When he tapped me,

I was like, "Oh, sh*t!

I'm f*cked, like, that's it. It's done."