High: Confessions of an Ibiza Drug Mule (2021) s01e02 Episode Script

1
The County Tyrone woman
accused of drug trafficking
in South America
said they had been forced at gunpoint
by an international gang.
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 fucking league.
11 hours and 15 minutes later,
I was landing in Lima
which by now I knew was in Peru.
In South of fucking 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 fuck I'm doing.
How the fuck 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 fuck?" 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 gang 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 fag, 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 shit,
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 ass?"
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 illegal, 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 gang,"
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 kill 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 fucking 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 fucking 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, shit!
I'm fucked, like, that's it. It's done."