Forget You Had a Daughter - Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton by Sandra Gregory Page B

rarely spoke about it amongst ourselves or to Karolina.
    Dressed as a businesswoman, she was constantly off to exotic locations, usually flying first class. Sometimes she carried bags filled with either drugs or gems and at other times escorted young women to places like Japan, where they would work as prostitutes. They had been sold for the price of a television.
    The men she worked for were always on the lookout for new recruits and, on a couple of occasions, Karolina came to me asking if I might be interested in listening to some proposals from her new acquaintances.Whether through curiosity, stupidity or both I decided to meet them. More than anything I was interested in seeing the sort of people she was dealing with, what the offers were and how they carried out their plans.Why was Karolina so interested? What could possibly be the attraction?
    I met a German with a large, round face and popping out eyes. As befitting a man in his position he was wearing way too much gold and he was also far too smooth. Smuggling gold to Sri Lanka was his speciality. It turned out that the German was no longer able to use his regular people because they had been through
    customs too many times and he was now looking for new people. Would I join him? Would I take several kilos of gold to Colombo, in Sri Lanka?
    After buying me a beer he outlined his plans further. It would go something like this – he would take me shopping for new clothes; they needed to be baggy, loose-fitting ones. His associates would make a fitted body belt that would hold the gold, which would be worn under the clothes. He went on to explain that I would be introduced to another of his associates and that person would also be on the plane, with the gold, flying to Sri Lanka. At no point should I acknowledge him.
    On the plane the second smuggler would take the gold bars to the toilet and leave them in there. In the meantime I would have followed him and been the next person in the queue for the toilet. From there I would fill the body belt with up to seven blocks of gold, go back to my seat and enjoy the flight.
    In an attempt at reassurance, the German told me there were no metal detectors at Colombo Airport and, more importantly no female customs officers, so I could not be rubbed down or body- searched. He was willing to pay me or anyone else stupid enough
    to do it £ 500 .
    I sipped my beer.Throughout our conversation I marvelled at how ludicrous his proposal seemed to me. What on earth made him think I would be stupid enough to do something like that? It was preposterous, like something from the film Midnight Express , the true story of Billy Hayes, a young American sentenced in Turkey to 30 years for a drug offence. Hayes had strapped drugs to his body and tried to smuggle it through customs.Who would be stupid enough to do such a thing?
    ‘I’ll think about,’ I said, knowing I had no intention of taking him up on his offer.‘I’ll do it if you organise a dry run for me.’
    If he would pay for a ticket for me to go to Colombo then I could see, for sure, if he was tricking girls into smuggling for him.
    ‘No,’ he said,‘no dry runs.’
    ‘Well, how do I know what to expect? How do I know you’re telling the truth and not setting me up?’ Did he really think I could be so stupid?
    ‘What happens if something goes wrong over there?’ I asked. ‘We’ll get you out,’ he said, looking deeply into my eyes, almost
    as though he was trying to seduce me.
    ‘Well, then,’ I replied, ‘I don’t think I’ll bother. Cheers for the beer.’

    Karolina was either a whole lot braver than I imagined, or a great deal more stupid. Either way I was amazed at the type of people she was working for and the things she was doing for them. More offers came my way and, with them, more refusals. Hurley was furious that I had even gone to the meeting.
    I shrugged. This was Thailand, and this was how the country seemed to operate. From street to governmental