DRUG MULES

He thought it was worth the risk. After a week in the sun, a few hours'
worth of work would have netted him more than $12,000. He even recruited a
friend to pack-mule the drugs back to Canada. It would be good pay for a
labourer with a child on the way. Now, after being caught with 1,500 grams
of cocaine strapped to his torso on a return flight from Jamaica to Toronto
- -- his friend also nabbed -- the price seems much higher than he had
bargained for. The greed and final cost somehow don't seem to balance, as
he prepares for Christmas -- away from his family, including newborn son --
inside a Jamaican cell.

Right now, he's pushing a plastic bag containing his feces through the iron
bars. Eating supper from a bucket. And trying to figure out how he'll make
this up to his family back in Canada.

If you are going to be jailed for a serious offence outside of Canada --
other than in the U.S. -- it's most likely you're trying to transport or
deal in drugs.

The man behind bars is one of about 20 Canadians being held in Jamaica, a
country which has no treaty with Canada to swap prisoners.

Lied To His Wife

To give you any specific details on his regular, middle-class life back in
the GTA -- other than he is a 29-year-old labourer with a steady job, and
married a short time -- would only help to identify his young wife, and two
children.

He can still hear her voice on the phone, when he called her from Jamaica
to say he may be delayed. He had lied before flying off, and told her he
had a contract job in Miami, which would last a week.

"I called her to say there was a problem. There was silence on the other
end of the phone. She could hardly catch her breath," he recalls.

Jamaican and Canadian officials confirm he was caught last April when a
screener at the Jamaican airport asked him to raise up his arms, so she
could pat him down. The next thing he knew, he was being stripped down, and
the body pack peeled off.

"I'm not some young punk," he says. "I know what I did, and now I'm paying
the price. But the ones to really suffer are my family members."

As well as the drugs, he was also charged with bribery, when he tried to
buy his way out of trouble.

He was sentenced to three years for the drug exportation charges, along
with the bribery charge, and will get out next April. He'll also pay a
fine, equivalent to $11,000 Canadian.

Today, he sits in his tiny cell, in St. Catherine District prison in
Spanish Town. The jail is infamous. Amnesty International has launched
several campaigns concerning the facility. In 1997, 17 inmates were killed
during one riot. The dead were accused of being gay.

Rice In A Bucket

"We're locked down 14 hours a day," says the Ontario mule. "To pee, we just
have a bottle on the wall. When you have a (crap), you do it in a bag."

He lives in a six-by-nine foot cell, shared by three men. Some cells around
him have five inmates.

Meals are mostly white rice, served in a bucket. Sometimes there are bits
of poultry.

"Seeing a guy die in here is not unusual," he notes.

"These are the things I don't tell my wife."

He doesn't talk to his friend who was caught with him. They fought when
they talked in prison.

"He blames me," he says. "But the truth is, we're both grown men. We made
decisions about something that seemed easy. We screwed up.

"I just want to get back to my wife and new son and playing hockey on
Saturday nights."