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 a 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.

To give you any specific details on his regular, middle-class life
back in Toronto -- other than that 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.

Lied to Wife

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 know what I did, and now I'm paying the price," he says. "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.

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 6x9-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.

"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."

The Family's Anguish

There is a high price for families of Canadians imprisoned beyond our
borders.

For Perry King's parents, so far, it's more than $160,000. Though it's
difficult to put an appropriate tally on their fear and confusion, and
loss of national pride.

"No one could have prepared us for this nightmare," says Marty King,
whose son, Perry, was sentenced last April by a four-judge Cuban panel
to 25 years in prison, on charges he corrupted a minor.

The 40-year-old Edmonton oilpatch worker was all but abandoned by
Canadian officials, as well as the company he worked for, when the
charges were laid, his family says.

The job of keeping King going -- through originally being held but not
charged, then into two hunger strikes and finally a legal case which
has gone from bad to worse -- has fallen on the shoulders of his
tight-knit family back home in Alberta.

"The Canadian government has all the time and money for same-sex
marriages and (Jean) Chretien's retirement, but not a Canadian wrongly
held behind bars," says an exasperated Marty.

The night before he spoke to the Sun, he and his wife, Pearl, made
another visit to their local airport, to send a 104-lb. box of
supplies to Perry to help him cope in his sparse Cuban cell. A friend
was delivering it.

The $120 care package is just one of countless shipments his parents,
and sisters, have organized. Many times over the past year, family
members have accompanied the parcels -- heavy with canned meats,
crackers, tinned potatoes, dried mushrooms and pudding -- down to the
island.

They have also arranged for fresh produce to be brought to
him.

Private Eye

Perry's parents believe in the innocence of their son.

To them, there is no doubt. As proof, they had their own private
investigator conduct an independent inquiry into the sexual assault of
the young girl -- whom their son says he never had an inappropriate
relationship with, but simply gave $20 as a goodwill gesture.

The young girl's mother found the American bill in her daughter's
jeans and asked where it came from.

The probe by the Kings' investigator found the charges groundless.
This, after even the Cuban court ruled the prosecution's two main
witnesses were unreliable.

Which does Perry -- and his distraught family -- no good at
all.

To find themselves hauling food to a loved one inside a foreign prison
- -- past guards and checkpoints and high walls -- seems unreal to
Perry's kin.

When he was first arrested, he slept on a burlap sack filled with
straw. His cell, now in a different Cuban jail, is a little better.

But his family, trying to arrange for his transfer to a Canadian
facility, counts down his time by the hour.

"I used to be proud of the Maple Leaf," says Marty.

"I travelled the world, secure in knowing I was Canadian. But that's
changed.

"Am I still a proud Canadian? I don't know how to answer
that."

Have Pity for His Kin

But now, after meeting a man at a Winnipeg gathering, and agreeing to
be a drug mule, Filipe Valente's family is left sending all the money
they can spare, just to keep him safe inside a South American prison.

You don't have to feel sorry for the 24-year-old auto body assistant,
caught smuggling cocaine last January. But pity his family.

"We send him money, but we think the guards keep half," says Christina
Valente, Filipe's sister.

The Winnipeg family sends Filipe $100 each month. It buys him some
slack from prison officials. He has a cousin in Venezuela, who also
brings him food, though Filipe has already lost 30 lbs.

His family have been petitioning to transfer him to a Canadian jail,
where he can serve out his term.

He's one of five Canadians in custody in Venezuela.

"He regrets what he's done," says Christina, who says her brother was
offered between $10,000 and $50,000 to be a drug mule.

Caught With Cocaine

Filipe told his family he was taking a trip to Toronto.

Instead, he made his way to Colombia and into Venezuela, where he was
found carrying 4 kg of cocaine. He was almost on the plane.

"He was sweating, which is why he was caught," Christina says.
"(Guilt) was written all over him."

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The episode has devastated the family, as much as it's hit Filipe. His
sister notes: "They say he's not treated badly, but when you have a
loved one so far from home ... in jail, what's badly?" -- Thane Burnett

The party wasn't supposed to end like it did.

How to Survive in Jail

The best prison advice you will ever be given, is never get locked up
in one. Especially far from home.

But -- keeping it in your back pocket -- here is a list of practical
advice for living inside. Some of it comes from Canadian, British and
American officials, but much of the advice comes from convicts marking
time.

- - Ask to speak to a Canadian official.

- - Get a good lawyer, who has a solid history with Canadian consular
officials.

Now that you've done the obvious ...

- - Abide by the rules set out by senior prisoners.

- - Watch your mouth and temper. More than anything else, these can get
you killed in prison.

- - Learn the native language -- enough to understand what's happening
around you, and the justice system.

- - Trust no one. The person in the cell with you may be a police plant
or may just be waiting for you to fall asleep before he steals your
wedding ring.

- - Never gamble. In prison, it's not a distraction; it's a recipe for
disaster, whether you win or lose.

- - If you smoke, quit now.

- - Nothing is free. The person making the offer will want twice as much
in return.

- - Never speak to guards about any other prisoner.

- - Respect the other prisoners -- something which could save your life,
one day soon.

- - In some foreign prisons, it's a mistake -- in the eyes of other
prisoners -- to shake the hand of a guard. Even picking up an item
they've dropped can be misinterpreted as collaboration.

- - If in a cell, don't use a washroom bucket or toilet when another
inmate is eating.

- - Learn the hierarchy of the prison, and where your place should
be.

- - Weakness is not an option.

- - Be ready to protect yourself. Someone will test you.

- - Don't brag that you can fight, unless you can. Well.

- - Don't trust the person offering to watch your back.

- - Don't stare at anyone.

- - Don't give up. Others have survived before you.