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people's photographs, and they just wave them through. Everything has a price out there – even the police. If you did it, you wouldn't have to worry about a thing, mate.'

It sounded too good to be true, but it also sounded kosher. Luke had done it a couple of times, and he'd told us that mates of his who had done it had got away with it as well. They weren't in jail. In fact, just the opposite; they were living really well.

'How much would we get?' I asked, cutting to the chase.

'You'd get five grand each – cash – for smuggling five kilos each,' he replied.

Five grand? That was more cash than I'd ever had in my life. It seemed like silly money.

I was excited but, of course, I was also scared. Going abroad was daunting enough, but to go abroad for the first time to smuggle drugs? But this would give me a quick and easy way of getting away from my family, to get my own place and make my own way in the world.

I wanted a quick fix. Why work for £20 a week in a dead-end job and scrimp and save for years, when this seemed like the perfect short cut?

Looking back, I'll admit I was completely naive, and I'm not looking for sympathy. But right then, in that nightclub, I was convinced we'd found a secret formula to get minted. My desire for financial stability, my desire to