This was big news in the U.K. and Ireland a few years back but the rest of the world probably didn't hear very much about it when a girl in her early 20's named Michaella McCollum got busted badly in Peru attempting to smuggle 12 kilograms of cocaine out of the country to Spain.
While drug smuggling certainly isn't new or all that rare, the specific situation that lead someone this young and this detached from the entire drug industry is interesting and unique. The fact that she is really attractive probably lead more people to be concerned about it than the average person who suffers the same fate, but in the end, this is a very well-made documentary about the criminal underworld that I think most people would enjoy.
Each of the 4, nearly 1-hour long episodes, starts out with a warning that says something along the lines of "The following is a dramatization based on the testimony of a convicted drug-smuggler." I think it was responsible of them to put that out there so that we can see that what they are portraying isn't necessarily the truth but rather the story that Michaella now has to stick to in order to maintain her freedom. When she was busted in Peru, her story changed slightly as she started to realize how serious the trouble was that she was in, and due to some good actions on her part once she was incarcerated, it is the reason why she was let out of jail so much earlier than others who have been convicted of the same thing.
The show featured mostly actors playing the roles of the people involved because there wasn't any footage. Then multiple people who were involved do the voiceover for the situations. This is done in a rapid sort of way that will hold your attention and even though this was originally aired on some other network, they don't do a ton of backtracking in the episodes at the start where they re-tell everything that has already been stated in a previous episode. I'm really happy to see this because it is all too common with network docu-series.
The story goes like this: The two girls in their 20's were convinced by a party boy involved in the drug game in Spain to, in their words, fly to another city in Spain and transport back some drugs. It was meant to be simple and something that they could easily get away with given their youth and the fact that they didn't look the part of someone smuggling. However, it became clear to the girls right about the time that they were on an international flight across the Atlantic, that they were in for a lot more than they signed up for. They had thought they were going to Barcelona and then flying right back and were going to get paid thousands of pounds for an afternoon's work, it wasn't until they were on their way to South America that they realized that they were in for a lot more.
I was actually quite impressed the lengths that the cartels will go to in order to move some product because the girls didn't just arrive in Lima and then turn around and head back because that would attract too much attention. Instead their handlers had organized for them to travel to a bunch of different tourist locations, be backpacking all over the country, then only at the very end were the drugs even introduced into their lives. I also thought it was really creative that the packets that the drugs were contained in were bags of actual snack products where the containers had been resealed to conceal their contents. I mean, it really looked like bags of snacks.
I'm certain that the authorities are very aware of this procedure though.
What makes this show different and interesting as far as this is concerned is that while they do tend to lean towards having sympathy towards Michaella and her partner, they are very careful to point out that they did in fact realize that they were breaking the law and deserved to be punished for it. They both spent multiple years in a pretty hardcore prison in Peru for their crimes.
I can't imagine being in prison at all, let alone in a prison in a country where I do not speak the language in a country where I don't have any rights. They do a good job portraying the fear that these two girls must have faced on a daily basis.
Should I watch it?
I would say definitely yes. I switched it on in the afternoon and finished all 4 episodes before I went to bed that night. It is very rare that I will binge watch an entire series this quickly and I feel as though most people will end up doing the same. The way they tell the story from multiple angles with many of the people that were involved keeps things moving and they do not dwell on unimportant details for long periods of time. They are able to go through a timeline covering multiple years in just a few hours. This is simply good documentary tactics and therefore I think that most people will enjoy this easy-to-watch series as much as I did.
The story isn't unique, just the characters involved in it are. It also doesn't attempt to glorify what they did too much, nor to they try to frame them as innocent victims either. I think that it is very fair and balanced and leaves it up to the viewer how they are going to feel about it. This is quite rare for Netflix since it seems they usually have an objective of trying to convince their audience to feel a certain way in all of their shows.
This show is currently available on Netflix in most regions, globally
