Banged Up Abroad Venezuela - Just say no!

"Banged Up Abroad: Venezuela" is the harrowing story of James Miles, 18, and Paul Loseby, 20, two young lads from Leicester who were stupid enough to fly out to Venezuela in 1996 after agreeing to smuggle cocaine back to the UK in a pair of padded vests.

But drug smuggling is a mug's game and rather than flying back home with a 8,000 US dollars in their pockets the boys were detained at Maiquetia airport in the capital, Caracas, in November 1996.

Although they claimed they had been forced to carry the drugs by a man who had threatened them with a gun, the boys were arrested.

After spending 8 months in a holding cell at La Vega police station they were sentenced to four years each and two years later were moved to the notorious Yare prison.

Miles was 18 at the time of his arrest and was on his first trip abroad. After arriving back in England he told an interviewer of the horrors of prison life: "The conditions were like hell. At first we were scared because everyone had knives. So we had to get knives as well."

Eventually, after being let out on parole, they managed to skip the country and fly home.

Loseby, who contracted Tuberculosis in jail, has suffered the effects since.

To buy their new book "Banged Up Abroad: Hellhole" click here: