Welcome to the Bangkok Hilton: Inside Thailand’s notorious drug prisons | 60 Minutes Australia

you'd have to be very desperate or very stupid to do drugs in thailand after all the warnings couldn't be any clearer the penalties any tougher but still australians keep getting caught still they're shocked when they find themselves in some of the world's most appalling most brutal jails like the notorious bangkok hilton in a way though they're the lucky ones thailand's a place where when they say zero tolerance they mean it where more than two thousand drug traffickers were killed on the streets last year [Music] step behind the bars of the infamous bangkok hilton and it's the number of women that's overwhelming the number who've taken the gamble nearly 6 000 in this one small jail most have thrown their lives away for drugs with the average sentence 25 years or more many will die in this place it's not a good life not a goal because it's just a long time because the drug is very serious crime in thailand by day the prison operates as a sweatshop the women filling in the endless hours learning skills they'll never use by night they fill the cells like sardines how many women are in this cell 200 200 women in here yes how do they fit yeah during our time at the bangkok hilton prison officer pashruporn made sure we saw only what they wanted us to see this moment some parts of the jail were strictly off limits as was access to foreign prisoners including three australian women that's why they're here if you're stupid enough to do the crime in thailand then perhaps you deserve to do the monumental time but being here in the bangkok hilton it's hard to imagine how anyone could face spending 25 30 50 years in here as sanitized division as we're getting today this is not a nice place [Music] across town the men's version of the bangkok hilton is bang quang known as the big tiger because it eats people alive is this thailand's harshest prison yeah is the boss of thailand's jails when you hear that you're coming here do you get very frightened as a prisoner yeah because this is the most maximum security prison like the women's prison this jail is horribly overcrowded but for our cameras only a handful of the six thousand inmates are on show down there are they that one not two people well those two people are prisoners right here over there see that there's a prisoner uh-huh most inmates are here because of drugs including australians bobby halliwell and robert foley so you don't have to worry i'm not going to speak bad they agreed to talk to us about life in bangkuang but thai authorities insisted we film them from behind it's deadening it deadens your soul it just turns you for me i can't speak for anyone else it just turns me hard the prisons are overcrowded it's like a time bomb ticking waiting to go off you sit here and you tell me how terrible the conditions are here but it doesn't look that bad you look beautiful do make up my dear cosmetic snow job why don't they let you come in the hell hole i thought you had to die to go to hell but hell is right here what would your action be life in prison i haven't got much life left anyway there'd be some who think hell is too good for bobby hollywood having already served a five-year sentence for an earlier drug offense in thailand he's now in for life for trying to smuggle heroin to australia what were you doing with the heroine you know the rules and regulations of this country when you're addicted to a heroin you don't think about any rules what are you thinking about is every day getting some to feel normal or whatever you want to be again are you still a drug addict no no i haven't used any drugs for a year but if you want the material everything's here except the woman i feel embarrassed i feel ashamed of myself he claims he's innocent the thai police accuse robert foley of being the australian link in an international drug trafficking ring now in his seventh year in jail he's still waiting for his appeal to be heard is it hard to hold on to your sanity it is yes but uh i mean there's guys that walk around here i kid you not they're zombies these are westerners and i'm talking and i'm thinking my god you know am i you am i but i'm not i'm not like that i've maintained a high level of sanity i think for six years lal donega was one of those zombies jailed in bangkuang for trying to smuggle heroin now after a rare pardon by the king of thailand he's a free man back home in sydney things can always get worse when you're over there always get worse and there's even things worse than death daniel what are they being amongst the people who are dying watching them die and not being able to help [Music] lal donega was caught with 34 grams of heroin at bangkok airport he was sentenced to death later reduced to life because he pleaded guilty behind saw it was it was and i'd learn enough time to know that immediate execution ah then they went into those five judges they went into a power well for about 10 minutes and come back out with you know 50 years sentence was that sentence any easier to hear than death uh well that's why i yelled out you know what's the difference you know 50 years of death it's the same thing i just think an execution would have been a bit quicker [Music] just contemplate having to spend the rest of your life in a jail like this even the guards know how tough it is they put prisoners in leg irons for their first three months not to stop them escaping but to stop them killing themselves they put them on with a sledgehammer so you can't pick a lock or anything to get them off and uh yeah they i got infections around my ankles and that they took years for the scars to come off do you accept that if you take the risk in this country that you deserve whatever punishment they give you well well i could say that and i couldn't you know a fair copy in australia for a kilo of heroin is six years and you do four years and you're free but here in thailand i don't know why they're killing people and giving sentences there's people in here 20 years and they'll never get out because they're so old and you really don't know why they're trying to stop people like you well how can they i'm a little fish my dear what about the big 600 kilo bus in australia you know where all that comes from thailand over there is myanmar the old burma across the river is laos and here is thailand this is the golden triangle one of the world's biggest producers of opium and heroin but when it comes to amphetamines the figures are also astronomical just to give you an idea something like 700 million tablets of amphetamines are smuggled in over the myanmar border each year now to counter that thailand has declared war on drugs in the last 12 months more than 72 000 arrests have been made two and a half thousand suspected drug dealers and traffickers have been shot dead and still the drugs keep coming the enemy of drug barons is commissioner of narcotics general watropole he can't claim to have won the war against drugs yet but he's certainly winning some of the battles how much heroin is here the actual heroine is about 15 kilograms in his latest victory he sees 280 000 amphetamine tablets and 15 kilograms of high-grade heroin you can see why people take the risk in the golden triangle you could buy this heroin hall for three hundred thousand dollars but sell it on the streets of sydney or melbourne and it's worth 40 million can you tell from this whether it's good quality yes how the color because it's quick while it's pretty amazing to see this quantity of drugs close up what's even stranger is the calm demeanor of this man caught red-handed with the heroine and now basically dead man walking if this guy is convicted what happens to him because the quantity of drug found he might get life imprisonment so minimum if he's a caretaker he may get life if he is more involved this man that be capital punishment will die [Music] of course the court will decide this man's fate but chances are so these are real bullet holes he'll end up here the execution chamber at bangkwang prison now prisoners sentenced to death die by injection until last year they were shot by this man the musical chawalat jaraban bang kwang's chief executioner has killed 55 prisoners [Music] do you think bad drug offenders should be executed if they're criminals and they do something really bad they deserve to be executed what makes thailand so attractive to foreigners is what makes it so dangerous an easy going place where almost everything is available for next to nothing the most prohibited the cheapest of all as long as you're prepared to bet your huh how you life not real good not real good thank you very much it was stupid but i did it did you at any stage know you were putting your life on the line not until we're caught a pretty stone the whole time so you were out of it on the surface lyle donega is a fortunate man he's no longer an addict and in 2002 was released from bangkuang but two years on he's still serving time only here the bars are invisible my family's growing up especially the young children last time i saw them i tucked them in the bed and read them bedtime stories now they don't even know me they don't call me dad anymore that hurts uh and i realized that you know that my life back here is i don't have a life back here that's it well what a pity you didn't think about all of that before you tried to bring heroin back into australia of course in hindsight but how many people you know think in hindsight that um but like i said if i can't change history that's been done i know you say you were an addict and therefore you weren't thinking clearly but even as an addict is it worth taking the risk here myself i couldn't stop but as a warning to others what would you say if you're thinking to come to thailand and you think you'll get away with it be very very careful your family in australia will probably see this do you have a message for them yeah i'd just like say hello mum and that's it what else can i say i'll see you soon it's you know be strong i'm strong let them be strong it's unsettling spending time with these men in particular bobby halliwell he faces the rest of his life in jail but shows no remorse for his actions i don't know if it's the jail or the drugs but there's something very strange about his sense of reality is it worth throwing your life away if you ask me would i do it again i'd say yes i can't change what's happened and i can't change the future you know what will be will be what happens happen so it was worth it yeah i've had a good life hello i'm tara brown thanks for watching 60 minutes australia subscribe to our channel now for brand new stories and exclusive clips every week and don't miss out on our extra minutes segments and full episodes of 60 minutes on dot com dot a u and the nine now app

Channel: 60 Minutes Australia

Views: 7,056,372

Keywords: 60 Minutes, 60 Minutes Australia, Liz Hayes, Tara Brown, Liam Bartlett, Tom Steinfort, Sarah Abo, karl stefanovic, 60Mins, #60Mins, thailand, bangkok, hilton, crime, prison, drug, jail, cocaine, heroin, prisoners, behind bars, zero tolerance, capital punishment, life sentence, criminal, sweatshop, australia, schapelle corby, inmate, hell

Id: WHhXBtGDkSw

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 06 2021