Obv awesome show, first episode of the new season came on and just got a chance to watch it on the DVR. It is about this Hollywood actor(Erik Aude) former high school football star all american type guy who was working at a gym at nights part time. Apparently this was a pretty big story in the LA area when it happened in like 2003, anyone who lives out there might remember it. They showed video of him coming into the airport and there were hundreds of people waiting for him and cameras everywhere.
He knew this guy from the gym that had been a friend for a couple years who said bring some leather goods back from Turkey and I will pay you. (55% tax on those goods and they were worth about 50k per trip) Made that trip twice, no issues. He of course was bringing back opium but he didn't know it.
He was too busy with acting, and didn't have time to go for a 3rd trip but introduced his brother to the guy and he was gonna go. Last minute "oh you have to go to Pakistan, not Turkey. Brother said "fuck no I aint going" (this was right after 9/11 and days after Daniel Pearle was kidnapped). Guy says you vouched for him and now you are costing me money if he doesn't go. Erik says fine I will go instead.
You have to watch the show because this guy is a total badass and he swears everything in the show was 100% true. He is a real character and I doubt he would have survived if he wasn't the type of personality (and physical specimen) that he was. He is the type of guy who could probably do anything he set his mind to, and I think that if he didn't go into acting he would be like a Navy Seal or something that was the type of determination and drive (with a little bit of crazy mixed in) that came across in the show (he played himself).
Here are a couple links to his story, and he has been answering questions on twitter since it aired...
https://twitter.com/#!/erikaude
http://www.nypost.com/p/entertainmen...iOrFxKG6gemYiL
http://panachereport.com/channels/mo...s/ErikAude.htm
He actually now fashions himself as a part time poker player (who doesn't!) and first started playing while in the Pakistani prison on death row. (How he got to death row is quite a story in and of itself). Been playing the smaller events in the WSOP the last few years and has some other small time LA area cashes.
But anyway the shit he went through was fucking insane. Just think....you are in an American in Pakistan right after 9/11. The survival time for a normal prisoner in this jail is 4 years that is how crazy it is.