banged up abroad
nepal (3/4)

Continuing tonight is the drama-documentary series that tells the gripping real-life stories of young travellers who find themselves incarcerated overseas. This programme focuses on the story of journalist and former magazine editor Piers Hernu, whose thirst for adventure landed him in a Nepalese jail for gold-smuggling.

In 1992 Piers Hernu was living the fast-paced and wealthy lifestyle of a city trader. The money was good, but the stress sent Piers into a year-long bout of clinical depression. Piers decided to go travelling around South-East Asia, and tasted the escapism he wanted. “It had all the elements of a sort of dream-like existence for a young man who wanted to get stuck into a few adventures,” says Piers. “And that’s what I ended up doing.”

After six months, Piers arrived in Hong Kong to find work. He became friends with Oz, an Australian who was staying in the hostel, and Rhett, a loud, brash American who said that he supplemented his own income with a little goldsmuggling into Nepal and wondered if they wanted in. It paid well, but sounded risky.

However, the pair’s doubts faded when Rhett returned from a mysterious weekend with $2,000 in cash. The prospect of what sounded like easy money was too tempting to resist, and they agreed to accompany Rhett and a fourth man, Eric, on the next run to Nepal.

Rhett took everyone to meet two Nepalese gangsters in Chungking Mansions, a notorious tower block where, says Piers, “dodgy deals could be done and no questions would be asked.” They were shown a multi-pocketed denim waistcoat containing $400,000 in gold bars – weighing over 56 pounds. The four men were to wear these on a flight to Kathmandu, where they would easily get past paid-off customs officials and hand over the gold. Piers wavered, but ultimately agreed. “It became me wanting to prove that I could do something as dangerous and as stupid as that,” he explains.

On the day, Piers, Rhett, Oz and Eric got through check-in and met their contact. Each was fitted with a gold-filled waistcoat – which felt a lot heavier this time round. The four men were actually carrying nearly 250 pounds of gold between them, worth $1.6 million.

A nasty surprise was waiting at Kathmandu: the paid-off customs official was not there. The foursome panicked, but the replacement official still let Rhett and Oz through. Suddenly, Eric and Piers were apprehended, tested with a metal detector and shoved into a side room. Rhett and Oz were then dragged in by armed police, and the huge haul of gold removed from their pockets.

The men were made to sign documents in Nepalese before being handcuffed and driven to a prison. They hoped that they were merely being held before deportation – but a hearing the next day at the airport’s ‘Customs Court’ saw them sentenced to four years each. With their only other option to pay the value of the gold as a fine, Piers and his shell-shocked friends were taken to jail to begin serving their sentence.

A few days later, an American visited Rhett and told him that he knew people who could help – they were bound to be released soon. But as the days turned into months, it became clear that they were being strung along. It then emerged that they had now passed the three-month deadline to appeal their sentence – and faced a further three and a half years in prison.

Piers and his friends now had to explore other ways of getting out – and their chance came when Piers enlisted the help of Tony, his uncle. Tony discovered that the King pardoned certain prisoners every year on his birthday, and the four men set about writing letters in the hopes of being considered. And in the meantime, Tony’s digging uncovered the sinister reason why the operation had gone so badly wrong –it was a set-up.