The Jordan Harbinger Show - 148: Erik Aude | Imprisoned in Pakistan for a Crime He Didn't Commit Part Two

Episode Date: January 17, 2019

Erik Aude (@erikaude) is an actor, stuntman, professional poker player, and the subject of 3 Years in Pakistan: The Erik Aude Story. This is part two of a two-part episode. Make sure to check out part one here!  What We Discuss with Erik Aude: How Erik Aude entered one of the world's toughest prisons an innocent man and emerged as a murderer. What processing, being the new curiosity, and solitary confinement are like in an overcrowded Pakistani prison. How you know when you're really in danger in a foreign prison: when they put you on death row for your own protection. How much you should expect to pay a lawyer to defend you from a hanging offense in Pakistan (and how much they'll try to charge you). Life lessons that can only be learned in the school of the hardest knocks from world-infamous hijackers and mass murderers. And much more... Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course!  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Full show notes and resources can be found here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. This is Eric Aude, Part 2. If you haven't heard part one, go back to the earlier episode and listen to Part 1. This story is absolutely insane. He went to prison in Pakistan for three years for a crime he didn't commit. He came out of murderer. And there's a lot to be learned from it. He's a stuntman. He's an actor. He uses stuntman skill set to withstand torture in this Pakistani prison. He learned how to play poker in there. He learned a lot of. I don't want to spoil it. It's a really, really interesting story that I chase down. The guy's incredible. It's not just a detailed episode of Locked Up Abroad. It's about resilience. It's about mental and physical toughness.

And this is part two where the story, believe it or not, if you heard part one, this is actually where it gets crazier. Jason, what were your thoughts when you were going through some of this? I really had a hard time wrapping my head around everything because at the end of part one, I was just like, well, that sucks. And I didn't think it was going to get that much worse, but oh my God, the rest of this episode is just insane what this guy did. Yeah, so here in part two, we'll be picking up where we left off and where the real harrowing story actually begins. And if you want to know how I managed to book all these great people and manage my relationships using systems and tiny habits and using my network to grab these great guests, check out our level one course, which is free and just takes a few minutes per day. That's over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. All right, here's Eric Aude, part two.

So, okay, so after these guys get done, they're frustrated as hell with you at this point. I went back to the customs lockup, and Christy came back that night with Al-Zol and some guy from the army. I don't know who he was, but he was like some general or he was like a higher-up. He wasn't a soldier. Well, he was a soldier, but he was a soldier that gave commands out. And he was just trying to hook up with Christy. That's why he was there. All right.

And Christy Keldon talks to me and I've been tortured for three days. So yeah, I'm a little drained and I'm sad about what happened. And I'm just like, what news is going on? As my mom got me a lawyer yet, because these guys aren't telling me anything of use. Well, she let me use a phone. The guards were like, all right, go ahead. They were being nice. So they let me use a phone.

I was able to talk to my mom for the first time. That was Monday. It was Monday after I got arrested. I got arrested Friday. It's a Saturday, Sunday, Monday. So I've been tortured all that day, but I'm back that night at the customs lockup, and I'm using the phone. And my mom, I'm just trying to get information.

My first words to her mom, I didn't not know. She goes, I know, I know. And I said, so who are you talking to? She says, we're talking to so-and-so. I'm talking to so-so. We're going to get you a lawyer. Like, she's on it. She's like, she's not just sitting around doing nothing.

She's trying to figure out the best way to move forward. And I talked to her for a few minutes. And I let her know that I'm all right. I don't tell her what's happening to me at all. But when I hang up the phone, the fucking army guy says, hey, look, I'm going to give you some advice, right? You can take it. You don't have to take it because you're going to want to tell the truth. Throw yourself in the mercy of the courts here.

Otherwise, if you lied to them, and I'm like, fuck off, dude. Like, I didn't want to hear any of that. Like, go fuck yourself, right? And this guy's like, all right, man. You know, it's all you. It's not me. It's you. And he's basically calling me a drug smuggler, right?

And, I mean, I'm already having all this bad stuff happened to me. But something happened that absolutely, like, I was so pissed off at this. asshole for saying this shit to me. But Christy said something to me, standing right next to him. Without even missing a beat, she goes, Eric, I believe you. And I was like, really? Like, it was like something I needed to hear. Yeah.

No idea how bad I needed to hear that. And, uh, but it was also in her own little way of fucky to that. Yeah, yeah. That was her saying, you're not getting anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just so you know. Not at all. Like here's this guy calling me a drug smuggler, making fun of my situation.

And here's Christy standing short. shoulder to shoulder that guy saying, I believe you, Eric, and that meant so much to me at that moment. It really did. And I don't know why. It just, it really helped me. That night, I slept. That night I was passed out because I was so

tired from what happened the day, but the next morning, my feet were killing me. My feet were fucked up so bad. Like, they were cut up and just jacked up and swollen. So I got driven about an hour and some change to Ravelpindi, which is southeast of Islamabad. to the biggest prison in all of Pakistan, the biggest prison. Pakistan at the time had 46 prisons in the Punjab, you know, ranging in size and everything, you know, from like a couple dozen to a couple hundred to Rawell Pindi, which was supposed

to house 1,800 prisoners. That's what it was built for. But there's over 6,000 prisoners over overcrowded into this prison. Hundreds come and going every day. They've got schools in there. They've got their own courts there for the really dangerous prisoners who they don't want to take a chance of being able to escape by their families by taking them all the way to Islamabad because that's where hijackings happen on the roads. Oh, sure.

Missile hijackings and, like, armed, like, oh, man. Shootouts and heat-style shootouts. Jeez. There's a kitchen there. There's shops there. There's, like, farms and fill. It's a huge prison. It's a city within a city.

It's not just, all right? You're going to prison, Nassano. It's a city within a city. Now, what they do when you get to jail is most people in Pakistan are illiterate, so they don't have you sign your name or anything. they do thumbprints and I don't know how they decipher anyone, but that's how you sign for everything. So they bring me into this big waiting area with these huge doors that are like the doors to mortar. And off to the right, I see a big board that has all the prisoners. They got the under trials, the women prisoners, the child prisoners, the convicted prisoners, the death row

prisoners. And you see the list and there's these block lettering, kind of like scrabble on the numbers. And they're constantly changing. So that's how I know there's over 6,000 prisoners here. Oh, right. And I don't just hear about it. I see it. You know, it's a constant numbers who's in and who's out and under trials and whatnot.

And I hear this chanting on the other side of the door. Now there's a huge door, but then there's a smaller door in the bigger door. And the guard, after they take off my cuffs and make me do the thumbprint and everything, and then they search me, the guard literally picks up his hands. Like he says to me, Lari, and then he goes, and that lets me know, like, I'm about to fight. And I'm like, just open the fucking door. The whole thing I was thinking of is I got to get to the other side so that I can turn it into one-on-one. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking if I come in, they're going to

surround me, so I've got to go through them as quick as possible, so I can turn it into one-on-one, maybe two-on-one. So you know there's a bunch of dudes waiting for you outside the door's. Yeah. Because they're like, su-but-cha, sub-cha. Normally what would happen is when prisoners get brought into the prison, they're usually like six to 12 of them. And what'll happen, these guys call number darts. Number darts are prisoners that do the guards dirty work for them, so they get extra rations, extra privileges. This is just the way it is. They can shake down anything off of you, like watches, jackets, you know, if they like your boots or anything. To entice them, this is why they're number darts.

Sure. But normally they would send in six to 12 prisoners at a time, and these guys would break off and, you know, two-on-one, one-on-one, you know, slapping, you know, prisoners cower. And if there's a couple enrolle prisoners, then they'll get sworn three, four-on-one. For me, they sent me in by myself that day. Sent me in by myself. They wanted to see you get torn up. They wanted to see you get fucked up.

Now, for me, I was a wedge buster on kickoff. My job was the fucking knock the guy's chin into his chest. And I would get flagged every day if I played football this day because I used the top of my head and crown. So my whole thing was, as soon as they opened the door, I'm going to get through these assholes and turned it into a 101, two-on-one fight. They're not going to be expecting that. I came in swinging. And these guys got beards and dresses, and they're in sandals. So they weren't really equipped for that shit.

I just kept backpedaling the whole time dropping these guys as I was backpedaling after I got. got thrown using their beards against them and their You were yanking on beards and yeah. Fuck yeah, I was. Hell yeah, it was. I mean, I got tortured. I got tortured for three days for shit I didn't do. So I was pissed off.

And this is my chance to give it back for a second, you know? So all you saw me do is backpedal across this huge courtyard. These guys are trying to surround me and they couldn't because I was just dropping them. And this little Mashakti, Mashakti, he's a prison worker, you know? Like this guy obviously I didn't know he's not an Umberdark's. The number dark, because the number of the bigger guys. But this Mashakti is like 410.

411, little guy, maybe weighs 80 pounds. He's like, la, la, la, la, la, la. And he comes walking up, but he's got, you could tell he's got authority somehow because it's just his attitude. And he grabs my wrist to follow him. And he's like, yelling at all these other dudes to fuck off. So I follow this dude who's like, actually stopped the fight. This little guy stopped the fight.

Like, he's the man in charge. And I follow him down these long, long paths all under the right on the walls or all these Quran verses and everything written in there. written in Arabic. And then I got the, I got the, uh, the women's prison on the right, but these long walls. And once again, remember that glass on the top of the walls? Yeah. Well, there's the glass on the top of the walls on the women's prison, not on the rest of the

prison, just the women's prison, because they don't want the dudes hopping over the wall to fuck all the girls. Um, so it's to protect the girls and vice versa, I guess. Uh, past that same. Then there's a, then I go past the children's prison. And then to the left is the mosque and everyone's praying. prayer time. So you've got thousands and thousands and thousands of prisoners on their prayer mats all towards the mosque facing the same direction. And they can hear through this loud, loudspeakers,

the prayers, you know, the la Allah, Allah, Mahamara-Rosulah, and those kind of prayers. Well, I get sent to the barracks. The barracks, there's eight different huge barracks. Each barrack is two stories, and they can house a couple hundred prisoners each, each room just house. And these people sleep shoulder to shoulder to shoulder to shoulder. They have buckets everywhere. There's people sweeping the floors. There's people hanging up all their clothes everywhere. I mean, there's trash and whatnot. There's cats. There's people carrying buckets of doll and food. I mean, it's just a city within the city. It's a world here. But I'm so tired. It's got to fucking brawl up the front. I'm tired of and tortured. I'm hurting. I'm tired. I want to eat. And I got, I get brought up to

the processing barrack. Processing barracks empty pretty much. There's like a few, like a handful of people who have chores and are doing chocks and cleaning. And the guy tells me basically to stay. and I try to just pass that at the end. You know, I got my boots on. I don't take anything off, and I just pass that at the end, and I'm trying to sleep, but my mind won't shut off. My body is tired, but my mind won't shut off. Then I start to hear people coming in and scuffle in.

And before I know it, you know when someone's in your bubble, your private space. Your psychological space, yeah. I open my eyes, and it's just guys sitting around staring at me, because I'm the new animal there. on the new circus attraction. And someone says to me, what country? Oh, man.

And I learned the hard way the couple nights previous that you don't say America. So I said, Pakistan, born and raised. Sure, in English. Been here my whole life right down the road. You know?

Oh, man. And this guy goes, no, no, you're the American. I'm like, what? Fuck that country. I'm not American. And he holds up this newspaper. Oh, no.

There's me. Posing with the guards. On the front page of the newspaper. I said, that guy, doesn't even look like me. Sure enough, I'm in a full-out brawl again. This time I'm getting fucking wrecked because I'm so tired of it's just too many of them. I'm the Santa Claus and Gremlins.

Everyone's all my back and I'm chucking these assholes. Now I moved it out onto the balcony, which is a smaller balcony. And I'm keeping the balcony so they can't get around me. I'm using the wall, but they're just getting smashed and hit and I'm trying. You know, it's mostly grab and shove. And this dude's on my shoulder, so I threw them off my shoulder onto the crowd below. And when I threw them over the balcony, I mean, he threw him off the balcony.

Yeah, threw him off the second-story balcony, but on to the crowd below. So, I mean, he's jacked up. He's not dead or not. Yeah. The guards decided to get involved in the sort of baton charging everyone, and they came into, yeah, they came and just beat the crap out of me, the crowd, and me with the batons, and then they took me to Kasori, and Kasori is a punishment cell. It's punishment cell in prison, and I would spend my first five days in jail in Kasori.

So this is like solitary confinement? Yeah, but in solitary confinement, you know, they just, you know, they just leave you alone. But in Khosuri, they beat the bottom of your feet once a day. The only time you get fed is when they bring you a cup of doll and a roti, which is like a lent, which is like a tortilla, and you dunk that in that you get fed once a day in Kassuri, you don't get to, you're in complete darkness. There's no light whatsoever. The only time you see light is when it's your turn to have the bottom of your feet beaten or when they feed you.

And the room is so small that you can't lay down completely. Oh, man. It's like a closet. So you're constantly always propped up and you have to, you know, you just go to the bathroom in a hole in the corner, you know. And you're basically trying to shit and piss into that small hole that you can't even see. Cockroaches climb all over you. The skittos get at you. Ants get at you.

Scorpions. Everything comes at you. The rats will come out of the holes and sometimes. Oh, man. And the only time, you know, you just, all you're there, you're there in pure darkness with your own thoughts. I would spend five days in my first five days in that room, and I would spend a total of 132 days of my entire three years in Pakistan in that room. Eight weeks in a row was the longest I spent in that room. 90 days total, that is incredible.

1302 days. And so 60 days total. I don't know why I heard 90 days. Oh, my God. That is terrible. And so you're stuck in this closet. I don't even want to make you take us through that anymore than you have. What do you start doing in prison once you get out of that?

I mean, I know you started learning Urdu, which I think is probably a really good move. I started learning Ardu at the very beginning. The very first word I remember figuring out on my own was, God there, and I was like, I assume that meant where? Because I was being told to go to the front to meet with the embassy who showed up. And the girl from the embassy showed up with that, with that officer. Yeah, that army dude.

Still, just still trying to get it in. Exactly. My exact words are like, she's not going to hook up with you, dude. I called him out. I was like, so you don't have to show up here anymore.

She's not going to hug up with you. And he just kept quiet that time. I guess someone gave him like a little talk into. I was asking like, when's my court date going to be? And they said my court date was going to be on May 2nd. And I was like, what the fuck? So I go to the court.

They came to tell me that I'm going to be going to the court. Who's my lawyer? Your mom's talking to someone. So this guy shows up to the court and says, I'm going to represent you. But by this time, I'm asking people all the questions like, hey, how much should this cost? And I'm learning pretty quickly. This should only cost $400 from the very broken English that I'm hearing from people. The superintendent had put me on death row because they couldn't put me in general population

because people were trying to kill me. Some asshole put a $5,000 a rupee bounty. on my head, which is roughly $87. And, you know, whenever I went, people were trying to get it. And, like, people were yelling and spitting and some dickhead hit me with a rake. And, like, it was just anger towards me everywhere I went. Like, I know what it's like to have people hate me for the color of my skin. And I mean, hate me, hate me.

You know, so if someone says, you don't know what it's like, my white privilege got me stabbed and shot at and bitten and in more fights than I could fucking count. So I don't use that crap on me. You get it now. No, I understand it. And so they couldn't put me in general population, so they put me on death row. And, you know, there was like one dude in there who could speak a little English. And he told me, look, this is a $400 case.

And that's roughly $24,000. That's all it should cost. Here the lawyers were like, oh, it's going to cost $10,000 U.S. I'm like, well, no, no, no, no. It's going to cost $24,000 because that's what everyone else is paying, and that's what I'm going to pay. the lawyers that were coming, like, I was firing lawyers left and right, because, like, these guys are like, I'll represent you for $25,000. One fucking lawyer who looked like he was hung over drunk and his eye was all jacked up,

he was wearing this suit that was way the fuck bigger than him. It looked like he got it from his older brother and hand me down. And he goes, you know, it reminded me of, you ever seen Beetlejuice? Yeah, sure. You know, in Beetlejuice, you have those characters of those real big suits that were just... Yeah, and the guy with a small head. Or the dude that was being, the dude who was used to take papers and through the wall. Because he was running over by a truck.

He was like, yeah, that's right. It reminded me of that guy for some reason because the suit was just so big on this little guy. And he says to me, he goes, he just comes up to me with the paper. And he goes, sign here. Sign here. I'm like, okay. Well, do you want to know anything about my case or anything? I represent.

Sign. And I said, how much? He goes, four million. Four million? You mean rupees? Which is still ridiculous. It's 24,000 rupees. So I'm like, $1.60 rupees.

So when this day said, four million, I'm like, you mean, you mean rupees? Like, I'm giving a benefit of the doubt. And he says, I can't say it with a straight face. But he says, this is a death sentence case, my friend. Dollars. I'm like, you take check? Yeah, exactly. It's so fucking ridiculous.

Unbelievable. I had no fighting chance because everyone was just trying to capitalize off of my situation. Everyone was, no one wanted to help me. They just wanted to fuck me over. That's all they wanted to do. That's all they wanted to do. They didn't see a human being in a bad situation. They saw a way to capitalize.

So you're in this Liam Neeson movie or whatever, beating up other prisoners? Well, no, they put me in death row. They put you on the death row. I haven't been in any fights on death row. Death row is pretty fucking tame. And I'm waiting to go to the court on the second. Then I get there on the second. And then they, that's where I find out the one lawyer that my mom tried to get, won

$25,000. I'm like, nope, you're fired. I said, this is the bullshit's $400 case. and the courts give me a date for two weeks later. Like, what the fuck, man? Why does everything take so long? I just want to get bailed. I'm told because I'm a foreigner.

I can't get bailed out. I'm trying to figure out everything I can. So all I'm doing when I'm back in prison is trying to figure out steps to take the work forward, to just get a simple lawyer, someone to fight on my behalf. I mean, trying to get someone to fight on my behalf is pulling fucking teeth. But the very few people speak English. So I'm having to learn what's being done in Urdu. And that's my best chance.

that's the only thing I can figure out that will help me do this. So I'm shredding papers and I'm writing 20 to 40 words a day and I'm just learning them, I'm doing flashcards. I'm not fucking with my time. I'm learning 20 to 40 words a day. And this is starting to open up the dialogue with how to communicate me. First I'm learning like simple things like great, you know, greetings and foods and directions and whatnot.

Now I'm starting to learn words like, okay, what is going to happen? Why is this happening? How can I get out of here? how much will it cost? Who do I need to pay to make this happen? And so people are like more amazed that I can start speaking the language and they're like amused, but they speak so quick. I'm not processing it. You know, I'm saying what I need to say, but I'm not processing what I need to understand. And the judges just keep delaying the case, delay in the case, delay in the case. It would take almost six months before I finally got a lawyer that wasn't trying to charge, you know, $30, $40, $50,000.

But the lawyer I finally got was a lawyer who was recommended from one of the two-star superintendents, and he was getting a kickback from it. But this guy only wanted $2,000, which is five times more what I should be paying, but it's way the fuck less than what I've been getting charged. And I'm like, all right, well, I just need someone in my corner fighting for me. So I pay this lawyer $2,000, and I'm getting my money from the embassy and my mom. But the embassy once went out, well, Christy's no longer at the embassy at this time. She was only there for four months.

Well, they left Avzal in charge of my accounts. Avzal is the Pakistani interpreter who was supposed to be in charge of my accounts. Now, all this guy, his job was to come and see me every month and bring me my money. Well, then he stopped showing up. This guy just stopped showing up. And I didn't understand. So here I was feeling like the neighbor's dog not getting fed because the guy who's supposed to be helping me isn't showing up. But I hear that he is telling him he's been showing up.

Oh, man. So dude's jacking me. This guy's supposed to be helping me. He's been jacking me this whole time. So now I've got to get money in through another way. So my mom, I'm able to call my mom, one of the superintendent is a two-star, a guy named Ayub, he wanted his son to get an H-1 visa.

He says, if your mom, so he kept letting me use the phone to call my mom to help his son get an H-1 visa, and I was able to communicate in that sense. And I tell her, look, just humor this guy, tell him we're going to get a son in H-1-Visa, you're going to work on it, but what I need you to do, I gave her the Wells Fargo information to give money to a religious teacher.

Now, a religious teacher in Pakistan can come and go out of the prison as they please. They don't get searched. They don't get the mean because religious teachers are very respected people over there. But they're also one of some of the most corrupt sons of bitches out there. And they're one of the, some, they'll smuggle anything in that prison. I mean anything, drugs, weapons, alcohol, money. The guy was working for me would go every month would bring in $400 U.S., which is $24,000 rupees.

And in exchange, he'd do it for $500 rupees. That's a big deal for him. That's roughly $10 for something. But he was bringing me in $24,000. If he had fucked me, though, I would just let everyone else know. And they would stop using him. So he had a good thing going. He was making a lot of money by bringing me the money.

Like, he would literally come to my cell in the middle of the night. Just hand me a big wad of cash. I give him $500. And that's done because he wants to do this again every month. Sure. That's just the money. So he gave you a cell phone. I didn't get a cell phone from him originally.

I got a cell phone through the canteen. The canteen is the first time I ever got a cell phone. They had a canteen coming in there, so no one wants to bring things in because they're afraid that if they bring you something in and you get caught, you'll rat them out. Or sometimes if you go through a guard, they'll sell it to you, they'll bring it to you, but then they'll go and rat you out, so they're double-diffing. You know, they sold to you, and they know you got it, so they're going to go and say, hey, oh, they got it, and I go shake him down. So you've got to be careful who you trust to bring things in. There's all kinds of ways to do it. You can't just say, hey, I need this, bring it in.

The guards started working for me because they started understanding me a little bit, but they, they, you know, needed to make money, I'd say, hey, you guys aren't going to beat it out of me anymore. I'm hungry, though. Go get me some fruit. I'll give you 100 rupees. 100 rupees is like less than two bucks for me. But for them, that's a lot of money. These guys are making only 100 rupees a day. That's nothing. So you're doubling their daily salary to keep you fed. Oh, these guys, these guards all started making crazy good money off of me because I needed things to help my time pass. I wanted things to help my time fast. I needed books to learn the language. I needed law books so I can understand how to fight my case. I wanted things

like to make my time pass better. So like I wanted VCDs, VCD players, video games, food. You know, they'll bring you in anything into that prison. I wasn't dealing with drugs, women, or alcohol. I was dealing with things that would make your time go by. But I was literally the first person to get a cell phone into that prison because there's no guarantee that you're going to get a reception. The only time was able to use the phone was up in the office

and on the second story standing on a box crate in the corner next to all these like files and files and files to try to get a reception. that would keep dropping all the time. So down there in the bear, I mean, we're in the middle of nowhere. We're in the middle of nowhere. This prison is surrounded by desert. And so cell phone towers, you know, it's hit or miss. A phone cost 200 bucks roughly over there.

That's a lot of money. That's 12,000 rupees. And I took a gamble. So first I needed to get my money in. So I'm getting $24,000, $24,000 in there. But I'm using that to will and deal bribe people and start making my own stuff happen. but also I took a gamble. I ordered a phone from the canteen.

I paid that guy a lot of money to take a risk to get that phone in. His exact words are like, it's not going to work. Like, well, let's see if it works. Phone gets in there. I can find a signal, but I can only find a signal at the top of this locker that I had brought over from B class that I can get on top of it. And I would put this phone on like a little nail in the wall so that it was steady. And then the cord would come there.

A little headset. Yeah. So that I got a good signal in that one little spot. That really helped me out, though, so I can talk with my family and friends once a week. But because I got that first cell phone in, too, I could also do a lot of willing and dealing in. And now, because the embassy wasn't bringing my money anymore, I had to start hustling inside prison. I could rent that phone out, which I would run out all the time. In case someone tries to wrap me out, though, I need to get another phone.

I couldn't be bringing the phones in all the time because the canteena guy, you know, if too many were coming in, he would get cold feet. Now, there were four hijackers there. The hijackers are the Palestinian hijackers. These guys were responsible for 23 deaths back in 1986 on that U.S. aircraft that they boarded in Karachi. They executed two people, but the Pakistani commanders boarded the plane and killed 21 other people in the crossfire. So they were convicted of two of the deaths, but the Pakistani commanders were responsible for 21 other deaths. That's pretty sloppy. Very sloppy.

But these guys have been in that prison since it opened up in 1986. Now, when they were first there, they were under 24-hour security. They had searchlights, bobwire. They had chains on their legs 24-7 because they were always, because they said that the Pakistani authorities were afraid a helicopter were coming and help them escape. Well, as time went by, they did a bunch of hunger strikes, and they started to get little privileges little by little.

And over time, by the time I get there, these guys are the most respected prisoners in the prison. The guards had grown up with them. There were kids when they went there. But now the guards would have lunch, breakfast and dinner, with these guys. They all had their own cells. They all were all left alone. They were just, they were celebrities in the prison, but they had the most privileges that they didn't even understand. They just, being left alone is considered a huge privilege. Having your own cell is

considered a huge privilege. And anything they want or need, the guards would get without going out, without turning them in, without getting them in trouble, because the guards respected these guys. And they'd grown up with them. They ate with them all the time. So these guys had something that I absolutely needed. And that was the connection to the guards like if I dealt with the guards the guards would fuck me over in a heartbeat and I knew that so I took a stab with the with the hijackers I'd met the hijackers through I you but just a random meeting I you took me over there like hey let's go have lunch and dinner it'd be cool be careful the hijackers they'll hijack you you know he thought it was funny and that these guys are supposed to

hate America but these guys ended up becoming my best fucking friends in prison they ended up become my brothers in prison now one of the hijackers a guy named Ali um he wasn't actually on the plane. He was the one who organized all the police uniforms, the police fan, and all the weapons. And that's how he got caught. Because when they got arrested and they started ratting everyone out, they mentioned his name. He stayed in the country because of a girl. Oh, man. And had he left when it all happened, he would have gotten out in time. But he stayed a couple days because of a girl, and that's how he got caught. Now, Ali, though, loved chess and loved books. That man could read anything like he was a speed reader, which kind of is not something

you want to be in prison. You want something that's going to take your time. Sure. So Ali was always asking, do you have any magazines? Do you have any books? Embassy was always bringing me in magazines. And I had a bunch of books that the embassy was also bringing me. Like, Embassy brought me boxes and boxes of just books from the library that no one was reading. They're like, this guy's going to be here busy. So they brought me like two huge boxes of just books, which I would end up devouring. And I would give him to Ali. Now, Ali would always send him back and everything. And he'd read it. You have anything else. Do you have anything else? I've said, read this Harry Potter book. You're going to fucking love it. It's a goblet of fire. It's a huge book.

I said, read this book. You're going to like it. He sent it back, goes, I don't want to read it. I said, promise you, you're going to like this book. Just fucking read it. That's where I hid the cell phone. Oh. Because it was so big, I was able to hide a cell phone in that book. It was because of me, the hijackers were allowed to talk to their families for the first time in 17 years. Oh, my gosh. So they love you at this point. I got something from them that I absolutely needed. I got loyalty. I had loyalty, and I needed their connections. So those guys had my back for everything after that because of me they were able to speak to the family. It's the first time 17 years. Now, I told the hijackers, now that they knew the phones would work, they all wanted phones themselves.

Sure. So they used their, I said, use your connections. So they started bringing in phones for me. And so the guards didn't know I was getting them in. They figured the hijackers were getting them out. Okay. So the hijackers were my protection, basically. But I was the one who was in charge of everything. So yes, all the hijackers got the phones in, but I was selling them all over the prison because now everyone knew I was the guy to go to for cell phones. And that was, that was able to start making my money in prison. Like, I was able to use the money that my mom would set, but I was able to start making money and ends me there. So I was the guy who came to for cell phones, for VCD players, for work. All the guards started working for me in that prison.

I was running poker tournaments. You were running poker tournaments in prison. So you started playing poker in prison. The first time I ever picked up a hand of poker was on death row. In Pakistan. In Pakistan. I mean, I haven't been in death row anywhere else. Right. Yeah. Just, Just clarifying how weird this is that you're playing Texas Hold'em with Palestinian hijackers. Well, no, not the Palestinian. Oh, okay. These are Pakistanians. So the Palestinians weren't on death row.

The Palestinians were in one cell. Eventually, after I got moved off the death row, I got moved off the death row after nine and a half months to Tussau. By that time, though, I had already become friends with Ali through the letter network through the books because he wanted my books and my magazines. And then when I got moved to Tosel, I could talk to these guys over the wall. and our relationships struck more of a cord, and I'd go over and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner with him. But when I was on death row, I learned how to play poker from Maraud. Maraud was my best friend on death row.

He was a man that knew very little English, but more English than anyone else. And it was through him that I started to learn Urdu a lot quicker. He would always correct me. He always answered my questions, just a friendly, friendly guy. And he taught me the game of Texas holding poker, and it's because of what he taught me to this day that I still make a living plane. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Eric Aude.

We'll be right back. Thanks for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers is what keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And don't forget Eric Aude's worksheet. That link is going to be in the show notes at Jordan Harbinger.com slash podcast. And now for the harrowing conclusion with Eric Aude. This is crazy.

And this guy, Marad was in prison for, like, killing his wife's family or something like that? Yeah, he was in prison for killing his wife's family members. I don't know if you have in depth you want me to go on on that. We can talk about that. I thought that was pretty interesting because at first you think this is a horrible person. And then you realize that he... I think he just had the raw, the rawest deal. I think he did what any man on this planet would do.

Him and his wife were in love. And in Pakistan, that's a big no-no. You need to, it's all arranged marriages, you know, it's who your families want you to be with. It's not who you want to be with. Well, him and his wife fell in love on their own, and they had to go into hiding to be together. And while they were in hiding, their families were feuding. It was Romeo and Juliet. And each family was accusing the other one of hiding the couple.

And they were killing each other. They were, you know, just doing everything, demoralizing and inhuman to one another. What brought him out of hiding was his mother and sister were both kidnapped, gang raped, and murdered by, his wife's family members. My God. And he set up an ambush for his wise family members killing 11 of them. What happened to him and his whole situation is not isolated. It happens a lot in Pakistan.

It's the way things are. Maraud was just another dude to me. He was a good dude to me. He was kind to me. And he would end up sharing his last meal with me and having it prepared so that I'd enjoy it, not him. and he didn't he didn't even tell me that it was his last mail he he had it prepared so nothing was spicy and i hated spicy food but he had it prepared so that i'd enjoy it and he

didn't even tell me and uh to this day it's still the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me and it was by a man named marad on death row i think about that guy when i when i hear about marad and he just seems like it's such a tragic thing but he he clearly was like you in some ways where he had the rawest deal, but he still managed to find positivity and seems almost like he was just such a good guy, even inside, all the way up until the end. Yeah, no, he was.

He was. He was. I mean, I don't know how he didn't tell me. I really don't. I don't know, I mean. He didn't want you to feel bad. Yeah. He didn't want you to feel bad or be emotionally. He wanted to enjoy his last day on earth with his friend. That's nice. That's what he did.

We were just boys that day. We ate. We played chess. We played poker. We talked about life. And when I said, I'll see you next week. He says, inshallah. And I never saw him again. He was hung the next morning. Inshallah means, like, God willing, right? Yeah.

Unbelievable. Oh, man. So while you're in prison, what's going on with Ray Gisarian back in freaking Glendale or whatever in your case? What's going on with this guy who clearly set you up? What's happening with this guy? Six months after I'm in jail, a new DEA member comes and meets with me in prison. I'm brought up to the front, and he shows me two papers with six faces on each one of them, all mugshots. The first paper I don't recognize anyone on it, but the second one, I immediately go, that's Ray, that's Ray Gazarian.

He goes, all right, well, it tells me the story. Ray Gazarian was arrested in Glendale because a Swedish woman working for him doing the same thing I was doing. lost her luggage at JFK Airport, but she continued on her itinerary to LAX. They found in the walls of her suitcase professionally concealed also opium. So they set up a sting. They arrested both her and Ray Gazzerian, except he posted bail under the name Razmic Manassian. So when he posted bail, my mom's private investigator. My mom's private investigator at this time was the only one looking for this guy because these guys are like, well, Eric's a drug smuggle, we can't find this guy.

It made no sense why they couldn't find him. It really didn't because I had his name. Everyone at the gym knew him. So why was it so difficult to find this? man. Well, it was difficult because it wasn't his real name. I'd known this man for years. I considered him one of my best fucking friends, and I never even knew his real name. What else had he lied to me about? Why would he lie to me about his name? Because he was setting me up from the beginning. He was setting everyone up from the beginning. And the only way we were

able to find out because this dick had didn't miss a beat. He continued to go on, having people unknowingly smuggle opium from. So that Swedish woman got caught, got arrested, but with him and he was able to post bell, but when my mom's private investigator brought it to the investigators in charge of this case, they said, that's the same guy that's set up Eric. He's got different aliases. They go, oh, he's got different aliases. They re-arrested him simply on that information, denied him Bell, knowing now that he's got different aliases. They let the Swedish girl go back to her country without being charged in less than two weeks,

simply because her story matched mine and several others. They deemed her a dupe. A dupe is someone who has no idea they're being used to smuggle anything. illegal. A mule is somebody who knows they're smuggling something illegal. A mule is in on it. A dupe has no fucking clue. And it happens all the time. So when I got that information, I was happy. I was like, all right, my being in jail helped the woman not be in jail. So something good finally came from this. Holy shit, something good finally came from this. So I said to the guy, now that you got the real guy,

what's going to happen? When do I get to go home? And I can tell from the DEA's expression, he was sad in a sense, but he was also very kind of confused. And I saw something was wrong. And he says to me, he goes, look, if this had to happen in America, you'd be going home tonight. But because it's here in Pakistan, you have to go through the legal system. And I'm facing a possible death sentence. And here I'm being told by the embassy who up until this point had made fun of me.

Everyone but Christy, the new consularism, Christy was cool. She was respectful. But everyone else had made fun of me. Maybe next time you'll pack a little lighter. Maybe next time, you know, you won't get so greedy. Like, they see you in jail, so they assume you're there because you deserve to be there, because that's what they want to do.

This guy says to me, I've never seen this before. I've never seen someone that was actually innocent. So here he is sitting across the table for me telling me he knows I'm innocent and that he can't do anything for me. It's so fucked up, man. So fucked up. You know, the embassy, the embassy likes to make fun of you. They like to, they like to, you know, they like to put it on you.

but the truth is it's on them. They could do something. They could have done something. Even if I had I been guilty, they could have done something. But now that they knew that I was innocent, it's not that they could do something. It's that they won't because they don't want to muddy the waters, as they say. They don't want to jump.

They said if it was a visa violation or a murder case, they could get involved. Because there's narcotics related, zero tolerance. No matter what the circumstances, they need to, they need to be way the fuck flexible on that. Because I 100% believe that a lot of people go to jail for shit they don't do, especially narcotics related. especially narcotics related.

And the embassy just doesn't give a shit. They could have gotten me out. And I know this because after the Iraqi war, they didn't just do it once. They did it twice for two huge groups of Iraqis under the guise of, oh, we're helping the Iraqi refugees go back to their country now.

So they were going around to all the different countries and taking out all the Iraqi prisoners. Now, all the Iraqi prisoners were not refugees. There were criminals in it. There were rapists in it. There were murders in there. There were drug smugglers in there. But Pakistanis are like,

fucking let's get rid of all the Iraqis. Sure. So they said, oh, yeah, they're all refugees. Bullshit, those were not all refugees. The first one, they got a couple dozen. Second time, they didn't get nearly as many, but they took out a whole group of people, not once but twice, and did that all

for another country citizens, but they wouldn't do it for one of their own. They wouldn't do it for one of their own. Someone they knew was innocent. So now here I am on death row. After nine and a half months, I got taken off a death row, but they can't put me in the general population. Too dangerous, yeah. And the only reason I got taken off is because

a new superintendent came to the prison. And when new superintendents come to prison, they shake the system up. We got to change it, you know? And when they go and they search in all over prison, they'll go, why is this guy on death row? He's not convicted. And I, you know, we want to keep him safe. This is place for him. You know, we want to keep him safe.

People are trying to kill this guy. He goes, all right, well, put him in the barrack. Now we can't put him in the barracks. He'll be dead. So they said, okay, put him in one cell. They can't put him in one cell because that's where the hijackers are. And you know, the hijackers are my boys. They want him put them in two cell.

That's where the NAB prisoners are. accountability bureau prisoners. They're like politicians and people with money who, you know, are arrested for corruption. They're not, they're not violent prisoners. So they put me in too. And this is after nine and a half months. Now, I've been going back and forth the court 50 plus times. January 3rd, 2003, all right, 11 and a half months, roughly, I've been in Joe. I'm offered a deal. Eric, and this is the, the embassy's helping me with this now, because now they're not making fun of me as much. Now they understand that, wow, this assholes are actually innocent. Okay, we got good news for you.

Judge is going to give you a two-year prison sentence. Well, that's fucking great. That's good. That's great. That's great news. They go with good behavior remissions and little bribes, you'll probably be out of here within four months. So, okay, that's wonderful. Okay, but here's the catch.

Pakistan doesn't want to look bad by saying they kept a guy in jail for a crime he didn't commit. So you have to plead guilty. I mean, that was just like a punch in the face after everything I've been through. After everything I've been through. And then these guys want me to plead guilty? the boot. That's not an option for me. I said, I said I didn't do this. I can't plead guilty for crime me and commit. I hadn't made my decision up, but I was arguing. Like, this is bullshit. Why the fuck should I ever have to believe guilty for crime and commit? That's just, that's

just adding so much insult to injury, you know? And it was the, it was the Pakistani interpreter Avesol who says to me, he goes, Eric, what's worth more to you? You're proud of your freedom. Like, for him, it was like a no-brainer. Sure. But to me, that was everything. And he made me me ask myself that. What is worth more to me? My pride or my freedom? And right then and there, I already knew my answer. There was no way in hell I was going to plead guilty for a crime I didn't commit. So I got presented from the judge, and the judge is expecting to get paid. He's expecting to pay $1,000, $60,000 rupees. He says, you wish to change your plea? I said, no. Now, not guilty. And he had me go outside and talk to my attorney again. Emissue tried to talk to me again,

went back inside, said, not guilty. and he says, all right, the prosecution's proven its case against you. And I was thinking like this guy is going to give me 25 years to life in prison or death. And he gave me seven years. And I was happy. I was fucking happy when I got seven years. Seven years is harsh as fuck for what I was being charged with. Because there was dudes who were, there was a guy who was arrested with like five tons of hashish.

And that dude got three years. And there was this French woman who was arrested with like 15 KG of heroin. She got two years. You know, usually it's pound for pound, you know, for year. So everyone's like, you're going to get like two, three years. That's how that's the norm. But, you know, everyone pays off the judge. They pay out the prosecution.

They pay off the narcotics police to, like, sample it and say, oh, it wasn't as much as we thought originally. So they bring down it from a 90c to 9b to 9A. These are different classic systems for punishment for the narcotics. So seven years is like two years per KG because I was arrested with 3.6 KG, which is fucking harsh. And it's seven years is pretty much a death sentence. prison. You got the pride versus freedom question, but not a lot of people ever have to, not a lot of people ever have to deal with this choice or face this choice. I don't think I would have made the same choice and I don't know many people that would have. Why is this so important

to you? You know, because there's people right now watching that are going, wait, let me get this straight. You just didn't want to tell these A-holes what they wanted to hear and go free in six and a half years early? What the hell? Because I know me. I know me. I mean, no one's ever going to know you better than you. And I know that if I had pled guilty for this, it would have just ate at me. I would have felt so much shame. And eventually, I would have probably ended up killing myself from just not being able to look at myself in the mirror anymore. So I knew that it was going to hurt, but I knew that I needed to go through it in order to save my life. And that's the reason. Because I wouldn't have been able to live with myself had I pled

guilty for a crime and commit. Because after that, I already know people would have said, come on, man. If you were innocent, then why you plead guilty. Right. Yeah, sure. People are fucking cruel as it is now with all the evidence in front of them, you know, I wasn't going to make it easier for them. I was too stubborn. I was too fucking stubborn. I'd already have everything taken away from me. I wasn't going to give them this. This is the only thing I had left and I was going to hold on to it. Well, knowing what little I know about you, that totally checks out that you were too stubborn to do that. I would not have guessed. I wouldn't have guessed otherwise, knowing you, knowing you here. Okay, so you're, you understand what's going to happen to you. You got your

sentence. Some guy now is trying to kill you in prison. What's going on? Well, people are trying to kill me for a while now. Because this reward that's on you? Just one random day. Because there would be, a lot of things would set off in prison. When things would go bad, they go bad quick. Like, riots would happen. Not often, often, but not too seldom either.

Like, a fight can turn into a brawl, could easily turn into the prisoners finally getting together. And one group of prisoners, the Indians beating up the Pakistanians. It's like, Indian and the Pakistanis fucking hate each other. So those guys are always going at it. and then turns it a bunch of clothes being lit on fire to a guard tower being lit on fire to all the guards having to retreat back

to the front of the prison to remobilize and then the prisoners taking over the prison and then two, three days of everyone trying to settle old scores. Now old scores being, hey, let's go collect that $5,000 ruby bounty on the fucking American. Oh, yeah. So I had people firebombing myself.

I would go back over to the hijackers because the hijackers always backed me up and the foreigners would have to band together. Foreigners being anyone that wasn't Pakistani, The Nigerians, the South Africans, the French, and everything. Even the Indians are considered foreigners, but the Pakistanis by far outnumber everyone. This is just the way it is. Now, when I was going over to the hijackers' cell, I was trying to get through, like, crowds and throngs of people,

and people were fighting and doing it. You got smoke and fires happening everywhere. I was walking through the crowd. All of a sudden I felt this super strong pain in my stomach. And I realized this guy had me, he had a lighter that he had, melted over a piece of metal. You know, that's it. So they have a handle. Oh, I see. Yeah.

Stuck a knife in my fucking stomach and he was trying to slice it sideways. So I grabbed him by the wrist and I immediately started jabbing this dude's eye out because I don't want him to keep cut to me. Someone jumped on my back and had a knife on my shoulder and I fell over. Oh, man. Everyone around me, like, I'm trying to keep this dude. I can't do anything about the guy on my back, but I'm trying to keep this guy's hand from moving around.

Sure. You know, and I can't pull it out because now I've been pushed on top of it. So I feel someone coming and I immediately go down. expecting someone to kick me in the face, and it was Fahad who pulled the guy off my back, and the hijacker surrounded me to keep everyone else back, and it gave me a fighting chance against the guy underneath me. So I pulled this dude's eyeball out of his skull, because, I mean, it's survival at that moment.

Sure. I had to do some mean fucking thing. Oh, yeah. No judgments. Haunt me to this day, you know? That absolutely haunt me to this day. I got taken over to Ali's room. Ali had a little medical kit in his room.

And we used dental floss and we sewed up my own stomach. You stitched yourself. Yeah. We still, like, Ollie had a thread and needle. Well, he had a needle thread. But we put dental floss in it. He used dental floss to stitch myself up. And then he cleaned up my back.

But when shit like that would go down, that was probably the worst of it, the closest they got to getting me, the prisoners. But when the shit would go down, I'd try to go and hang with the hijackers and we ride it out. We'd lock the cells outside. And a lot of prisoners, you know, who didn't want shit to be part of the nonsense, would try to, like, barricade the, the cell blocks so that none of the assholes could get in.

And we would, you know, it could be days before the guards got control over the prison again. And we would ration out the food amongst ourselves from the food that we had in ourselves. And we would protect each other. That would happen a lot. People try to kill with the guy who tried to kill me 101. I was in my garden. I had this garden in this back path. I was always working.

It's like always summer. During the summers, the heat would get anywhere from 120 to 137 degrees. It's fucking. 137 degrees? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I can't even imagine. You think it's hot here? No, it's nothing. The heat doesn't bother me here anymore. Over there, it doesn't just get hot. It gets wet hot because of monsoon season. And the first year I was passing out all the time because the heat was so bad. You're just fainting. Oh, yeah. But I forced myself to get used to it. And the way I was able to do that is I would go out and jog 25 yards 64 times just because there was a small little corridor. I'd run back and forth 64 times. And I was like, roughly a mile. And I do it between two or sorry, 12 and one, the hottest part of the day. Oh, man. And the reason I was doing that was to make my body temperature go up as much as possible. It was a couple of reasons because I was always getting in fucking fights with it with dipshits and the guards. And so I needed my endurance. Keeping my endurance up was absolutely

crucial to staying alive. Also, if I ever felt like if there was ever a chance to escape, at least I'd have the endurance to fucking run. Yeah. Long distance is my thing. And another thing I was doing was I was trying to get my body used to the heat. as much as possible because I was always passing out that first fucking year. The first fucking year, I was always on death row, so I didn't have the opportunity to run. But when I got taken off a death row, I got put in two cell, and there was a small little quarter that I can do it. So all the Pakistanis would be in the shade, just hot, sweating.

They see Dickhead American go out there and start running back and forward. Shuttle runs and they were like, what the hell? Yeah. And then when I went back into my cell, it felt cold. It felt, wow, it felt so great. I go and take a bath real quick and whatnot, but I just got some great exercise out. my cell was tolerable. The heat was manageable and I started getting used to the heat. And it was because of that running every day that I would do between 12 noon and 1 p.m. So as time started going by,

when it was hot in the afternoons, no one would ever go out into the yards. They just stay in the shade underneath the fan and sweat and wait for it to cool down before they go out and do their, you know, prayers at the end of the night or early morning. And so they gave me my time to be out in the garden on my own. Well, I have a green thumb. I always had a green thumb. I just, I don't know, it gave me something to do to turn something so nasty and awful. I remember the gardens were all messed up. People would throw their trash out there, broken glass. The ground was so hard from, you know, the sun cooking the earth. But then when monsoon season came, it made the ground soft. And I was able to start going and popping all the rocks out of the ground because the whole ground looked like it was

pimpled with all these rocks. And I started popping them out. because I found this bar, the kind of bar that you would see in walls and everything. And I was able to start using that to pop at all the rocks. And I started making borders and making the ground smooth. And then I would see that the weeds that were there, I'd start putting all the weeds together to grow the lawn out. I started using buying plants from around the prison, give the guards some cigarettes to bring me some flowers, some trees.

And the guards would bring me stuff. And I started cleaning up the place and putting all the trash in one spot. instead of people throwing the trash out there and just lighten up pits everywhere, they started to put it all in one corner. The one guard saw that what I was doing, thought it was cool, and started ordering all the trash taken to the dump at the end of the day rather than throwing there. And it cleaned up the yard, and people started coming out and wanting to hang out there, and people would even use my lawn to dry their clothes with. And it just, I figured if I'm going to be here, I'm going to make it my home.

I want to make it look good. I had all the cells. I had all the sewage pipes behind all the cells, because they had all, rusted and shit would come out and everything and that would that would attract flies there'd be millions and millions of flies and maggots and bugs and everything so i ordered an outside plumber to come in and fix the back of all the cells and this cleaned it up and this made it to where the fly problem was a little bit more manageable instead of millions of flies it was thousands of flies big fucking difference it smelled better it looked better and uh it was a lot cleaner a lot nicer so i'm out in this yard working just that's all i do is just you know you have a

small little tool and I just kept using my wrist to make the ground soft and everything so that it looked good and taking the weeds out and they look up the path and I see this guy hop a wall. I've never seen him before. He had a hat, he had a beard and everyone's always got beards there and he had a prison outfit, but he hops the wall and he comes walking towards me. I don't know if he's bringing me a message or whatnot, you know, but you're also always aware, you know, you can always tell something's wrong by the way people are in their gestures and something was wrong with this guy.

I see him coming up. I don't understand what his deal is. But then I look in his hand. I see something he's holding something in his hand. Then he starts to run towards me, so I stood up and I picked up a rock. And I threw the rock out on because he was running straight at me. And he started swinging around. I got really close.

And he was trying to, I was trying to get the knife, but also I didn't want to get stabbed. So I had his body between me and the knife. And he was like swinging out to the right. And I ended up snapping his neck. and killing him. And that wasn't intended. You still feel bad about that, huh? Oh, yeah, man.

If there's a hell, I'm going there for sure. I mean, I went to jail for shit I didn't do. Well, I don't know if you're going. I wouldn't say that. Yeah, I don't know. You know, I mean, I never wanted to kill. I mean, he tried to kill you, to be fair. Well, I never wanted to kill anyone.

Yeah. and that happened. Fahad heard me over the wall, and he said, are you all right? Fahad is the youngest of the hijackers. Told him what happened. His exact words are fucking Packies. And he hopped the wall, and he said, help him.

And we both threw the body over the wall. And we lifted a sewer grade at the end of one cell and put him in there. And he says, all right, you hungry? We went and ate lunch. And they The prison found the guy three days later And they said, oh, he killed himself By throwing himself in the sewage

Oh, yeah But I mean, whatever, at that point People died all the time in jail People hung themselves all the time People got killed all the time People got killed all the time It was just It was survival of the fittest over there

It really was and it just sucked That was literally one of the worst days of my life Was having to do that you go to Joe for one thing and you come out with that shit. I think the scariest part of this for me and for my wife and everyone who's watched this documentary, which by the way, if you're not convinced by now to go see this and get this documentary, it's absolutely incredible. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.

The scariest part of this for me was you did your homework. You called the FBI and you asked. You asked for other people who had done this. You'd been friends with this guy for a really long time. Even 2020 hindsight, I totally understand why you went there and transported leather goods, and it seems fine. I myself was an air courier when I was younger where you basically take art or some objects. You don't get to check your own bag, but you get to go to that country and you come back. Who knows what was in some of those packages that I was taking?

Sure, it was through a company, but we all know how easy it is to set up a company and say that you're shipping something. Anybody can do this. are you less trusting now than than you were before? I mean, is this? Yes, and you have to be. You have to be. I still get scammed. They get scammed all the time.

I bought into a bunch of restaurants, and I've invested in a bunch of businesses that weren't even legit. I've been invested in movies that had no intention of being made. You have to, I've had, I guess I have chump on my forehead, because I have people hitting me up all the time for money, for, you know, scams. my son's in the hospital. It's not even your son, you know.

There's people are bad people. So you have to, you have to always keep yourself up because if you leave yourself open, the wrong kind of people will find a way to get in. Unfortunately, you have to be trusting. I help out people when I can. I do all my charities. I do a lot of charities. It gives me meaning and purpose to help others out.

But you have to really be careful. You know, like when people come up and ask me for money, I say, hey, I won't give you money, but if you're hungry, I'll buy you a sandwich or something, I'll buy you coffee. You know, I never thought someone would do this to somebody else, but it happened to me, and I believe it happens to a lot of people. I truly think a large majority of people are in jail for crimes that they didn't commit, even in our own country. You know, people cop pleased things they didn't do because they're afraid of the consequences, consequences are fighting it. And, they'll say, okay, look, I'll plead no contest, I'll take a misdemeanor, but if I fight it, I'm looking at three to five or long. longer. And that happens in our own country, and we're considered an educated country. I read all the

time about people who were arrested at the border for drugs and whatnot. And I think how many of those people are actually guilty. You want to hope all of them are guilty. But the truth is not because there was this woman who worked in Mexico, but she lived in Texas. And she'd go back and forth over the border all the time. That was her commute. It was normal. Well, then she goes, when she came back, she didn't go home, she went straight to a mechanic because she needed to get some work done. the mechanic goes, we got a problem. Come here. Shows her underneath her car that there was a fake gas tank under there, pulls it off, sees that there's all these drugs on it.

She calls the cops on herself. Hey, look, this is my car, it's my job, go back and forth over the border. The mechanic found it. They deemed her a dupe. They said she obviously didn't know because, you know, obviously she doesn't know because she's not reporting herself. Sure. But what would have happened if she'd been caught at the border? Sure.

Yeah. Who knows? So somebody figured out she commuted and they were like, look, let's make a lot. let's make a fake magnetic gas tank or whatever. And who knows how many times? Oh, I bet she's been doing it for years. I have no idea. Yeah.

And, you know, when I read that, I was absolutely innocent stories, you know, it happened to me. Yeah. And I try to think outside the box now for people, and it sucks. You know, I hope I never get caught in that situation again. If someone even asked me to help and carry a couch, I say, go to hell. Yeah. I won't ever help anyone else again.

And unfortunately, being a little more hardened, it's a little. it sucks, but it's also just to protect myself, because I don't want to have to go through that again. And people come out of the woodworks. I mean, I try to be positive with everyone. I get messages, countless messages from all over the world, but then

some people are like, hey, by the way, I'm doing this movie, you should invest, and, you know, we just, you know, we give a part for you, but it's a $7 million movie, and we got to keep the office lights on, so just send us $3,000. Yeah, right. Fuck off, dude. You don't want to be in this movie? All right, it's because you're a drug smuggler or all this shit.

Oh, no, no. Oh, okay, good job. Now I can't sleep at night because you just hurt my feelings. Like, no one's ever tried that before. Yeah, yeah, sure. And some of the harshest people have contacted me over the world and scammers galore. Yeah. You know, like, there's a friend of mine.

He's a guy named Alan. He says that he has a debt collection company. Love my story. I thought it was terrible because, man, but, you know, I got a debt collection company. I buy people's debt and we, like, you know, go after it. And he wanted, like, $80,000. And I was like, nah, that's a lot of money to invest. What do you want to invest?

I don't really want to invest anything. But let's start off small, 5,300. How about that? And I know this guy for a while now. So I invest in this company, this debt collection company. They got this little warehouse out there and a couple of guys. And they tell me this is how it works. And, you know, we call all the people up and we start trying, you know, we buy debt.

We buy like $100,000 with the debt. That's what we're doing. And then I get an email from somebody who hacked into his email saying, do not trust this guy. He does this fake debt collection company. I was like, ah, shit. And he goes, the guy got me for 60K. I was like, well, he only got me for 5,300. But I was like, man, I'm a magnet for bad people.

You know what happens a lot. It's happened to me. I'm skeptical by nature. It still happens to me. You have to be, man. You really have to be. I tell everyone, don't invest with friends or family. Just invest in yourself, whether it's education or real estate, man.

But don't invest in anyone's businesses or nothing. Just try to be happy. Otherwise, you know, it'll eat you up. You have to be happy. You have to force yourself to be happy. You have to look at the positives in life. You have to, you know, definitely. keep your head on the swivel because someone will take advantage of that if you're not paying attention.

What happened to Ray? So after that Swedish girl got arrested, Ray was re-arrested and denied Bell, but he wasn't the top guy. He was a middleman. His job was to hire idiots like myself to work for him so they didn't have to pay us what we were really used. Also, they figured we wouldn't draw suspicion to herself because we didn't know we were being used to smuggle anything illegal. But him being a middleman and him being a scumbag, he had no problem. adding out everyone that he worked with. So the DEA back here in America was telling my mom they were helping me, but they weren't. What they're really doing is trying to keep her quiet so that she didn't go to the newspapers to say that, hey, Ray Gazarian, the real drug

smuggler, his name is Razmic Manassian, has been arrested because they didn't want all the people he worked with knowing that he was pigeoning them out. So his information led to the biggest drug bust in Glendale history. Like they arrested 18 plus Iranian-Armenian. It was a big, big opium bust all because of his information. Now, in exchange for that, he only got four and a half years in prison for his involvement and all that. But also, he was promised to never be charged for anything he did to me. His records somehow got expunged, which is bullshit, which I don't understand how that works. So he was never punished for what he did to me at all. In 2007, obviously I get a lawyer. I'm looking forward to suing the Shazka, and I get a really good law firm to represent me. They made me go

to do MRI, then we could go to therapy. I had one therapist quit on the spot. Says, look, I can't do this. This is way above my pay grade. I was like, really? Isn't it your job? He's like, look, I can't do this. I'm sorry.

I was opening up to that dude. A month before my case is going to go to trial, the woman who was gung-ho. She's like, we have the best law firm. We have a team of people because I'm like worried, like once we find this guy, how do we go after his funds and everything? And she goes, we have a team of experts. They'll find it.

We'll just keep on top of him. If he's got assets, we will, find it. And a month before we go to trial, she dies. My lawyer dies. Jesus. And you cannot catch a break. I don't have to tell you that. And I don't mean to make light of it. But Jesus, man. Well, she had done all the groundwork already. So one of the underlings at her law firm still stepped in her place, finished the case. He wasn't very good, but he didn't need to be. Because once I was on the stand, the judge was just like, fuck, man. The judge is like crying kind of, you know? Sure. This is an insane story. That's why I'm, what's why I,

flew down here. This is incredible. Everything about this. So I get awarded $20.4 million that compounds 10% interest every year. This is back in 07, 11 years ago. So I'm owed close to $50 million now, probably more. And but because the woman who was in charge of my case died, her law firm disbanded. And rather than anyone trying to pick up the slack and go after this, they disbanded. She was the heart and soul behind my case. I paid countless, proud investigators to try to go and find out what assets this man has to attach funds to it. And I spent close to $40,000 on dozens of different private investigators.

The problem with Raznik Manassian is his name's like a John Smith. It's very common in the Armenian community. So they never know who he really truly is or what's truly his stuff. I've never been paid a penny back what he did to me. I've never made a penny. I've only spent money. I've only lost money. I've never made a cent, though.

than me playing myself on the show locked up abroad to because of what happened to me. Do you ever use your Urdu at all now? Yeah, mostly Hindi though. Urdu and Hindi are a lot the same. It's like Irish, English, American English. So when I go to 7-Elevens or liquor stores or gas stations and I see someone who I ask, where are you from, and if they tell me, you know, from Pakistan or India, because, you know, they look a lot of like, I'll start to throw down a little Urdu and whatnot.

I've worked on TV shows where there are a lot of Hindi speakers. they're just blowing away. I've forgotten a lot, but then when I start practicing, it starts come flushing back to me. What happens when they're like, hey, where'd you learn their do? Are you like, oh, I spent three years and, you know? I don't go out of my way to tell people. I don't.

You know, people automatically assume I served. They go, thank you for your service. I go, nope, never served. Yeah. Really? What are you doing? There's not a two-minute story. At least nowadays, I can say, there is a documentary,

watch it. That's right. Answer all those questions. Because the first thing, people, when they hear drug smuggling, or just drugs in general and prison, they assume you're a drug smuggler. They assume you did it and that you deserved it. And they started asking stupid questions like,

how much your drug's worth? Hey, where can I get a fix now? People ask me for where I can get some cocaine. People are fucking idiots and they're heartless and I don't want to talk to anyone. I hate telling my story. I really hate it. I never wanted to be known for this. I wanted to be an actor.

I wanted to be a stuntman. I wanted to be a comedian. I wanted to, you know, be respected in the Hollywood community for, you know, making movies and making people laugh. I never wanted to be known for being a drug my brother. Well, thanks for telling me your story, man. And thanks for sharing it with all of us. I think, like I said, I thought this documentary was awesome. That was one of the best ones I've

ever seen. It made me realize how awesome you are. My wife and I were blown away. All of our family and friends who we told to watch this movie were blown away. And everybody who watches this is going to realize that you're a rare dude. And thanks for spending time with me today, man. No, thank you for taking the time, man. I appreciate it. So all right, everybody, take a deep breath, crack open a beer, whatever you need to do, because that was intense. I was not lying when I said this story was intense. What do you think, Jason? I thought it was amazing, and the fact that he came out of this on the other side and used basically every skill in his toolbox and every life lesson that he'd ever learned to get through this.

I don't know many people that could have survived that at all. And plus, I really love how he used language learning to make it in there. Because, you know, he had to learn the language. Otherwise, he would have been dead in a week. Yeah, I think some people were like, oh, he sounds a little negative, part one. He was a little negative. Look, I won't disagree that he's got some negativity, but I also don't want to judge and be like, he should just look on the bright side. I mean, the dude was locked up in hell for three years for something he didn't even do, came out.

There's even more stuff that happened. I mean, he came out. People had, like, stole, you know, robbed him and stuff. Like, wow, he was in prison. because he couldn't do anything about it. There's all kinds of stuff that had gone wrong. And I don't really look at it as like, wow, he's this super negative guy. I don't see that at all.

It's quite the opposite, in fact. I think he's done surprisingly well. He's a successful poker player, investor. He's a really nice person. He cares a lot for other people. I don't know if I would come out the same way. I don't know if you would come out at all. Yeah, I would come out at all.

I certainly wouldn't. Three days in. All right, I did it. Hang me. Don't beat me up anymore. Like don't dump me in the water anymore. I mean, that's what they're trying to do. They're trying to beat confessions out of you.

Apparently they haven't seen any of their research that says that doesn't work. Yeah, well, it seems kind of like a pretty backwards-ass country to me. But I think everybody needs to go get the documentary to see how this all turns out and how it ends. We'll link to that in the show notes. I believe you can just watch it on Amazon Prime Video and Vimeo and stuff like that as well. So it is worth to watch. It is really, really interesting. Three years in Pakistan, the Eric A'Day story.

Just really, I watched that. I was raving about it to all my friends, and they were like, all right, fine, we'll watch it. And then the next day we had dinner, and they were like, I can't believe it. So go ahead and see that. It's linked up in the show notes. And if you want to know how I managed to book great guests like this, I'm using my network, I'm using my relationships. I've got systems.

I've got tiny habits that take literally like four to five minutes a day. I made a course about this, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. And whenever I talk with people, they're like, oh, I meant to do it. I'll do that later. Oh, it's in my February plan. It's like, just stop BSing. Stop lying to yourself and me. The number one mistake I see people kicking the can down the road is they're not digging the well before they get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you're just too late. The drills are fast. I wish I knew this stuff a decade ago. Go get the class. Jordan Harbinger.com slash level one. It's freaking free. Quick crying. Sheesh. And you definitely want to have these skills if you ever get picked up and

thrown in a Pakistani jail. Damn right. Seriously. Get on it before you get on a plane. That's right. Speaking of building relationships, tell me your number one takeaway here from Eric Aude. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on both Twitter and Instagram. And this show is produced in association with podcast one. And this episode was co-produced by Jason Day and a Half in Pakistan to Philippo and Jen Harbinger. Show notes by Robert Fogarty. Special thanks to Brian Argett for hooking up this guest as well. Worksheets by Caleb Bacon. and I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger.

The fee for the show is that you share it with friends when you find something useful. Hopefully that's in every episode. So please share the show with those you love and even those you don't. We've got a lot more in the pipeline. I'm really excited for you to hear some of these 2019 shows. They're going to be phenomenal.

In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard to let me save you some time.

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