With Contraband arriving on DVD 16th of this month - I thought I'd relate my experiences in the smuggler's underworld - and how you don't always get that Hollywood ending. Mark Wahlberg, being one of my favourite actors, brought back some quite dark memories of my sordid smuggling past.
I was sentenced to 10 years in one of South America's hardest Maxi Prisons: Devoto in Buenos Aires - a place where gangs would quite happily slit your throat for a phone card.
How did I end up in that hell hole?
I was caught with 200 kilos of pure cocaine....part of a 1000 kilo consignment I was waiting for; which luckily never arrived - as I would never have gotten out of prison.
Logistics and container shipping was my game. Smuggling cocaine through South America across the seas to Europe where it would be distributed in wholesale fashion. I built a small empire of assets on my ill-gotten gains which, after my capture, were all stripped from me.
The deceit and betrayal in the film 'Contraband' is about as real as it gets. One of my close associates did the dirty on me and informed the drug squad of my smuggling activities, which, after a two year investigation, led to our arrest. My co-defendants, who I was banged up with, turned out to be spineless dogs.
Unlike Mark Wahlberg, I didn't end up living in a luxurious beach house...I was stripped of every possession I owned.
My life now is full of other wonderful riches...I entered prison a wealthy young man and left with 300 bucks in my back pocket and my new found knowledge of yoga, which I now teach at my own private studio in Notting Hill.
Have a read about 'The Kid', my alias during my smuggling days by clicking on the link below, where you will be able to read the first 8 chapters of my book which recalls the real-life horrors of being a cocaine smuggler.
"He was the son of an East London policeman - but became one of South America's most notorious drug smugglers. He should have been a sporting hero, celebrated by his country. So how did The Kid end up at the centre of Argentina's most infamous drugs trial?
A champion skier, at fifteen he is sent to train full time in the Alps with the England Junior Development Squad. His eye is on the '92 Winter Olympics... but a tragic accident shatters his dreams.
Depressed and vulnerable, he hitches to Antibes, where the beach becomes home. There he is taken under the wings of the gangsters who frequent the South of France - and taught the trade that will make him a very rich man.
But a joint sting between Argentine, US, British and Spanish authorities ends his playboy lifestyle... and so the real nightmare begins.
Incarcerated in Buenos Aires' notorious Devoto Prison, where inmates will happily slit your throat for your shoes, every day becomes a battle for survival.
In this brutally honest - and often funny - account, The Kid tells the real story of drug trafficking in South America. Mansions, millions, yachts, nightclubs, women - deceit, betrayal, kidnap, prison, torture."
To see how Mark Wahlberg fares, catch Contraband on Blu-ray with Ultraviolet, and DVD July 16th from Universal Pictures.