Escape from Argentina - 20

December 15, 2020·38 min·3 clips

Lucy Wright reveals she's carrying two suitcases stuffed with cocaine and is now a fugitive in Argentina.

Lucy was 23. She was in London, studying pediatric nursing at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and life finally felt good. She felt loved. She felt useful. Then her boyfriend left, and the shock dragged her back to losing her father when she was seven. Her studies slipped, then the rest of her life did too. Drugs filled the space. Crack cocaine did not fix the pain, but it dulled it while her debt kept growing. Then she agreed to smuggle cocaine from Argentina into the UK, even though the decision already seemed too big to face. She carried two suitcases. When the airport search found the drugs, the questions got painfully simple: she knew what it was, and she said cocaine. She was under arrest. Her first thoughts were not plans or excuses, just shock, thirst, and the picture of her family finding out. Her sisters would be crushed. Her mother would be devastated. Lucy sat in the shame while officials laughed and refused her water. In court the next morning, a translator told her she was being charged with conspiring to export cocaine. Lucy kept saying she was only carrying the cases, but that did not change much. Under Argentine law, the drugs at the airport were enough, and the judge had his own view of foreign prisoners. Then, somehow, he gave her bail. She was loose in Buenos Aires until trial, scared, broke, and with nowhere obvious to go. Later, the case was still there. Lucy said she had been living her life, but the possible endings were too extreme to ignore.

As heard by us

A first-person spiral from breakup grief to an airport arrest in Buenos Aires.

The episode follows Lucy Wright from a decent life in London into grief, addiction, debt, and a smuggling run that ends with her arrested in Buenos Aires and folded into Argentina's legal process.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a tense fall-from-grace story that starts with heartbreak and ends in Buenos Aires.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Locked Up Abroad (Podcast)