Overview
- The documentary, scheduled for Saturday, May 23, is already streaming in the ZDF media library.
- Roman Garber, an Austrian traveler, says a 2021 spam email lured him into carrying a package he was told was a ventilator that police in Colombia found held more than seven kilograms of cocaine after a sniffer dog alerted.
- He pleaded guilty in May 2023 and received seven years and two months plus a €240,000 fine, and he has served roughly four years in Cartagena’s La Ternera prison.
- His lawyer has filed for parole, which is allowed only after three-fifths of the sentence, and any release would keep Garber in Colombia until probation ends and the fine is paid amid a system where hearings often slip when a participant is absent.
- Garber describes moldy walls, foul food that led to weight loss and a broken tooth, and isolation in crowded cells, as La Ternera held about 2,100 inmates in November 2025 despite capacity for roughly 1,700 in a city where authorities seized 27 tonnes of cocaine in 2025.