Originally posted by Parcher
And afterwards?

Great Escapes: Midnight Express
The year was 1970 and 22-year-old college dropout Billy Hayes moved across the Istanbul airport to board his flight back the United States. Strapped to his chest was an undeclared souvenir from his time bumming around Europe: 4 pounds of hashish, which he planned to smuggle home for resale and recreation. Suddenly, Turkish authorities stopped the traveler on the ramp leading to the airplane.

Authorities questioned Billy briefly and found the drugs. Justice was swift, but the punishment seemed like a lifetime: Billy would spend the next four years and two months in Sagmalicar, an Istanbul prison notorious for drug abuse and brutality.

To make matters worse, with 53 days left in Billy's sentence, the Turkish courts arbitrarily escalated his crime from possession to smuggling and extended his sentence by 30 years. The prisoner's only consolation came a year later, when officials transferred him from Sagmalicar to an island prison in the Sea of Marmara, where prisoners could work unloading ships.

"From the moment I arrived on the island I was determined to escape," Billy later recalled. After six months, Billy snuck out of the prison on a stormy night and paddled a stolen rowboat 10 miles to reach mainland Turkey. Once there, he dyed his blonde hair black and caught a bus in the direction of the Greek border.

Billy quickly realized that he had no chance of crossing the heavily fortified border without a passport. Instead, he hired a taxi to drive him down a dirt path where he waited until night and swam across a river into what he hoped was Greece. He reached land barefoot and moved blindly across the countryside, ultimately stumbling into a soldier carrying a bayonet. The soldier shouted at him, and to Billy's relief the words didn't sound like Turkish. Indeed, Billy had walked into a Greek military zone.

Greek officials held Billy for 12 days, but eventually decided to send him to New York, where he arrived to a crowd of well-wishers. Midnight Express, a movie based on Billy's experience, reached theaters three years later and presented a portrait of Turkish prison that convinced a new generation of college students to "just say no" to smuggling.