In order to talk about my time in Brazil from October 2019 until June 2025, I need to go back to April of 2016. I’m not going to go into great detail because I’m just not ready for that. In 2016, I decided to try and date again. I hadn’t dated anyone while my son was younger because I have trust issues in general. So, my son was 19 years old when I started thinking about putting a profile on dating websites. That wasn’t going well until Marcus contacted me on a dating site and we began chatting through the site. He asked me question and vice versa. We sent photos back and forth and I thought things were going well. So I fell hard for this guy. The only thing that was not ideal about it was he lived in another state so in person contact was not viable.
I was desperate for attention. I was desperate for love. Yes, I had those things from my family and my son but it isn’t the same as romantically. When my son was a toddler, I left his father who was psychological and emotional abusive and manipulative. Shortly after leaving and started to gain allot of weight. It was a defense mechanism that has lasted for many, many years. I still struggle with it every day.
Anyway, Marcus gave the attention that I craved and needed. At first, things seemed okay. After a couple of months, he started asking for money and other things to be sent to him. Not sent directly through him but through other people he knew. Looking back, I know it was not wise to send these things to him at all. I kick myself everyday because I did send those things because through time I did things that ended up hurting my family emotionally and financially. This pains me every day. Eventually he sent me on international trips with the promise that he would meet me during those trips. But that never happened. During the first two trips, nothing untoward happened. It was during the last trip that my eyes were finally opened and I was in a world of shit.
In September of 2019, he said he wanted to send me on vacation since I had been working so hard caring for my mother who had a stroke. I told him I appreciated that and I asked my 23 year old son to keep an eye on his grandmother while I was gone. I was only supposed to be gone for a could of weeks. That’s not what happened. He asked me to take a package to Greece for him. I picked it up from an acquaintance of his in Brazil and was supposed to fly to Greece, drop off the package and then fly back the next day. Writing and thinking about it now, I know that is very questionable and would have been questioned by customs authorities in Greece. Anyway, I met his acquaintance and took the package from him. I took it to my hotel room, examined the four bags of chocolate bonbons (that’s what he wanted to me to take) and placed into my luggage. I looked at the packages because I wanted to make sure that they haven’t been tampered with because I couldn’t believe he just wanted that to be taken. But they didn’t appear to have been opened previously so I placed them in my luggage and went to the airport.
At the airport, my life changed forever. I got ticket and checked my bag and then went through security and customs. Only, I didn’t get through customs. I was stopped and told to wait and the little counter where the agent had been sitting. It felt like I was there for hours. I didn’t know how long I had to wait there but eventually she came back and took me to the supervisor’s office. I was asked to describe my luggage which I did. Airline agents brought my luggage to the office and they asked me to open my luggage so they can search it. This whole entire time, I’m wondering why they want to search my luggage. I asked them what they were looking for and they told me that the X-ray machines picked up organic matter in my luggage. I was confused of course but then I asked them if the bags of chocolate bonbons could have indicated that way. So, they took the bags out and rescanned them a few times where everyone else were going through the security checkpoints. I still didn’t understand the reason why they would be examining those bags when they were clearly individually wrapped chocolate bonbons in those bags. Well, I got my answer when they asked if they could open one of the bags to examine a bonbon. I told them to go ahead. I had nothing to hide. They opened one and unwrapped a bonbon. To my surprise (and despair), it was not a chocolate bonbons but powdered cocaine. I was shocked and then very angry at Marcus for doing that to me. I had no idea that he was into that or that he had been scamming me for years. I was immediately arrested and placed in a jail cell there in the airport.
I’m stopping there for now. Writing about this has triggered some flashbacks which are not fun to deal with. I’ll write more soon.
My unexpected life journey 
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