My time inside a Serbian drug smuggling ring…

A story of naivety, near-death experiences and a man called “Dan”

“Ah,” I thought calmly, “so this is how I die.”

I had always presumed it would be in a ridiculous-but-kinda-funny situation, probably of my own making — but I’d never really had the specifics figured out.

Today, it seemed, those details were going to be revealed.

It all started innocently enough. Well, from my perspective anyway. Whether a judge would see it like that, who knows…

But, honestly Your Honour, I was just looking to get from A to B. Or, more specifically, from Belgrade to Sarajevo — as cheaply and as quickly as possible.

I presumed this would be one of the Balkans’ rickety old buses — 9 hours without a working toilet while some creepy guy takes photos of me as I sleep (true story). But on checking out of my Belgrade hostel after a particularly heavy night, something caught my eye — a professional-looking poster listing various taxi routes and their prices. And Belgrade to Sarajevo? Only €25.

€25!

I’d be lucky if 25 quid got me down the road in a London black cab, never mind to another country. But even for me, a gullible traveller with all the street smarts of a…