'They just want to stab each other' – Newcastle-born ex-con details brutal time in Spanish jail

A former Newcatle club doorman who became an international drug trafficker has shared his harrowing experience of being banged up in a Spanish prison, after being caught with a large stash of sleeping pills.

Speaking on the Criminal Connection podcast, Newcastle-born Chet Sandhu detailed how Spain's justice system leaves even minor offenders with nothing to lose. He said: "There's no such thing there as concurrent sentences, so if you do 15 burglaries they say 'OK one year here, two years there, one year here and they add them all up so there's people doing 25 years for house crawling".

The lengthy sentences mean that inmates stop worrying about their own safety. "Once they're inside they share needles, the sentences are that big, they've all got HIV and they're all walking around with tools, it's totally different there... they all just want to stab each other," Chet claimed.

With huge amounts of blood spilled in cell block scraps, he wrongly became convinced that he must have contacted HIV. “I had loads of fights. I’ve got scars in my hands from hitting these freaks… I had their blood on me, I thought I had HIV. I was convinced I did. In the end I would be sharing joints with them, drinking, everything with them because I thought I had it.

But, as the National AIDS Trust points out, there has never been a case of HIV being transmitted from a discarded needle, so Chet's fears were unfounded.

Chet revealed how he transitioned from selling steroids to acquaintances at the gym to smuggling large amounts of valium purchasing it cheaply in Pakistan and bribing Karachi airport security with adult magazines to ignore the thousands of pills packed into his luggage.

"I paid them off with porno mags... in that country you can't get them that's like gold dust. That was the first time they've ever seen a naked white woman. There's no internet there; Saudi, Afghanistan, all those places you can't obtain [porn].", reports the Mirror.

However, Chet found the journey more challenging once he landed in the UK. He began to reroute his travels through various European airports to throw off any suspicion.

But eventually, he was caught red-handed at Alicante airport trying to smuggle a suitcase full of drugs. He revealed: "It was the biggest seizure of pharmaceutical drugs in Spanish history - a quarter of a million pills."

After being busted, Chet spent three years in a Spanish prison before being extradited back to the UK in 2002, where he served another six and a half years behind bars.

Comparing his experiences, he stated there's "no comparison" between British and Spanish prisons, adding: "It's totally different, there's no health and safety there."

In Spanish prisons, inmates from a variety of nationalities mix, with UK criminals often finding themselves alongside Central American cartel leaders. There's a strict hierarchy based on nationality: "The Spanish are top, white Europeans next, and South Americans third," Chet said.

He recalled one incident where a massive riot broke out after a German prisoner, who had been jailed for kidnapping, drop-kicked a Spanish cocaine mule. Chet intervened, hitting the German who "didn't want to know," about fighting him – but then chaos ensued.

"He didn't want to know with me and then I walked away but all the other Spanish lads didn't like what he did so then there was a massive riot in the f*****g yard," Chet recounted.

"The Russians and the Germans stood together, the Spanish and the gypsies just turned on them and the Algerians and Moroccans kept out of it. It was more of a Spanish and German thing."

Since 2002, Chet has decided to change his life for the better. He quit smuggling and dealing drugs, and has since penned two books about his experiences.