Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
How He Survived 7 Years in the World’s Toughest Prison
22 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the atmosphere like in the maximum security prison?
I was in the maximum security wing where they send the worst of the worst of the country. They take over. Guards are held hostage inside the prison. Everybody's masked up. There's people walking around with guns in hand, machetes in hand, bulletproof vests on, their cells lit on fire. This guy tells one of the hitmen to take me out. So in my head, I'm like, I just gotta escape.
I got to get out of here. Born in Jersey, immigrant family, hardworking, great examples. I just never followed through, you know, with my parents. I didn't do what they showed me to do. I like making money easily. I started off in school, like selling baseball cards, basketball cards, autograph plaques, things like that. And then gradually just moved into like when I was like 13, 14.
selling i would buy like a little half ounce bag it up take it to school i would have kids from the high school coming to visit me after school they would be waiting for me to get out of school high school got out earlier than i did i was still in middle school so they'd be waiting outside in their cars you know 16 17 year olds rolling up teachers like what are these guys waiting for you know we're gonna go you know we're gonna go practice football up at the high school the bigger field it was all lies right
So, you know, school really, really wasn't a thing for me. You know, I didn't like doing homework. I just didn't like school. I like making money, though. So selling gradually moved up into different things, you know, started going to clubs, maybe selling some e-pills, selling acid, things like that. My parents noticed I was getting into too much trouble. Right.
So they decided to up and move immediately.
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Chapter 2: How did Oscar start getting involved in illegal activities?
They're like, forget this. He's getting too much trouble. Got arrested a couple of times. We got to go. So they pick up and we move. Now, where we moved to was not the best place, especially wasn't better than where we were. So I get to this new high school, you know, 16 year old, and now you got to make new friends. I really didn't want to do it.
Got into a lot of problems the first couple of weeks. And I was like, listen, I'm dropping out. I'm not dealing with this. You guys move me here. I don't want to do this. And my father was like, all right, you want to drop out and you got to go get a job. You're not going to be, you know, some lazy kid around here. So I was like, all right, no problem. Got a job.
I'm in the back of a van going to work like a Mexican.
Right.
All illegal immigrants were going to some factory. Right. Get there doing the 6 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. Eight hour shift. I meet this Colombian kid. We're going to call him G. All right.
I feel like this is a business where it goes wrong.
So I meet this Colombian kid there on break lunchtime. He's outside. He asked me for a cigarette. You got a cigarette. Yeah. Yeah. He was like, Hey, you smoke. I was like, yeah, no, I got a joint. Let's go during break, whatever we get friendly. And on the ride back home from the job, he's like, Hey, you want to come over? You know,
have something to eat or whatever hang out a little bit okay so i go to his house and i walk in meet his mother you know his sister and his cousin's there cousin ricky so he introduces me to ricky he's like hey this is my cousin from columbia he just arrived okay nice to meet you eventually we get friendly as well you know we start going out we're going clubbing
And one day they invite me to a party, Christmas party. So I get to the Christmas party and there's the whole family, you know, a bunch of upper level traffickers, you know, nice cars, a lot of jewelry, beautiful women, you know how it goes. So we're in. Why is he working in a factory? He's connected with this larger. No. So, yeah, he just got here. Right.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Oscar face after moving to a new high school?
Okay.
Okay.
Make it to Columbia. You know, somebody's waiting for me at the airport with a sign. The sign says Pacho. They told me before I left, just look for the guy with the sign that says Pacho. All right. I get there. He's there with the sign. And he picks me up. He's like, hey, how's it going? I'm Tulio's brother. You know, we're going to have some fun. So I hope you're ready.
Takes me to his house, introduces me to his family. You know, everybody's there. Hey, how's it going? This is Oscar. Everybody knows why I'm coming. This is a family business.
Right.
All right. So Pretty much, I'm just partying every day, you know, hanging out with the fellas, going to clubs, you know, smoke, get them whatever you want. You want women. I was living the life for like a good two weeks, right? Now, two or three days before the trip, they tell me, all right, now we got to put the brakes on you.
You got to relax, stay at home, eat well, get ready because your trip's coming up. I said, all right, no problem. So when the day comes, they tell me, all right, here's a pair of shoes, you know, and each shoe has 300 grams, all right? And here's a pair of sandals. We're going to put the sandals in the bag. Each pair of sandals has 300 grams. So you're going to take back, you know, 1200 grams.
Right. So in those days, there was no, I mean, no scanners, no nothing. So I put on a pair of shoes, which were a pair of Adidas shoes. And let me just explain how they make them, right? So it has to be a shoe with like some type of a platform bottom, like no air bubbles or anything. So they'll take it to a normal shoe guy, like a shoemaker, and he'll gut out the sole.
He'll take everything out and he'll replace it with an actual sole that is all or any drug you're going to put it. Yeah. So this gets packaged up. It's in a mold for that shoe at that size. So my size was a size 10 and a half. They made that mold on that size and they packaged up the drugs and put it in and then they seal it back up. And they give it about a month.
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Chapter 4: How did Oscar's life change after his first trip to Colombia?
Now that was a shorter trip. So once that trip is done, same thing. We get the shoes, test them out. Everything's great. Put them on, make it back to the city. Now, when I walk through customs and I walk out, you know, I had left all my money to the driver because I'm like, I'm going to make real money now. So whatever I had in my pockets, I was like, bro, here you go. That's all for you.
I think it was like $150. He almost started crying. He was like, oh, thank you so much, sir. And then I left. When I get back, there's nobody here to pick me up and I have no money. So I'm like, where are these guys? I'm calling collect everywhere. I had to call my parents.
So I'm at the airport, you know, I got a little bit over a key on me and I'm sitting there waiting for someone to come pick me up. Do your parents know you just came back from Columbia? Yes, they actually do, but they weren't supposed to. Let me just rewind and tell you a little story about that. They were going to Orlando, right? And they invited me and I was like, I can't go.
I was like, I'm going to Miami to do something. I might swing by. And when I'm in Colombia, I make a call from the hotel where I am to their hotel in Orlando just to say, you know, everything's all right. How you doing? And when... The hotel goes to give the call to my mother's room. They tell her, you have a collect call from Columbia, your son, Oscar Castro.
So when she, you know, they connect the phone, they connect the line with me. I'm like, hey, mom, what's going on? She's like, you mother, where are you? I'm like, why? I'm in Miami. You lying son of a B, B, you know, just going crazy. I'm like, no. She's like, they just told me you're in Columbia. They just transferred the call here. I was like, oh, my God.
So, yes, when I got back, they knew I was in Columbia. So I call her. I'm like, listen, I need you to come pick me up. She's like, all right, we'll be there like in an hour. I'm waiting outside. We got customs officials walking by. We got the dogs walking by, and I'm sitting there with all these drugs on me. About 40 minutes go by, and the guys that I work with pull up. Where were you guys?
Get in the car. We go to the parking lot. Take all the stuff out. Give it to them. I'm like, listen, you got to take me back. You guys never picked up the phone. Yeah. You weren't here. I had to call my parents to come pick me up. Take me back to the same spot. They drop me off. I sit down and my parents pull up. Bam. Get in the car and go back to the house. Crazy.
Hey, real quick, just wanted to let you guys know that we're looking for guests for the podcast. If you think you'd be a good guest, you know somebody, do me a favor. You can fill out the form. The link is in our description box, or you can just email me directly. Email is in the description box. So back to the video.
Yeah, when we're looking for a smuggler, say my boss was looking for someone or he told me, if you know somebody, let me know. I'll give you a little cut. So I'd be like, of course, I'm looking for people too. I'm riding around town looking for hot girls. Hey, what's going on? Talking to anybody. You want to take a trip to Colombia? Make a quick 15 cash? So...
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Chapter 5: How do prison visits work in Ecuadorian jails?
So even though there's visits inside the prison, the visits are locked in their cells. So if I have my cell, my visits inside with me, I leave to go out, I'm putting my padlock on my cell. Every single prisoner has their own lock and key on him. So I lock my visit in the cell and I go out. We're going to another cell.
Who was visiting? Who was your visit?
I had several girlfriends throughout the time. Okay. Yeah.
Chapter 6: What challenges did Oscar face while digging a tunnel?
My mother, I would never let her stay during a riot. But yeah, I had several visits with me.
Okay. Yeah. That's nuts.
Okay.
So you're digging the tunnel.
We're digging the tunnel, you know, and like I said, this, this prison is even older because this used to be like, um, I think it was built like in 1890 or something like that. So it was, uh, it was like a quartel for like the army.
so basically like an army base and it was like on a mound so they had the full view of this of the city and they could see if any enemies are coming so it's so old again hot water in the sink these rocks are just they're turning into sand and it's all going through the drain All right.
Now, the bigger pieces that we couldn't get rid of because there were some chunks that you're taking out from the dirt. Once you get down and you're digging this tunnel, you're coming upon like blocks and rocks and things you can't break through and things you got to shovel through another way because there's this huge rock that you can't break through it.
Those pieces we would take out and at night we would go dump it in this huge like there was like this hole. I would say it was like like the gutters, the drains here for like the rain. But it was just a huge hole in the patio that you could just go and dump it and people would throw garbage in it, anything and just disappear. So we're doing this tunnel. We're doing it. We're doing it.
We went through the side wall. So I had a refrigerator in my cell, right, that I would put up against the side wall. Now, when the guards would come in to do a search, they would come in with huge metal bars and they would start banging on the floor to make sure that nothing on the floor was hollow. Right. So I got that. And that's why we made the hole through the side wall.
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Chapter 7: What events led to Oscar's multiple prison riots?
No train, but the wood was there. So we take this tunnel and run with it. It was already dug out about nine feet from my cell, and then we keep going. Now, you know, walk in the yard every day and you're here. That's where you live. You know how far it is from your cell to the main exterior wall because there was two walls.
So there's the one wall from the patio, and then there was like three feet, and then there was another wall. I don't know why they did it like that, but that's the way it was. So... So we kept digging and digging, and then we get word that the ride's going to end, all right? There's no more negotiations. You know, they want to come in. They're going to come in blasting gas.
They don't care if the, you know, visitors are there or anything. How long had this gone on? I think it was about 25 days when we got word that they were going to end. Yeah. So 25 days of, you know, only the food that was there. I think after like 15 days, they shut off the electricity. Right. So there was no electricity. The running water they cut off on us.
And we only had water three times a day, 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., 12 noon to 1 p.m. and 4 to 5 p.m. And we would have to gather water. Like I would have the two liter bottles empty and I would have like 15 or 20 of them to fill up water. So this way you can, you know, wash the dishes, take a shower, go to the bathroom, all that stuff.
And visitors are agreeing to come in during the riot. Knowing that this is about to happen.
Visitors want to come in because they want to protect their family that's in there doing time. Because they know when the visitors are not inside the prison, the police comes in with everything. They're shooting grenade bombs at us. You know, it's just insane. Yeah.
I mean, the whole time I'm thinking like, oh, is it 12 hours? Like, are they holding up for 12 hours?
No, no, no. It's weeks. Weeks at a time.
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Chapter 8: How did Oscar's life change after his release from prison?
Yeah. And that was just... That was the second riot. Yeah, I lived through three of them. It was insane. So the first one was more like a hunting season riot where there was just like 17... It was like... I think it was like four or five days. The second one was the longest one that I believe was like 25 to 30 days. And then the third one was a short one and...
The police came inside with everything because someone threw a rock and hit a police officer up on the roof and it hit him in the head and he fell down into the patio and died. And as soon as that happened, the police came in with everything. I mean, they came in shooting rubber bullets at people and the gas was just everywhere. I mean, you can't breathe with that.
You get neutralized immediately.
so you're digging we're digging under the are you under any of the walls the exterior walls yeah i'm i'm calculating we're already at the wall i'm thinking maybe two or three hours or we're popping up like you know bugs bunny out of the dirt boom and we're gone but we have to seal this back up we have to clean up the cell the cell's a mess there's dirt everywhere right because after the riot all the police and guards come in and start searching everything and if they come up in the cell they see dirt everywhere we're screwed so now it's cleanup time we start cleaning everything
Start cleaning you know scrubbing mop and you know we have to get Paper to put on the wall to make it you know make the hole disappear, and then I got to put the fridge back and then Wait for these cops to come in So cops come in they do the search same thing bam bam bam they bang on everything all good Now I lived in the cell with two people one guy was from Poland and
And the other guy was from Columbia. Now the Colombian had prior knowledge of making tunnels. So that's one of the main reasons why we did what we did. And the other kid was just there and he was a helper basically with the rocks and cleaning and all that stuff. He lived with us. He was a good kid, but he had a drug problem.
Now, after the tunnel, after the riot's done, we go back to our normal lives. You know, we're just day by day in the prison and that hole's there in the wall.
You're not digging in the, you're not trying to do it.
No, we're not doing nothing. I can't do nothing during the day because, you know, or at night because you never know when someone could come in, someone could hear something. You know, sometimes the guards are walking in the patio, maybe just like sneaking in through the side window, seeing if you're doing something. So there's nothing going on, no digging.
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