Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast
The Real Story Behind "The Midnight Express" | Billy Hayes
Tue, 15 Apr 2025
Billy Hayes was arrested and jailed for trying to smuggle 4½ pounds of hashish out of Turkey in 1970. Caught at the airport as he was about to board his US bound plane, he spent five years in jail in Turkey. He escaped from prison and upon his return to the US wrote a book titled Midnight Express, which Oliver Stone turned into a movie.Billy's Site https://ridingthemidnightexpresswithbillyhayes.comGo to https://ground.news/Inside for abetter way to stay informed. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access to world-wide coverage through my link.F*%k your khakis and get The Perfect Jean 15% off with the code COX15 at theperfectjean.nyc/COX15 #theperfectjeanpod https://theperfectjean.nycDo you want to be a guest? Fill out the form https://forms.gle/5H7FnhvMHKtUnq7k7Send me an email here: [email protected] you extra clips and behind the scenes content?Subscribe to my Patreon: https://patreon.com/InsideTrueCrime 📧Sign up to my newsletter to learn about Real Estate, Credit, and Growing a Youtube Channel: https://mattcoxcourses.com/news 🏦Raising & Building Credit Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/credit 📸Growing a YouTube Channel Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/yt🏠Make money with Real Estate Course: https://mattcoxcourses.com/reFollow me on all socials!Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/insidetruecrime/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@matthewcoxtruecrimeDo you want a custom painting done by me? Check out my Etsy Store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/coxpopartListen to my True Crime Podcasts anywhere: https://anchor.fm/mattcox Check out my true crime books! Shark in the Housing Pool: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0851KBYCFBent: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV4GC7TMIt's Insanity: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KFYXKK8Devil Exposed: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TH1WT5GDevil Exposed (The Abridgment): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1070682438The Program: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0858W4G3KBailout: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bailout-matthew-cox/1142275402Dude, Where's My Hand-Grenade?: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BXNFHBDF/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1678623676&sr=1-1Checkout my disturbingly twisted satiric novel!Stranger Danger: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSWQP3WXIf you would like to support me directly, I accept donations here:Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/MattCox69Cashapp: $coxcon69
What led Billy Hayes to smuggle hashish?
I'd be one of those young, rich guys who their dads are billionaires. Maybe it would have changed my attitude towards life. I'd like to have given it a try, but I didn't have the choice. And it...
I get so caught up in this shit. It's been 50 years. He showed up. He knew, he knew you were going, he knew there's no way this, this gets, I convinced him to, I coaxed him into staying for the past three or four years here, but I know damn well, he's not dying. He's not going to be able to die. He brought me a photo album.
He had cut the back of a big photo album, pictures of my family, my friends, my beautiful sister in a cheerleader outfit. In the back of the photo album, he cut it open and he pasted 27 $100 bills in the back of this photo album, fixed it up perfect and brought it into me.
When you have visits, normally you're between glass and stuff, but you can get certain visits out in the side room if you've got family or the council comes and you talk. And whatever they give you, you have to bring back into the jail. And of course, the guards search everything before they take it in. And I had this photo album. And when I went back into the prison, I went past the guard.
They said, what have you got here? I said, oh, I've got a gun and some hash. You have to be around for a while. You gotta know the guard. You gotta be able to play the game. And they kind of like laughed at that. And they looked at the photo album and I showed him, here's my beautiful sister in a Chilean. And he said, your father, he works in New York. Can I get a job?
If I get to New York, can your father get me a job? It's like, guys, whatever you like. And I took the photo album and brought it back into the prison. And I just laid it on my bunk, left it there, showed other people. Here's my sister. Here's my family. Wanting people to see this and feel OK about it because I didn't want to have to like everybody hiding it.
Prison is so, well, you know, prison is so boring. The same people, the same, same clothes. We, we didn't, we didn't have outfits in prison. Everybody wears their own clothes. So everybody's in their, in their own clothes. And there's, they're talking about the same shit every day. They got the same food, the same, it just becomes so fucking boring. I put the photo up in my bed.
I let people go through it and look at it. I wanted them to feel all right with it. because I knew that I'm gonna eventually cut out that money and use that money to get out. And that's what I did. And I got myself transferred to an island prison, 26 kilometers off the coast in the Sea of Marmara. And I knew this prison was considered half open. People work there.
It's a prison island and they bring produce, boats from the mainland come over. Turkey has incredible fruits and vegetables. I don't even know what they are. I know the names in Turkish. And we brought them up and we on the island supposedly Short-termers went to the island, so they're not going to escape because they've only got, what, a half a year or a year, whatever.
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