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A British man accused of trying to smuggle 52lb of cocaine home from a Venezuelan island holiday says that he thought he was carrying diamonds not drugs.

In an interview with The Times at the San Antonio military jail on the Caribbean island of Margarita, Paul Makin also insisted that his ex-wife, Laura Makin, had known nothing about the attempted smuggling.

“Laura’s innocent, she shouldn’t be here,” says Mr Makin. “I’m pleading guilty and I will take it if I have to, but it’s more dangerous for her. She should be back with the kids.”

Mr Makin and his ex-wife, both 31, were interviewed while huddled on a bench in the dusty prison yard, casting nervous glances at gang members casually swinging shotguns as they lean against the breeze block walls.

The pair have been at the penitentiary since last Thursday following their arrest last Monday for allegedly trying to smuggle 24kg of cocaine in false-bottomed suitcases on to a flight to Gatwick.

Seized at Isla Margarita airport in front of their four young children, they have been told they face years in the notorious prison, known for its frequent armed clashes, prisoner deaths and a gangland culture where the inmates, not the guards, run the show.

Mr Makin says he has confessed but maintains that he thought he was transporting diamonds. "I've never had anything to do with drugs," he said. Venezuela produces about 150,000 carats of diamonds a year but has not legally exported any since July 2005: the industry is instead run by illegal miners and traffickers.

Mr Makin, a former squaddie, says that the story began when he met a friend back home in Liverpool to whom he had not talked since his last time in prison - his second month-long stretch for a minor offence.

The friend, whom he does not name, said he looked in need of a holiday, and suggested a job he could do in Margarita, a Caribbean island in Venezuelan territory known for world-class beaches, parties and cheap package holidays.

The friend put him in contact with a young black British man from east London, whom Mr Makin does not wish to name. They met on a few occasions in the UK and Mr Makin was told that he would travel to Margarita, be given money to buy the diamonds and return with them a couple of weeks later.

The travel arrangements were made for him and suitcases supplied. Wanting to take his twin daughters with him, he suggested to Ms Makin, from whom he had recently divorced and who had custody of two-year-olds Libby and Lucy, that she accompany him to Margarita along with her two older children, Jack, 8, and Megan, 7, from a previous relationship.

“I thought it might be a nice holiday,” she says, explaining that she has a boyfriend back in the UK. “I’ve never travelled before and he has so I let him take care of everything,” she adds.

Halfway through their holiday in Margarita, the deal changed, Mr Makin says. Their UK contact, who had also travelled to the island and was staying in the same hotel, rang to say that he had already collected the diamonds and would pack them for the Makins.

The contact gave Mr Makin three suitcases, with the “diamonds” already stashed beneath the false bottoms. He gave Mr Makin money to have photos of himself, Ms Makin and the four children, taken at the island’s main shopping centre, Sambil, telling him that these photographs would be handed to the National Guard at the airport.

“He told me that we would be pulled out of the line, searched briefly to make it all look real, and then let go,” says Mr Makin. “Then he gave me a mobile phone which he would call once we had got through to the other side. He even showed me pictures of the guy who we were delivering to in the UK, all dripping in diamonds. He said that he supplied lots of the rappers back home, and said that I should ask him for a diamond once I got there. But I was stitched up good and proper.”

Laura Makin maintains that the first she knew of these dealings was when they were hauled into a side room at the airport and bags of white powder were pulled from the bottom of their cases, in full view of their four children.

“The guards told me that if I admitted to everything they would let Laura and the kids go, that they could get on the flight,” Mr Makin says. “So I did, but they didn’t.”

Mr Makin, who was on bail at the time of his trip awaiting trial for allegedly attacking a man with a machete, says that he has been told by Margarita’s British honorary consul, Barry Dutton, that he faces an eight-year jail sentence, with at least four to be spent at San Antonio. Ms Makin plans to plead innocent when their case goes to trial, but acknowledges that if they find her guilty, she will face a harsher 10-year-sentence.

“That’s what has happened to other girls in here, who didn’t know what their partner was doing,” she said, pointing to a young, blonde Russian girl who, having pleaded innocent, remains in the prison while her boyfriend has been released.

“I just want to see my kids,” she says, tears filling her reddened eyes. Mr Makin too begins to cry.

The four children, taken into Venezuelan care following the Makins’ arrest, are to be transferred into the custody of Ms Makin’s ex, the father of the seven and eight year olds. He was due to arrive in Margarita yesterday when two of his close family members, who arrived earlier in the week, were to fly home.

The couple shift uneasily as around 10 men, from one of the smaller gangs, stride from a dark doorway. The couple have already seen armed stand-offs and heard gunfire and Mr Makin is worried because they appear to have been taken under the protective wing of the man who head's the prison's most powerful gang.

"The problem is the boss paid for me to be transferred and now I am in his debt," he says. "If he puts a gun in my hand and tells me to shoot someone I will have to do it. If he says I have to let him sleep with Laura, there will be nothing I can do.”

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