This is The Guardian.
Today, the nightmare of getting trapped in debt in Dubai.
Albert Douglas was out of options.
He was on the run from the authorities, halfway across the world from his family in the UK,
with no easy way to make it home to them.
What now?
So I went down to Wembley and met the UK representative of the smugglers, and I paid them a deposit of £20,000.
Albert's son Wolfgang had made contact with a gang of people smugglers.
He was gambling on them being able to get Albert home.
Albert was driven in a pickup truck to the agreed meeting point.
The smugglers had cut a hole through a fence on the border.
On the other side, another car was waiting for him to speed him away to safety.
Albert wasn't trying to escape a war zone or a hostile state.
He was in one of the most glitzy holiday hotspots in the world,
a place that likes to think of itself as a safe haven for tourists,
for business expats, influencers, and the super rich.
He was trying to get himself out of the United Arab Emirates.
Who was supposed to go over the border, over the Oman border in LA.
There, we had another car waiting for him, who was going to take him to the Dow boat dock of Oman,
to go across into Iran, where he was going to be met with another party,