Australian teacher Tim Schrader tries to smuggle heroin from Bangkok to the U.S, but is caught with more than a hundred times the amount required to secure a death sentence.

An American hippie, Eddie Padilla, turns cocaine smuggler to save his relationship and ends up in a Peruvian hell.

A pregnant single mother is apprehended attempting to bring drugs back from Barbados and is sentenced to five years in prison.

During his 11 years in an Indonesian prison after being convicted of smuggling hashish, Chris Parnell attempted escape five times.

An unsuspecting woman, Zoe McGarry, is given a suitcase full of cocaine and is arrested when attempting to board a plane with it.

After Jake Stanford hitchhikes from Texas to Mexico and starts selling marijuana, a deal goes wrong and he is accused of shooting two policemen.

An Irish plumber, desperate to keep his family afloat, agrees to smuggle cocaine from Venezuela back to Dublin.

Antonio Mendez, the CIA officer portrayed by Ben Affleck in "Argo," along with former hostages give firsthand accounts of the operation to rescue six American diplomats from Iran by having them pose as a movie crew.

An American is arrested for smuggling heroin in Cold War Moscow and winds up incarcerated in a soviet prison camp, but seizes the opportunity to escape when the power goes out.

Scott Campbell continues the smuggling mission his estranged father started and was arrested for, to Tokyo to raise money to pay for his father's lawyer.

The gangster, Henry Hill, who inspired the classic movie "Goodfellas" shares the story of his rise and fall as a wiseguy in the New York mob.

A man, David Scott, who meets his soul mate in the Philippines comes up against the country's adultery laws and finds himself facing up to 14 years in prison.

After first spending time in prison for refusing, Latif Yahia, an Iraqi soldier, is forced to become a body-double for Saddam Hussein's son Uday.

Mark Greening, a magician in Bali, learns he's going to be a father and turns to smuggling hash inside pellets that he swallows in order to raise money for his new responsibilities.

A man, Dwight Worker, busted for smuggling attempts a daring escape from one of Mexico's most notorious prisons.

Desperate for cash, an American man agrees to transport cocaine from Ecuador to Europe for $7,000 and gets busted, ending up in one of Ecuador's most notorious prisons.

Thomas Hamill, a civilian truck driver for the U.S. military, is taken hostage by insurgents in war-torn Iraq.

For money to party and to support his daughter, a jobless man, Duane Wollum, smuggles cocaine from Nicaragua into the U.S.

When struggling blues musician David Evans has trouble making ends meet, he attempts to make some money by smuggling cocaine out of Venezuela to Europe.

A storm ruins plans to take more than a ton of marijuana back to the U.S., surfers Mike Cooke and Mace Stanley and smuggler Frank Sayre are sent to a Mexican prison; then they tunnel their way out of it.

An unemployed man, Stephen Sutton, is offered $15,000 to transport "gold" from Argentina to Australia.

How does the drug trade work? Can it be stopped or should it be regulated? And what are the personal costs? Those are just some of the questions asked in this series, a comprehensive look at society's most abused drugs: cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana. First-person perspectives from traffickers, dealers, users, law enforcement and medical professionals detail how the drugs are processed and moved onto the streets, and the effects they have on the human body. It's a raw, eye-opening documentary about a billion-dollar industry.

Each year the U.S. economy is flush with more than $500 billion generated in illegal transactions. From sex, weapons and drugs to gambling and counterfeit merchandise, nothing is off limits and seemingly everything is for sale. In "Underworld, Inc.," National Geographic Channel is granted unprecedented access to this "free" enterprise. Workers, suppliers, sellers, customers -- and law enforcement personnel trying to keep it in check -- share their experiences of an underground industry that is brutal, exploitive and corrupt.

This documentary series focuses on extreme construction projects -- be they the biggest, tallest, longest or deepest in the world -- and the machines used to create extraordinary structures. Episodes include the people responsible for the cutting-edge design and engineering of each build, talking about how concept transformed to reality. The processes that go into staffing and operating the modern marvels once they are completed are also covered.

"Lockdown" plunges viewers headfirst into life in the "big house," the gritty underworld of America's maximum-security prisons, where gangs are prevalent, predators stalk their next prey and inmates are armed with deadly weapons. But prison officials have their own weapons in the form of modern surveillance and old-time isolation -- plus steel batons and pepper spray -- to help keep the peace in these miniature war zones.

Each year adventurers make Alaska's mighty Yukon River their home for five weeks. They float downstream on homemade log rafts to sell firewood and other supplies to remote villages. The reality-documentary "Yukon River Run" presents hourlong episodes tracking the progress of various crews. As harsh winter months approach and threaten both safety and success, stakes are heightened as rafters endeavor to cash out and escape from the cold.

Despite cameras and guards monitoring their every move, some prisoners are daring enough to test the system and execute a breakout. Told from the perspectives of both the escapees and the law enforcement teams tracking them, this series documents some of recent history's high-profile jailbreaks and the various methods officials use to outsmart the criminals, leading to their eventual recapture.

Cameras follow the action along Arizona's Sonoran Desert, one of the busiest border crossings in the country, as officers and agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection fight terrorism, apprehend drug smugglers and intercept people entering the United States illegally. The series also embeds with Customs and Border Protection, and with local law enforcement, as units patrol near and on the border in South Texas.