I guess. I'd be instantly suspicious, but he doesn't seem like a person of good judgment to start with. It's sad that he didn't have the wit or the character to plead guilty and try to straighten his life out for the sake of his family.
It’s their job to get extremely good at being less suspicious. The more rejections they get, the more they refine their approach, their appearance, their story, etc.
I try to avoid giving credit to my ego for not falling for a scam/con (yet!) when capitalism and evolution are both optimized for finding efficient workarounds for any hurdle. Given enough attempts and enough time, capitalism will corrupt anyone and everyone.
>It's sad that he didn't have the wit or the character to plead guilty and try to straighten his life out for the sake of his family.
That won't overcome the fact he now owes 15kg of goods to the cartel, and probably has no way to pay it, and he's staring down the barrel of being in prison full of people who have nothing but time to settle the debt. I think this guys death warrant was signed as soon as he got caught, and probably halfway written by the time he was even asked for the favor. Quite possible he did the best thing for his family.