Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  – Marco

  After three months of drifting in and out of comas, Marco recovered well enough to do a runner, escaping Singapore without paying his hospital bill. It was more than $200,000 and even after insurance and friends chipping in, he owed more than $50,000. For the next two years, he was in a wheelchair, but used it to his advantage smuggling Lemon Juice to Bali.

  His friends thought that the accident might make him less erratic, reckless and arrogant, but it seemed to exacerbate those traits. He’d fallen from the skies, defied death a second time; now, despite being left with a permanent limp, he truly believed he was invincible. Rafael had been working less and less with him since the accident, and after the ecstasy con, he boycotted any jobs with him, although he would later inadvertently be involved in the most deadly run of all.

  After the accident, he talk bullshit about everybody, make gossip. If he knows about some deal, he talks with the wrong people to make shit. He was crazy. Man, I only help this motherfucker, I give coke, I give money, I give girls, I give him everything and then he wants to fuck with me. This guy is trouble walking – he talk too much. I start to keep a distance, because I think he get crazy.

  – Rafael

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE HORSE WHISPERER

  As much as the guys sometimes fell out, they were usually out playing again soon. One night, Rafael invited a bunch to dinner at one of Bali’s best restaurants, Warisan. After a 4-kilo win, it was his shout. They sat at a table in an al fresco corner, overlooking rice paddies. A few of them were with pretty young hookers or girlfriends, and it quickly got lively, with champagne flowing at the table and cocaine snowing in the bathroom. But the relaxed ambience was about to turn.

  We celebrate, the horse just arrive with 4 kilos. Cash coming. I was very happy.

  – Rafael

  A Brazilian man ambled up to one of the dealers, Black Julio, who vaguely knew him, asking if he could take his photo. But it was a ruse. Instead, he spun around and snapped a shot of Marco. Marco saw it and sensed danger, dashing over to Rafael, asking, ‘Who’s that?’ Rafael didn’t know, but was blasé until Marco said, ‘I think he’s a cop.’

  ‘What? Why?’ Rafael was suddenly listening. For all Marco’s japery, his instincts were red hot. ‘We’re the only drug dealers here, and the guy has a camera, come on it’s a crazy coincidence.’ Rafael scrutinised the guy as he was talking to Black Julio, but he noticed Rafael looking.

  He moseyed over, said ‘Hi’, then quick as a flash took a shot of Rafael. Instinctively, Rafael grabbed the camera: ‘Hey, why did you take a photo of me?’ The guy tussled, yanking his camera back, but he was either naïve or stupid as he didn’t stand a chance against these guys.

  Bras flew around behind him and, in a Jiu-Jitsu choke move, squeezed his neck, cut the blood to his brain and blacked him out, then lowered him to the ground. Rafael quickly checked his pockets, but found nothing.

  The restaurant was large, with tables spread out, so other diners didn’t seem to notice the fracas. But a waiter raced straight over, asking, ‘What’s happened?’ A prerequisite for being a good drug dealer was staying cool in a hot spot, and making up stories, so Rafael easily slipped into casual banter. ‘Oh, this guy is very drunk, sorry. We’ll take him out before he throws up.’ Rafael and Bras hauled him off the floor, slung his limp arms around their shoulders and dragged him out.

  After dumping him on the concrete, Bras slapped his face to get the blood circulating, and as he came to, gripped him by the throat. Rafael asked, ‘Why did you take a photo of me, mother­fucker? Who are you?’

  He gave a glassy-eyed stare, but didn’t speak. Bras tightened his grip. Rafael grabbed the camera, ripped out the film and threw it back onto his chest. ‘Mother­fucker, we don’t want to see you again. If we do, we will kill you. This time we’re giving you a chance, but you better run for your life.’

  They watched him get up and bolt. The dealers didn’t let the incident ruin the rest of the night, but it was unnerving. They suspected he’d been working for bad Brazilian cops, who notoriously kidnapped the children of rich drug bosses for ransom. Whoever he was, they knew he was up to no good.

  The playboys needed to be as careful of the Brazilian cops as the Bali cops, with many of them spending several months a year in Brazil and the cops now aware of the runs between Amsterdam, Bali and Brazil. Marco was sharing his apartment in Amsterdam with another trafficker, Andre, to split the cost. Like Marco, Andre lived between Bali, Holland and Brazil. Unlike him, he was scrupulously careful with the cash he made, building an empire, but was already being watched by the cops.

  Although Andre spent a lot of time in Bali partying with the others, he was an entrepreneur, with two top restaurants, one nightclub, and a beachfront mansion with a swimming pool and private gym in an exclusive beach resort area, Garopaba, South Brazil. He also had two apartments in São Paulo, and a share in a surf camp in Sumatra, Indonesia. He drove a $100,000 car and flew to Hawaii and Europe at least once a month. He lived in Bali several months a year, during the surf season, which coincided with the winter months in Brazil, when his seaside city virtually closed down and his restaurants shut. He was splurging a fortune on air tickets.

  For him, this was why he dealt drugs – to get filthy rich. And it was working.

  Every month, I send cocaine to Europe and get €50,000 profit or I send every month 2 kilos, 3 kilos and every month come €50,000, €100,000 profit. In Brazil my life was fucking beautiful.

  – Andre

  To Andre, life was about the ability to wake up in Brazil, whimsically fly to Paris for a David Guetta concert and then on to Hawaii or Bali to surf a few days later. Living moment to moment made him feel alive. But such an indulgent lifestyle costs big bucks, and it was a freak incident one dark night, when he was just 19 years old, that gave him the key to living his impulsive dreams.

  He was smart, educated and polite, from a wealthy upper middle-class family. His sisters were doctors; he was the black sheep. As a teenager, he’d sacrificed his family, choosing a fast life of fast bucks over humdrum routine. He was studying tourism at university and working casually at his father’s fishing company, selling shrimp to São Paulo’s top restaurants, when overnight it rained money.

  I was in the house and the captain from one of my father’s boats comes and says, ‘Hey, Andre, you smoke marijuana, don’t you?’ I was surprised. I say, ‘Yeah, Master Antonio, you know I like marijuana. Why?’ He says, ‘The beach is full of marijuana.’ And he shows me one pineapple can full of really, really good quality stuff. This was a point in my life when it changed.

  Andre raced down to the beach and saw hundreds of washed up pineapple tins scattered on the sand. In the moonlight, he ran around collecting 108 tins, which he stashed in his father’s beach house. The next day he saw a newsflash. Police had intercepted and raided a ship passing the Brazilian coastline and two container loads of pineapple tins, stuffed with 20 tonnes of marijuana, had been thrown overboard to evade arrest. For Andre, it was like Christmas and the catalyst to a new, decadent life. Alone.

  One day I have an old car, I put shrimps inside it and go to São Paulo to sell them to make money. The next day I have $108,000 in marijuana, I buy a new car and I park it in my house in São Paulo. My dad just looks at me, he looks at the car, he doesn’t say anything. We have dinner with the family; afterwards he calls me to his office and says, ‘Andre, I know you are a drug dealer. I know you have a lot of cans in the beach house. You have two days to clear them out.’

  My father is a harbour man, a hard man. He has three really nice daughters; he doesn’t need a crazy guy around. He tells me, ‘If you want to live in this house, you can live here. Stop doing this and you can keep your family. But if you want to be a drug dealer, please, get out.’ So I’m 19 years old, $100,000 in my pocket, he gives me the option. I go straight to California.

  He was soon a busy LA drug dealer, selling cocaine, LSD and marijuana, often roller-skati
ng along the Venice Beach esplanade with a bag of gear. He’d hooked up with a bunch of surfers, mostly Mexicans and Brazilians, who were sharing a condominium. The Mexicans were smuggling drugs across the border from Tijuana, so drugs were on tap. Andre spent his days selling and surfing, with regular trips down to Hawaii to ride the big waves. Before long, he joined the fast flow of surfers to Bali.

  At 22, with a backpack slung over his shoulder, packed full of clothes and LSD, he walked into the surfers’ haunt, the Aquarius Hotel, situated on the main street in Kuta. This was Andre’s first time in Bali and it was the early 1990s, so things were very basic, with few hotels, and stinking open drains flanking the sides of roads. Andre checked into a room, grabbed his board and hit the beach.

  Within days he was connected to the island’s Peruvian players, who were pioneering the coke scene, easily paying for a life of surfing and partying by bringing blow from their backyard. Andre’s LSD didn’t sell, but he quickly learnt coke was the drug to play.

  I saw these Peruvian guys in Bali, really rich: Poca, Mario, Borrador and Jerome. Big hotels, the best cars, big, big boats, they live like kings. This opened my eyes, this got me interested in smuggling to Bali. These guys introduced me to the buyers of cocaine, to boats, the best waves, many girls, cars, everything. I came here for one month, stayed three months, and went back with my mind really, really running: ‘Wow, that place was amazing.’ Perfect for me, first because I met the Peruvian guys, and because it felt like paradise. The most friendly people, always smiling. If you have money in Bali, you live like a king. And I started bringing here.

  Andre did three coke runs to Bali, stashing one or two kilos into the speakers of a sound system. The first time he sold to Chino and made $40,000, he was hooked. But he was savvy, with the opinion that, if you’re smart, you become an investor or boss, avoiding the risk of carrying. He was quickly using a stable of horses to move coke from Brazil to Bali and Amsterdam. And, with his tactic of turning horses around in Amsterdam, repacked with ecstasy and marijuana, his business exploded. Suddenly, the world was his playground . . . just the way he’d pictured it.

  You get one lifestyle, really high, you know. Going to the airport and taking a flight is as normal as taking a bus.

  Andre also sometimes got his horses to bring cash back – up to €300,000, in €500 notes, hidden in secret compartments in their suitcases. ‘If the police in Brazil catch you with €200,000, they either kill you or steal your money. The big risk is in Brazil.’

  The risk in Europe was having the cash confiscated, as Andre found out one day. Flying out of Holland with €100,000, he was searched. Customs found two packets of €500 bills stashed in a pouch in his underpants. They took the cash, made him sign a document in Dutch, and then let him fly back to Brazil. He immediately called a lawyer, who knew a sponk lawyer in Amsterdam, who worked exclusively for drug traffickers.

  This guy ask me, ‘How much money?’ ‘€100,000.’ ‘You sign something?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘It was Dutch?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘You understand Dutch?’ ‘No.’ ‘Okay, you can get your money back.’ This sponk gets the money and sends it to my lawyer in Brazil. I pay 20 per cent for the two lawyers; I lost €20,000, but better than losing it all.

  And only because they made you sign something you couldn’t understand?

  Yeah. In Holland they are really, really precise with the law.

  Andre had invested his megabucks into the businesses only after his father died, using the excuse of an inheritance for suddenly being flush with cash.

  When my father passed away, for me it was the big launder for the society. My father was not a rich man, but he had something. I tell my sisters, ‘I don’t want anything. You can share between you and mamma, I don’t need the money.’ But I tell everybody else, ‘Oh, now is my time because my father passed away and leave for me good, good money.’ Now I can realise my dreams, build restaurant, build my house.

  He relished the prestige of being the young, sharply dressed, successful man, invariably with a beautiful girl on his arm, but feared one day his cover would be blown.

  I really care about my position in the city, in the society. Nobody had any suspicion about me. Everybody was looking at me like a successful business guy. Good lifestyle, come to Bali for six months, live in Brazil for three months, three months in Hawaii. Always working restaurants, people look, ‘Oh, this is a successful guy.’

  And you liked that image?

  Yeah. But I am always afraid of the truth.

  His Thai restaurant won Best Oriental Restaurant several times, and his Japanese restaurant, with a Bali corner, was also booming. But he was uncomfortable with accolades, aware that, with the cash he was laundering on everything from imported Bali furniture to Balinese-created uniforms for his staff, even a fool could create a beautiful ambience.

  I never like to talk too much like, ‘Oh, I’m fucking good, my restaurant is the best.’ I never like these titles for me. It’s really, really beautiful, but why is my restaurant beautiful, the best restaurant? Because I had support of $1 million a year. If I don’t do the best restaurant, I’m stupid. Also, I don’t want to call attention on myself. ‘Wow . . . how does this guy have so much money when his restaurant’s only open three months a year?’

  Seeing his success, and hearing whispers, sometimes young guys or girls approached him, asking to do a run. One day a 22-year-old Frenchman, nicknamed Fox, whose father was working in the French consulate, asked him for a job. Fox’s approach was lucky timing, as Andre was about to fly to Bali and always liked to send a few kilos ahead so he’d have cash to play with.

  Fox would later meet up with Rafael, work with him, and then double-cross him. But on this first run, like most of his new horses, Andre put him through his paces for three days. Andre’s system aimed to reduce the busts by ensuring the horses were fit to run.

  Two days, three days before flying are always nervous days for the horse. They’re thinking, ‘Oh, I can go to jail’, their mind never stops. So when I’m in Brazil, I bring the horse to the beach. ‘You fly Friday, come here Wednesday.’ When they come, they are scared, new horses are always scared. So I put him in the style the guy dreams to be in: the best hotel in front of the beach, I hire a nice car for them for two days. ‘Oh you want to do the parties, I know the best place, you will have a VIP pass tonight.’ So the guy feels good, feels confident. You need to incorporate this personage – ‘Now I’m the man, I’m going to Bali to spend my vacation there. I was in a beautiful place in Brazil, now I’m going to Bali. I’m going to my paradise to have my vacation.’ Forget you have cocaine.

  Also, normally I ask, ‘What are you going to do with the money?’ Everyone has a dream; the horse always has one thing they want to buy. I ask them, ‘Why you doing this?’ ‘Ah, I want to buy a car, I want to change my house.’ I just ask the horse once, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? You know about the risks, the death penalty?’ ‘Yes.’ After they say yes, I don’t ask again, just talk about the success. You put the money like 100 per cent in their pocket. ‘What sort of car you want to buy?’ ‘Oh, the black one because it’s beautiful,’ they start to mentalise, see success. I read The Secret, it’s like that. Mentalisation, this is the big truth of the world; you are what you think; you attract for yourself what you think.

  This is like brainwashing. Two days or three days to wash the brain, to make the guy really confident and then he goes to Bali, no worries.

  Andre also bought them a pair of good shoes, clothes – usually a standard Polo shirt, blue or white – and a standard black bag, so they’d just blend in with the thousands of real tourists. He habitually watched shows like Banged Up Abroad and Behind Bars, to spy clues from others’ mistakes, or details of police busts. Teaching his horses as many tips as possible was his goal.

  He’d been headhunted to work with Colombian cartels moving tonnes of cocaine, but aside from the draconian penalties if busted trafficking tonnes, he didn’t agree with their philosophy of sending
dozens of untrained, peasant horses – who usually spoke no English and had never been on a plane – sure that a percentage would crash and burn, but with this simple collateral damage built into their business plan. They were numbers, not lives, and Andre preferred trying to make every horse a winner.

  Can I explain a difference between mule and horse. Mules are not like the kind of people who work for me, people who come to Bali to enjoy life; this is a real horse. But mules, not horses, mules are really, really desperate people. Really poor people, don’t speak English, and they fall like flies . . . this type of business is like Colombian business, Peruvian business; they send many mules to fly, maybe they send five, they know three will get arrested. But for them, it doesn’t matter. It’s just one less number in your account business. Who does this is just the big cartels, like Colombians, Peruvians; they have 20 tonnes, they know they will lose 2 tonnes on the way. But still they have big, big money because they send 18 successfully. It’s not my way. I have one guy, 5 kilos of cocaine, and if I lose 2, oh it’s a big loss.

  – Andre

  Customs officers at Hato Airport on Curaçao accomplished a record catch in August 2002, when Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife Máxima were on board a flight to Amsterdam following a tour of the Antilles. Ninety-nine smugglers had checked in for the flight, expecting that passengers would not be checked if members of the royal family were on board.

  – Spiegel Online, 11 February 2004

  There are 32 of those flights a week [from the Dutch Antilles in the Caribbean – a transshipment point for cocaine – to Amsterdam], with as many as 40 passengers on each plane carrying drugs. Last year 2176 smugglers from the Dutch Antilles were arrested at Schiphol [Amsterdam Airport] and six tonnes of cocaine seized.

  – The Mail on Sunday, London, 15 February 2004

  In my business, I send one horse and I put all my energy to have success with this one. I don’t put 10 knowing I am to lose five. I don’t like to play with the life of other people. Everyone who spends three years, five years, seven years in the jail – doesn’t matter Brazil, Europe, Bali – this destroys your life. I don’t like that. If this happens, I help, give money, give lawyers, support the family. I don’t like to see the horse bust. I play one by one, I like to be a success. I teach them step by step like a kid. Talk for two days about their comportment inside the airport. I have in my house DVDs to teach them about the airport. I went with my girlfriend and recorded everything . . . ‘Oh baby, come here,’ pretending to film her . . . but I use it to show the horses. ‘Look, this is the Federal Police counter, don’t stand in front of that, never ever stay in the departure lounge or the lines a long time.’ Like . . . your flight is 10 pm, don’t go to the departure lounge at 8 pm . . . go inside the shops, in the Rolex shop and look at watches, inside Nokia and look at all the cellphones, ask questions. Spend your time inside the shops, don’t spend your time in public areas. Why? The undercover cops are always looking for something suspicious in the public areas . . . the guy reading a newspaper and looking around all the time . . . nervous. This is suspicious. They work the line too. But if you are inside a shop, you are a tourist. The cops don’t look inside the shops. Just before your flight closes, go to the lounge and straight on the aeroplane. You get only one or two minutes in the risky area. Small, small tips, but they make all the difference between freedom or jail.