I still feel really powerful because I went to the jail, stay four months, smoke some marijuana, make calls inside.
Still dealing?
Still dealing inside, and then pay to go out. When I go out, my life is back that same day. I have big money in my pocket; I have everything I want in my life. For sure I felt the impact when I got busted, but I still felt strong, powerful. They catch me, they put me there, but I’m smarter and can go out again, so I can deal drugs again outside, they can’t catch me.
– Andre
Andre flew up north to Fortaleza, to avoid the risk of cops planting anything on him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
OPERATION PLAYBOY 2
Chief Caieron was angry – he’d worked hard to get evidence to put Andre away – but he’d had another win four weeks earlier, busting another playboy, dubbed ‘the baron of ecstasy’, whom he could trumpet to the media as another big drug boss brought down by Operation Playboy.
And the baron of ecstasy was Dimitrius the Greek, who’d just flown in from Bali.
Several months earlier, not long after Rodrigo Gularte’s bust, the Greek had moved into a rented house with Fox on the beach, directly in front of Rafael’s mansion in Canggu. After a few big losses, the Greek was going to live in Bali for a year and invest in some runs with Rafael and Fox. He’d ameliorated the situation with Rafael by apologising for working behind his back, blaming someone else, and they were again good friends.
The Greek was also starting to live a healthy life, trying to get super-fit by cooking lots of vegetables and taking long bike rides, often 20 to 40 kilometres, through rice fields, up volcanoes, out to the sea by Tanah Lot temple, often with Rafael pedalling alongside. Rafael’s eldest daughter also spent time exercising with the Greek.
But after a few months Dimitrius decided to return to Brazil. A week earlier, he’d watched his horse, Rodrigo, get sentenced to death. It was expected, and wasn’t stopping him wanting to set up another run. Rafael advised him against going back. ‘It’s too hot, man, stay here. You have a nice house, good lifestyle. What are you going to do there?’ On the beach, other surfer friends were also encouraging him to stay. But he’d decided to leave – unaware somebody had already tipped off Chief Caieron.
With only a vague time frame of the Greek’s arrival, sometime after Carnival, Chief Caieron doggedly staked out São Paulo airport. ‘We used to go to the airport every single day to check any kind of purchase, booking, boarding or check-in made for him – until the day we got that information . . . he’s coming from Bali with a connection flight in Paris.’
Dimitrius was carrying €3000 from Rafael to give to Fox for a new project he was doing in Brazil, but nothing incriminating. Using his Greek and not his Brazilian passport, he departed Bali assuring Rafael he’d be okay.
But as he flew into São Paulo airport on the busy Air France flight, Chief Caieron and four other officers were waiting. They’d only seen the Greek in a photo, so it was possible he’d look different, and as the passengers disembarked and streamed past, they didn’t see him. As the minutes ticked by, Chief Caieron started to fear they’d missed him. ‘It’s the most long five minutes we’ve lived, ’cause lots of people came out from the aeroplane but not a sign of him. It’s just a stress situation.’
Then, he saw him. Dimitrius was unwittingly walking towards him. He called out his name and Dimitrius looked up.
And that’s the moment he heard, ‘You’re under arrest.’ When I was handcuffing him, he turned his neck, looked at me and asked, ‘Why are you doing this? What did I do?’ I put my hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Think it over, my friend!
– Chief Caieron
Rafael found out his friend had been busted when his daughter saw it on the internet.
‘Papa, look, your friend got caught.’ ‘What? Show me!’ My daughter had been doing some exercise with Dimitrius, working out with him, and spotted it in the news.
– Rafael
. . . Dimitrius Christopoulos, 36, arrested during Operation Playboy by Federal Police. Christopoulos is accused of participating in a gang involved in international trafficking of narcotics, specifically to the Netherlands and Indonesia.
– Federal Court for the Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina
and Paraná, 27 May 2005
Dimitrius, who also has Greek nationality, is accused of running a gang that in recent years has solicited young upper middle-class people often in extreme sports like surfing to transport cocaine to countries with high tourism flows in Europe and Asia.
The Federal Police said that the gang moved a lot of money, but did not know the exact amount. ‘We have arrested one of the largest organisations of drug trafficking in synthetic drugs in the country – a gang which operated using cocaine as a bargaining chip in Europe and Asia,’ the delegate Ronald Magalhães said.
– O Estado do Paraná, 20 February 2005
Chief Caieron had been watching Dimitrius for 16 months since his horse, Luis Cafiero, had been busted and snitched. Luis was the horse whose ‘fair complexion’ – incongruous with his surfer cover story – had created suspicion, and instigated a customs search, which uncovered 7.3 kilos of cocaine between his surfboards. The small detail of no suntan had brought the horse crashing down and subsequently his boss too, proving that Rafael’s usual pedantic scrutiny of a horse’s look – ruffling hair, buying outfits – was worth the effort.
The defendant, Dimitrius Christopoulos was arrested in February this year, after being denounced by co-defendant Luis Alberto Faria Cafiero, caught with 7.3 kilos of cocaine trying to board a flight to Indonesia, with a stopover in South Africa.
– Federal Court for the Rio Grande do Sul,
Santa Catarina and Paraná, 1 April 2005
Luis Alberto Faria Cafiero, 27, was arrested in São Paulo. ‘He did not have a surfer’s typical tan,’ a police official said.
– Orlando Sentinel, 12 October 2003
Chief Caieron had also watched the bust of Rodrigo Gularte, revealing it had sped up their investigations. The Operation Playboy team had proof Dimitrius had bought tickets for Rodrigo and the two surfers he’d travelled with, and had paid for the operation.
In Dimitrius’ confiscated electronic organiser, Chief Caieron hit the jackpot, finding more playboy names, including Rodrigo Gularte.
According to the Federal Police, it was the gang of Dimitrius Christopoulos who sent to Indonesia the Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, 32, recently sentenced to death by a court in that country for drug trafficking. Gularte was arrested in July last year, at the Jakarta International Airport, as he tried to enter the country with 6 kilos of cocaine hidden inside a surfboard . . .
The electronic organiser confirmed the connection between Christopoulos and Rodrigo Gularte, arrested for trafficking and sentenced to death in Indonesia. Names of young people who live in Santa Catarina are also included on the organiser, some accompanied by the word ‘horse’.
–Diary of Santa Catarina, 5 May 2005
Four days after the bust at São Paulo airport, police moved the Greek by private jet further south to Florianópolis – the Operation Playboy base. Regarded as a dangerous drug boss with mafia connections, his transfer, supervised by Chief Caieron, was turned into a major operation. All police, and their prisoner Dimitrius, were made to wear flak jackets.
They put him on the TV saying he was a big cartel guy. When they fly they put bulletproof vests with snipers like he was somebody dangerous. They made him out to be the biggest mafia. Bullshit, he was just a playboy, a young guy doing something. He cannot kill one cockroach. If you see his face, you never believe he do this type of job because he look like a mamma’s boy, very polite, too polite sometimes, beautiful.
But it was funny because those fools, they make all this shit with snipers and private jet and then they come with the bill for the jet plane and make Dimitrius pay. He had money in the bank at that time . . . but anyway, all his money, everything in the bank, everything in hi
s name, they were supposed to confiscate because it was money from drugs.
– Rafael
*
Meanwhile Chief Caieron wanted his other big fish back behind bars. Soon he’d have his chance. Andre was bored up north and flew back to Santa Catarina. He was still trafficking, without pause even in jail – ‘Money was running like water’ – but he was being extra careful. When he got a call from one of his horses, asking for a job, he agreed, but insisted he wouldn’t be going anywhere near the cocaine.
I don’t feel the real, real danger around me, I still feel smart. Stupid!
– Andre
After a tip-off that Andre was doing another project, Chief Caieron put a surveillance team on Andre after he’d come back from Fortaleza.
We had information that Andre had gone back from Fortaleza and was planning to send a new shipment of narcotics to other countries. Because of that, the Police Chief told us to intensify the surveillance on him.
– Federal Police Agent, Macos Cezar Pitangui Pereira,
court statement
With Andre’s 3 kilos of cocaine hidden in one of his kitesurfing kites, 26-year-old horse Marco Froes went to board a 7.30 am flight from Florianópolis to Fortaleza, north Brazil. But police busted him. Within 90 minutes, they were at Andre’s house. Andre knew it was too fast for a random bust.
He was right; the Operation Playboy team had been watching every move. But Andre suspected it was more sinister, and that his horse, who’d come to him keenly asking to do this run, had been working a sting with the cops from the start – probably after being busted for something earlier.
In hindsight, there were many clues. The horse had called Andre’s mobile twice the morning before his flight, despite Andre explicitly telling him not to. Andre was sure this was to prove the connection. ‘I didn’t answer. I think, why is this motherfucker calling me?’ During the organisation of the run, he’d persistently phoned, asking Andre to come to help him pack. ‘All the time the guy tried to push me to get together with him, but I was always, stay away, stay away. I say, “I don’t put my hand in this shit, man, I don’t go to your place, somebody will deliver it to you.” ’
Andre had also given the horse a cheque to buy his airline ticket, insisting he must change it at the petrol station first. But he didn’t; he used it at a travel agent to pay for his flight. This was evidence later used against Andre. He could see that Chief Caieron had left nothing to chance; he’d pushed the horse to gather as much hard evidence as possible.
He hadn’t wanted to lose Andre again. He didn’t. Andre went straight back to jail on a Friday, 19 weeks after he’d walked free by buying bail.
We never had any kind of doubt that Andre would come back to this kind of activity. So, we restart our investigation and waited for his next move. We’re right.
– Chief Caieron
It’s like a personal game between me and this guy Fernando Caieron. This is a real playboy; the chief. This is personal between him and me.
– Andre
With the prisons massively overcrowded, Andre was sent to live in a shipping container with three other prisoners – another sharp, painful plunge from his jet-set lifestyle. Unsurprisingly, he quickly masterminded an escape plan. Four of the shipping containers shared an outdoor area with a barred roof. For hours every day, the doors to the containers were opened to the outdoor area. Guards sat up top peering down through the bars, but at shift change, there was an unsupervised 20 to 30 minutes. Andre soon had the prisoners sawing the bars, then gluing them back using soap, toothpaste and cigarette ash, before the next shift turned up.
Finally, after cutting four bars, they were ready to run. The plan was to wait for a rainy day, when the guards rarely went up top. On the first wet morning, three months after Andre had been banged up for the second time, he escaped with 11 others. They climbed up and out, then jumped and ran for their lives. An unlucky guard turned up as they were fleeing over the top and a big inmate punched his face, toppling him off the roof of the container.
Reginaldo is a fucking big guy, just pow, punch the guard in the face and he falls down from the top.
– Andre
The twelve escapees ran out and through the jungle, with guards shooting with machineguns, and chasing after them with dogs and on horses.
When I jump the guard starts to shoot with a machinegun. We are running, running, running to the favelas, 2 kilometres. And after 30 minutes we get to this house, 12 people escape . . . woohoo, great, have a big party – drugs, girls, dinner. For me the party was not that great, because I don’t like to stay in the favelas, it’s a different class of people, but for the other guys, wow, party, girls. And the police can’t come into the favelas.
Why?
Because these people would shoot them. There are many thousands of small houses and most of the people who live there are robbers, drug dealers, all criminals, all kinds. And if the police try to come, these people will shoot with big guns, bang, bang, bang.
– Andre
Andre stayed in Brazil, still dealing, hiding out and living well, but the image he’d created for himself and relished, as a respectable and high-flying entrepreneur, was now a shattered relic. Chief Caieron had made sure his story blitzed the news.
According to the Federal Police, Andre Mendes is associated with much of the cocaine trafficked from Brazil to Europe, where it is traded for synthetic drugs like ecstasy and LSD, which are brought to Brazil by mules.
– The News, 19 November 2004
In Brazil, they call me the biggest exporter of cocaine from South Brazil to Europe. This is fucking stupid, because the people who put it in containers are ten times bigger. They catch me, and try to make me like an example for the society. The guy did university, the guy has money, the big restaurant, but now he’s in jail because he’s a drug dealer. It’s fucking bullshit.
– Andre
Andre was on the run for five months before his lawyer convinced him to turn himself in for sentencing. He’d advised Andre that, in absentia, the judge was required to give the maximum sentence but would probably give a small penalty if he surrendered.
My lawyer tells me, ‘If you show your face, you have a chance to get a really, really small sentence.’ So, I go to my lawyer’s office and say, ‘I’m here.’ They give me 15 years for one crime, 15 years for another crime, and 7 for another crime – 37 years.
Were you shocked?
For sure.
– Andre
He was also ordered to pay $300 for repairs to the cut bars of the containers.
Andre was slammed into the maximum-security prison in Santa Catarina, a jail from which no one had ever escaped. Most inmates in Section 4, where Andre was now living, were serving multiple life sentences. ‘For sure they put me in the worst place.’
The Greek was also there. Before long, both the playboys used their wheeler-dealer instincts to cut deals to make life a bit easier. The Greek paid for a job in the kitchen, and Andre paid $3000 to work in the library. So, instead of being locked up in his cell for the standard 22 hours a day, Andre was free to walk around the jail from 6 am to 8 pm, wheeling a supermarket trolley full of books.
The jail is really, really huge, 2000 people inside. It’s like a city. At 6 am they open my door, and I take my supermarket cart, full of books, and go everywhere. I go walking the whole day, smoke marijuana, talking to the people, sometimes partying . . . because there are six different sections . . . ‘Today there’s a party in this section, someone’s birthday.’ ‘Okay.’ I go there with my cart. At 8 pm I’m tired, walking around all day, I want to go back to my cell for sleeping.
– Andre
Despite making the best of a bad situation, Andre had no intentions of pushing a shopping cart around for one second longer than necessary. He had a cunning plan up his sleeve.
He hoped soon to be back in Bali.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AGAINST THE ODDS
All my friends start ge
tting caught in Bali, in Brazil, in Australia and then I was, ‘Shit, man, they’re gonna come to me – I have to be more careful.’
– Rafael
In Bali, Rafael had watched his friends falling across the globe. He knew his tactic of abruptly freezing and going quiet – and a lucky star – had so far kept him free.
He was still sporadically tailed, still hot, with cops twice kicking toilet doors in while he was using the bathroom at clubs. But most of the time he was playing the devoted family man, despite being a busy drug boss. Early one morning, he got an alert call from his Balinese neighbour, telling him cops had a lens pointed at his house. He raced upstairs with his binoculars, shut the curtains and peeped out. Up the road was a scrum of men, clearly cops, with their clichéd moustaches, long hair, tattoos, sitting on motorbikes, smoking, talking, waiting, and watching through old binoculars.
‘I see straight away the fools there.’
There was a bang on the door downstairs. It was a surf photographer friend: ‘Hey, Rafael, let’s go for a surf.’
Rafael called him upstairs and passed him the binoculars. ‘Man, you’ve come at a bad time, I’m gonna be busted soon. Look in the bushes, the cops are out there; they’re so stupid, they’re easy to see.’
The photographer turned to Rafael: ‘Why don’t you run?’
‘Run where? Anyway, I don’t need to run . . . I don’t have anything here, so fuck them, let them come . . . let’s go, the fools can wait.’
With their surfboards tucked under their arms, the two walked down the palm-lined driveway into the street, past the conspicuous undercover cops. Within a couple of minutes they were paddling out, where Rafael planned to stay for a while to spite the cops and delay the inevitable.
I know as soon as I come out, they are going to come. I didn’t have any drugs in the house but I was a little bit worried because in my position I don’t want any contact with police.
Almost two hours later, Rafael came out of the water and sensed the cops snapping to attention. He walked across the sand with his friend to the little beachfront café, sat down and ordered breakfast. They could wait a bit longer.
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