Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  Now, I have different value for life. I don’t wanna have a nice car, I don’t wanna have a gold necklace, I don’t wanna go to five-star hotels. My goal now is to have a job, get money to raise my kids, working as a surf instructor, have a quiet, normal life. And try to show the new generation that’s not a good choice. That’s the thing now in my heart.

  When I see young guys coming to Bali, to meet me to try to do some drug business, they look at me with shining eyes. They think I have an island, I have an aeroplane, because in the surfing world in Brazil they make so much bullshit about me. ‘Hey, Rafael, I wanna bring some coke – can you help me?’

  I need to say, ‘Don’t do that, because maybe you focus on me, you wanna be like me; have a nice house, fuck all the girls, ba ba ba ba. You don’t have so much of a good life in the end. You have only three options: jail, hospital or cemetery – one of these three.’

  They get shocked, because I say, ‘Man, forget this shit. I know what I’m talking about because I’ve been there and then in the end I get fucked.’ Then I start, ‘Remember the house I have before?’ – because they have seen it in magazines – ‘Where is the beautiful house? Where are the motorbikes? Where is my family, my kids? My nice remote control car? Everything gone to hell. My wife is in jail. I suffer with all that, you know. I suffer when I see friends of mine getting caught, because all of them get killed, murdered, or busted.

  ‘I’m gonna tell you something . . . If you do this, you might make money, the devil gonna give you a lot of money with the coffee spoon for a long time, but when he take, he gonna take with a big spoon all at once. Whooo . . . You gonna be broke . . . You gonna get shot . . . You’re crazy, man, forget this shit.’ That’s my goal now, to change their minds.

  And now you enjoy teaching surfing?

  I love it. You know, that’s my life. I love to go to work, yes! I’m going to give a surf class. I go very happy; I’m gonna go to the ocean, I’m gonna swim, I’m gonna teach people to surf. I’m lucky. Most of my gang is not here anymore. They are all dead, jail, the very bad end.

  Around 15 years I play. Now, I just want a simple and happy life. Now I know who are my real friends. Before, I have many people there just to suck. Just to eat, to drink for free. I don’t realise.

  I scramble to live day by day but I’m still free, healthy and alive. I have my girl I love, my beautiful kids, surfing. I’m healthy and I’m happy – much happier than before. I don’t need to hide myself – I’m Mr Rafael now, the teacher, surf guru.

  Marco

  Marco spends his days now on death row in a maximum-security prison on Nusakambangan Island, dubbed Indonesia’s Alcatraz. The sun-kissed tropical island is lush with an ugly scar of seven prisons slashed across it. It’s also where executions take place; where in 2008 the Bali bombers, terrorists Amrozi, Samudra and Mukhlas, were taken from their cells to a clearing and shot dead by a 12-sniper firing squad.

  Now Marco awaits the same fate.

  Incredibly, most of the time he’s upbeat and optimistic. In jail, he plays tennis, listens to music, and cooks when he gets ingredients brought in by a rare visitor. ‘I make good food, believe me.’

  As in his trafficking days of taking insanely audacious risks, he’s still a reckless rule-breaker in jail. ‘I’m a troublemaker. I’ve been moved 56 times in here. I’ve been in every cell. They even put me in the kitchen.’

  But the reality of his desperate situation swarms around him. Most of his fellow inmates are on life or death sentences. His compatriot Rodrigo Gularte is failing to cope with the drawn out, torturous wait for execution and spends most of his time in the Christian church praying, crying and confused.

  The other Brazilian here, Rodrigo, get crazy. He’s always talking to himself, he doesn’t change his clothes anymore. But there is nothing I can do. He reads the Bible, goes to the church.

  He tried to burn himself to death, didn’t he?

  Yeah, in the other jail he try, but not professional.

  Despite Marco’s bravado, his own fear and loneliness are inescap­able. American big-wave surfer Gabriel recalls one emotional conversation when Marco called to say goodbye when he was being released from Bali’s Kerobokan jail.

  He started off saying, ‘Hey, whoa . . . you’re getting released.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah.’ He was happy for me, but then he broke down, he lost it. I was on the phone going, ‘What do I do? What do I say?’ I couldn’t speak to him; I didn’t have a thing I could say . . . what could I tell him? I was going home. So I didn’t say anything, he went silent and then he hung up. He didn’t say goodbye.

  – Gabriel

  It’s perhaps Marco’s way of staying sane that he’s convinced himself that, with so many nationalities now on death row in Indonesia, international pressure will ensure they don’t get shot dead.

  I’m sure. The Brazil embassy works hard. French guy, Dutch guy, Swiss guy, many people here, from Nepal, from Pakistan, from India, from America, from Australia, on death sentence.

  – Marco

  But in June 2012 it looked like political pressure would fail to save him; that Marco would be the first westerner executed in Indonesia, when the Jakarta Post ran a story that he was to be executed in coming weeks. The story was based on quotes from an Indonesian prosecutor, Andi DJ Konggoasa, who also claimed that Marco’s final request was for a bottle of Chivas Regal whisky.

  That bit sounded believable enough, prompting a Brazilian friend in Bali to consider making the long and emotional trip to the island to take him a bottle.

  But no officials had told Marco anything, he knew only what was in the media. A month earlier he’d signed some unofficial looking paper brought in by an attorney who’d jokingly asked what his last request was. ‘Three bottles of Chivas whisky and two women’, he’d answered with typical Marco sass.

  But the story turned out to be false. Until the Indonesian government announced a decision on Marco’s second clemency application, made in 2008, by law, he would not be shot. BBC Brazil reported that the Brazilian Ambassador had this confirmed by the Indonesian Attorney-General. The ambassador then travelled to the penal island to reassure Marco.

  Were you scared?

  No problem, no problem. My embassy is here all the time. You see they already put Corby’s sentence down five years.

  Marco still believes one day he’ll walk free. After all, he’s beaten seemingly unbeatable odds before.

  All my family already die – my father, my mother, my brother, my grandmother, my two uncles; eight people already die. But you know, Marco is still alive. No worry, no worry. Because for sure I’m going to go out from here.

  Marco has also outlived his best friend from childhood, Beto, who all those years ago used to drop his pliable young friend off at the bottom of the favelas to run up and fill his lunch box with the ‘white’ stuff. Beto died of a cocaine overdose.

  Although the harsh third-world prison has not yet broken Marco’s indefatigable spirit, it’s taken a toll physically. His injured leg always hurts and lack of health care has resulted in gum disease and all his teeth falling out.

  I want to go home . . . I’m very tired. People don’t care about me here. Look, I have no teeth. I have to ask them all the time to bring me to a dentist, but they say you give me $1000 and I don’t have the money.

  Incredibly, visiting Marco isn’t depressing. Ask him, ‘Hey, sing that song again, Marco,’ and he bursts into, ‘I never can say goodbye, every time I think . . . ’ then he stops and asks earnestly, ‘I don’t know, what kind of song do you want? Aretha Franklin or something else?’

  Juri

  The Italian jeweller, who was busted in Bali with 5.26 kilos of cocaine in his surfboard bag – on Carlino’s failed run to help Marco – lives in the same prison as Marco, but with better prospects. His life sentence was cut to 15 years. His expensive wink paid off and, with annual sentence cuts, he could be home in Italy next year.

  Fox

  After stealing Rafael’s cash an
d selling behind his back, Rafael reckons Fox made between €300,000 and €400,000 profit. He then fled to Tahiti, built an oceanfront mansion in surf mecca Teahupoo, bought a boat and started growing marijuana from seeds he bought in Amsterdam – with a business plan to control the island’s dope supply.

  But he was busted with 35 kilos of marijuana and is now in a Tahitian prison.

  I was thinking to go there and fix him, but I forgive him. He’s paying for his mistake already – he’s in jail, I’m surfing.

  – Rafael

  Borrador – Jose Henrici

  Missing Englishwoman Kate Osborne’s ex-boyfriend Jose Henrici, aka Borrador, didn’t return to Bali. No one is absolutely certain of his fate, but it’s believed he died from a cocaine overdose in a cheap hotel with a prostitute, after serving a couple of years in jail in the jungles of Peru.

  The Diaz brothers

  After fleeing Bali following Kate Osborne’s suspected murder, Poca and Mario never returned to the island, but continued dealing. There’s no trace of them now, but it’s believed Mario died of leukaemia in Peru and Poca was strangled to death in Brazil over a $50,000 drug deal dispute.

  For a period of time everybody was happy and living life on top of the world and the karma started. If you look back, most had some tragic . . . real bad tragedy.

  – Alberto

  Psychopath

  Psychopath, aka Fabio, served two years in jail in Amsterdam for collecting the FedExed parcel of cocaine. After getting out, he met a millionaire girlfriend who bought him a new Mercedes and today supports him.

  Fabio

  The gregarious Fabio who ran the bar on Legian beach left Bali after it got too hot for him, not long after police snatched him off the beach and took him at gunpoint to Rafael’s house. He became a favela guide in Rio.

  Tota

  Hells Angel Tota was shot dead in front of a trendy bar in Rio in a dispute over slot machines.

  As Tota had stood drinking beer out the front of the bar Carolice, at 3 am, two men drove up in a silver Peugeot. One man got out of the car, disguised in a red balaclava, and started shooting.

  Tota was hit in his head and stomach, and was killed instantly. Two of his friends were shot in the feet and legs. Pandemonium broke out on the streets, with patrons from the many busy bars running for cover, or throwing themselves on the ground.

  Rio police had no doubts that the two men had gone to the spot to execute Tota in part of the ‘slot machine war’. It was well known Tota lived next door to the bar.

  Chino

  Chino was busted for ecstasy production in the country to which he’d fled after escaping Bali. He is now in jail while his interminably long drug trial is heard. If convicted, he faces a mandatory death sentence.

  Operation Playboy

  Chief Caieron has worked for the Brazilian Federal Police since 1996, and personally instigated Operation Playboy in 2004.

  The very beginning of Playboy Operation took place when I started to see – in the daily newspaper – that young folks from our city [Florianópolis] and state [Santa Catarina] were being arrested in Europe with 3, 4, 5 kilos of cocaine. So, someone, somehow with somebody else, was recruiting and hiring those young guys to do this, and those guys couldn’t be far from me. The challenge? Start to search, to find and put all the pieces together.

  Once we started to investigate, we decided to call ‘Playboy Operation’ because we saw what kind of guys – high middle-class – were involved in those activities.

  In six years Operation Playboy resulted in the arrest of more than 20 people who were exporting cocaine to Europe and Bali and returning to Brazil with ecstasy and dope.

  Carlino

  Carlino didn’t slow down after his horses got life and death sentences; he got busier. Until the day he was busted.

  Rafael had finished the drug game, but was watching his friend still perilously playing.

  It was only me and him still standing – from all the group but Carlino was dealing a lot. Doesn’t give a shit, like in Ku De Ta. He was too arrogant, like a big boss. He was asking for it the way he play, and then he say, ‘Rafael, can you help me?’ I say, ‘What?’ ‘You have any coke in Brazil, cheap, good stuff?’ I say, ‘Forget it man, everybody’s in jail, I cannot help you. Stop this shit. Come on, Carlino, it’s no good man. Make your villa.’ He was on the way to making a villa.

  And then he goes to Brazil but he makes a big mistake. He goes on the same flight with the horse. And then they catch the horse in France, the horse points to him, and they catch him.

  So is he in jail in France now?

  Yeah, I hear he tried to kill himself because I hear in Paris it’s very hard in the jails, fighting all the time, the black people crazy, the Cameroon gang there, very strong, many rapes, not a nice jail to stay. I think Carlino gets ten years.

  – Rafael

  Marco Froes

  Marco Froes, Andre’s horse, who was busted with 3 kilos of cocaine at Florianópolis Airport about 90 minutes before Andre’s second arrest, and who Andre suspects worked a sting with the police to trap him, is now in a witness protection program.

  Diego Amaral

  Diego served no more than two years in jail for trafficking 8 kilos of cocaine. He was given leniency for turning police informant against his boss, Andre – giving Chief Caieron the information and evidence he needed to prosecute one of the big Playboys.

  Diego’s got the law benefits . . . guess he stayed no more than two years in prison, maybe less.

  – Chief Caieron

  Alberto

  Alberto served 18 months in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison, leaving there a confused and disturbed man, keener than ever to do one last big drug deal, then quit cashed up. Instead, he met people who opened his eyes to another way. Before long, he was looking back at his drug career with shame and remorse.

  I still regret all the shit that directly or indirectly people suffered because I was a tool, a mechanism, a piece of the machine. If I could go back in time, I would never get involved.

  Thank god I met the right people and started getting more spiri­tual and started to realise you don’t need much to be happy.

  Now, I just try to live my life without doing any harm to anyone, and just try to help people when I can. And thank god I have a business that is helping people, helping people to surf good waves, helping people to have a good time.

  There are a lot of people – especially young people – if you say, ‘There is death penalty in Indonesia,’ they still say, ‘Yeah, but there’s a lot of people still doing it and I can do it too.’ But they have no idea the cost of that Russian roulette that they are going to start playing.

  Most people get involved because of the money, but it comes together with the glamour, the power kick and all the shit and it’s not until you finish – when you look back – that you see it was all fantasy, all a big cloud of bullshit you were living.

  And sometimes, unfortunately, it takes people going through the worst to learn that. If my story helps any of those kids to think twice before doing something stupid, this alone for me is worth everything.

  Andre

  Andre’s most recent whereabouts cannot be revealed. Stay tuned!

  American big-wave surfer Gabriel languishing in a jail cell in Kerobokan Prison – he’d watched his drug dealing friends get busted like it was a bad movie, then he went down after the police set him up.

  Police Chief Fernando Caieron handcuffs Dimitrius at São Paulo airport, the moment he steps off the plane from Bali: ‘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. After a tip-off, the Operation Playboy cop had spent days laying in wait for Dimitrius.

  After a poolside ambush, police searched Andre’s house and found a pile of nearly 80 zip lock bags with a green stripe across the top. Andre had tried to discredit the ‘evidence’, but i
t was used against him when one of his horses was busted with 6000 ecstasy pills stashed in an identical green striped bag.

  This sports equipment was confiscated from Andre’s house. He was using kitesurfing kites, paraglider sails, surfboard bags, windsurfer booms and backpacks to smuggle drugs. Many young and fit-looking traffickers use these methods. ‘We don’t find any drugs inside, but we already knew [Andre] used that kind of equipment to send and smuggle cocaine abroad.’

  – Chief Fernando Caieron, Operation Playboy boss.

  This is the symbol that distinguishes a Laskar Bali gangster. Many members have it either tattooed on their hand or arm. Laskar Bali is the holiday island’s most notorious and violent gang. It has the majority of the lucrative security contacts in the tourist areas – the men in black at the front door of most clubs, bars and restaurants are usually with Laskar. There are at least five big gangs in Bali.

  It’s from this vantage point, on the bridge high above Padang Padang beach, that Rafael spotted Marco on the sand, before running down to threaten him with a knife after the Japan ecstasy con.

  Rafael’s fantasy house with a diving board off his bedroom balcony, and his large-breasted mermaid statues. The fourth statue is hidden behind the cabana.

  ‘You want ephedrine, hashish, ganja?’ The fake drug dealers roaming the streets are always ready to pull any drug you desire from their pockets.

  Fake drug dealer Wayan, who didn’t want to show his face, spends the balmy nights riding his scooter around, hunting for a tourist to dupe. After a sale, he doesn’t go back to that spot for several days to avoid bumping into an angry customer, though he has been bashed many times – it’s a hazard of the job.

  Drug dealing in paradise; the view from the foyer at the Nikko Bali Resort where Rafael and Alberto did many of their drug deals. Rafael often used it for his trysts too.