Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  It was one of the scariest moments of my life. I was freaking out, but I was cold-blooded . . . my life was depending on it.

  He nailed that Chilean inquisition, but for the entire 48 hours was like a kid on a ghost train: sitting on the edge of his seat waiting for the next ghost to lurch out of the shadows. Unlike Marco, he didn’t have insouciant confidence, though he was good at masking his terror with a macho nonchalance.

  Simple things, that on a non–drug run flight would mean nothing, turned into heart-palpitating moments. Like discovering his bag was checked only as far as Kuala Lumpur, where he’d have to collect and re-check it. If he got busted there, his fate would be mandatory hanging. A voice in his head was now screaming, ‘Abort, abort, abort.’ By the time his plane hit the tarmac in Argentina, transiting in Buenos Aires, he’d calmed down, and despite possibly creating suspicion, he requested his bag be re-ticketed all the way to Bali. ‘No problem, sir,’ the girl breezily replied, but a ghost sprang out of the shadows when she radioed to have his bag brought up. She placed it on the counter, right in front of him. ‘Is this your bag, sir?’

  He took a breath. ‘Yeah, that’s my luggage.’

  I was looking pretty calm, but inside I was shaking. She ripped the sticker off and put a new tag on it to send it all the way to Denpasar. I was like, ‘Oh, wow’ . . . relief.

  But not for long. While standing in line to re-board, his name suddenly blasted out of loudspeakers across the airport; they were calling him to the airline desk. He froze, every muscle rigid, his chest squeezing tight. They’d found the blow. He had to run, but where? He was thinking fast. He frantically looked around for an escape. Maybe the toilet window? No, he was on the second floor, and even if he made the jump, he’d never escape the airport fences. He was stuck, plunged into a nightmare where he was being chased but couldn’t run.

  I thought, ‘This is it. I’m gone. Oh fuck, they found it for sure.’ My heart was banging. I was looking everywhere for somewhere to run. Then I thought I’m going to just play dumb. I made up a quick story in my head: ‘I exchanged my surfboard for this bag with a guy, Pablo, and I didn’t know the shit was there.’ I would stick with the story to the end.

  ‘Has Mr Alberto Lopez gone through yet? Is he already on the plane?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Okay. When he comes, please hold him because we have a problem.’

  Alberto, now third in line, overheard this conversation, but stuck to his plan. It was his only option; there was no turning back. With adrenalin coursing though his veins, he showed the girl his boarding pass, bracing for police to pounce, his eyes scanning for them, sure these were his last seconds of freedom. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said, letting him pass. Now it felt surreal, as if somebody were playing a sick game, watching him squirm. Trembling imperceptibly, he walked onto the plane, found his seat and sat down.

  I was getting mentally ready to be tortured. I’d heard that’s what they did. I was just waiting for Federal Police to come. Then the stewardess comes and says, ‘Oh, excuse me, are you Mr Lopez? We have a little problem, we overbooked the plane, and sold your seat to a family travelling together, so would you mind if we moved you to business class?’ I was thinking, ‘Thank you, god, I’m never ever going to do this again.’

  Finally he arrived in Bali, picked up his bag and, despite a raging pulse, breezed through customs, feeling sheer joy on the other side.

  I went through like a kiddy arriving in Disneyland, really happy. I walked outside and saw my Aussie friend waiting. I didn’t know he’d be there, but he knew the drug dealers and they paid him to pick me up. He didn’t say a word, just put a big smile on his face, turned around and started walking to the car park. I just followed him at a distance and we jumped in the car and started celebrating. ‘Yeah, I made it . . . I thought I was going to be in fucking jail for life, I just fucking made it.’ We were just going crazy.

  It had been two days of jangling nerves and dicey moments, but he was back in the black with cash spilling out of his pockets. The trip gave him something else, too – a brand new career. He’d proved cold-blooded in the face of hot spots and quickly became a busy go-to guy, with the Peruvians Poca and Jerome, and Indonesian bosses, hiring him to pick up horses, babysit drugs, find buyers, deliver samples, and do deals. In future, he would operate only inside Bali, without risking airports. The door swung open to the blazing underworld of elegant parties, rich, important people, luxury villas, beautiful girls and more cash some days than most people see in a lifetime.

  There was a very glamorous side to this business. You’d feel very important; there was all this fantasy surrounding it. Whenever I was going to do business, I set myself in secret agent mode. I would become a completely different person, like James Bond or whatever. I have to always be the best, a step ahead, making up stories, checking into hotels, driving around the streets, always watching if I’m being followed. It was like living in a movie, like Tequila Sunrise. I would do that secret agent thing until the deal was done, then go back to my normal life as a surfer, just cruise and surf. So I had like two lives, parallel.

  Putting himself into secret agent mode one day, he was meeting a big Indonesian buyer who wanted 4.5 kilos. Alberto felt comfortable with him because he was rich. If he got a problem, he could buy his way out instead of snitching. It was the little Indonesian players who were dangerous, as he’d find out later. This day, the buyer wanted to meet him on the beach. Alberto didn’t like the idea; hotels were his playground.

  I was going to sell 4.5 kilos of coke and he wants to do it on the beach. I told him, ‘I really don’t want to do it on the beach, the beach is wide open.’ And he says, ‘Nah, I want to do it on the beach; it’s the best way. I want to meet you today, I want to show you the spot.’

  Alberto drove his hire car to the prearranged meeting spot on the side of a road in Seminyak, spotted the man’s car ahead and phoned, ‘I’m in the car behind you, a blue Daihatsu Feroza.’

  ‘Okay, follow me.’ Alberto trailed him to the beach area, Canggu, by chance near Rafael’s house. The buyer turned down a narrow lane, stopped the car and phoned. ‘You see this spot right here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Okay, this is where we are going to do it tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay, no problem.’

  Alberto drove home, parked the car, then walked up to the rental company and hired a second car with tinted windows. He parked it in a random underground supermarket car park. This was a ruse he often used, to lose and confuse police if they were tailing him on the day of the deal. He’d vanish into the car park in one car, switch cars and clothes, then drive out. He’d be long gone as they sat there waiting for him to exit.

  At 2 pm the next day, three hours before the appointment, Alberto drove his first car, with 4.5 kilos of blow in the door, to a café. He sat at a window table, ordered coffee and watched to see if anyone had followed. Once confident the coast was clear, he was set to commence his mission.

  I start putting myself in 007 mode. An hour before the deal, I drove to that supermarket, parked the car, and changed into another shirt, put a cap on, different sunglasses, and then I took out the coke, put in my backpack, went to the new car and drove out. If anybody saw me drive in, they wouldn’t notice me drive out in the other car with black windows, cap on, big sunglasses and different shirt. It was just like taking an extra precaution – 007 mode.

  Alberto drove to the designated spot in Canggu, parking behind the buyer’s car. Both got out, exchanged hellos, then each asked if they had the stuff. It was breaking the rules, exchanging cash for drugs directly, but Alberto felt safe. In unison, they walked to their cars, grabbed their backpacks, and then walked back and switched the bags on the side of the road, with a clear view of the ocean and setting sun. ‘So it’s all here?’ Alberto asked.

  ‘Yeah, it’s all there,’ the buyer replied, then asked the same.

  ‘Yes, all there.’ They each put the bags in their cars, without even a
cursory look inside.

  I could have put bags of sand, and he could have put bags of paper. It’s very hard, you know, just based on trust.

  The two men shook hands, looking one another in the eye, intense, loaded looks that said, ‘Okay, I’m trusting you’, without words but speaking volumes, both aware it was a big $200,000 of trust. Then they got in their cars and drove off.

  It was all fully based on trust. That was the quickest deal I’ve done in my life. And I think that was one of the safest ways I’ve ever done business. Nobody would ever suspect a drug deal took place; just greet each other, swap backpacks, not open them, shake hands and go.

  I went home, counted all the money, perfect, everything beautiful, like not even $100 short. Was like real gentleman business.

  So did you meet him again after that?

  Many times, we did a lot of business after that.

  *

  Alberto was often doing one or two big deals a week, as well as selling to friends or expats by the gram for a high rate. One customer was a big-wave surfer, Gabriel, from LA; another was a famous Australian surf photographer who died, ostensibly from a spider bite, the day after buying some pure Peruvian cocaine from Alberto.

  I was with him the day before and he wanted to buy coke, and I scored the coke for him. And the next day I found out he was found dead, and I would say he OD’d – that’s what I would think.

  Alberto and the other playboys often heard of people over­dosing in Bali. Alberto had come perilously close himself when on his birthday his friend put a full gram on a plate in the letter A for Alberto, and he snorted it in one go.

  I can’t believe I didn’t OD at that time. I did it all in one go. Bang. That could kill me. It was pure Peruvian flake, the best quality cocaine . . . I could have OD’d there and then. I’m so lucky that I had such a high tolerance, but I kept doing lines with them, and then suddenly I started feeling my heartbeat accelerating, I could feel it boom boom boom, it was difficult to breathe, so I started quickly drinking bourbon and coke, vodka and lemonade, just drinking a lot because that stabilises you again. I had to go and sit in the corner. I felt real bad for a while, really paranoid and sick. If you have too much, you feel you are going to die.

  Alberto had many small clients, which were his stable income when the big deals went quiet for a month or two. Selling was just part of his daily routine and his customers knew the code. ‘Can we have a cup of coffee later? I think I’m going to bring three friends, is that okay?’ He’d know that the customer wanted 3 grams. He sold other drugs too and if he wasn’t sure what they wanted, he’d say something cryptic, but translatable. ‘Okay, you want black coffee?’ for hashish, ‘Or would you rather drink some milk?’ for coke.

  ‘You use whatever clicks in the minute, talking about white, black, green, okay let’s meet for a coffee later.’

  He was always wary and often went to a café early to stick the packet of drugs underneath a seat, using tape or a Band-aid, to avoid having it in his pocket when the client arrived. Then he’d change seats, order food or coffee and call the contact, saying, ‘Okay, I’m here in Café Moca,’ – or Bali Deli, or Zanzibar, or Bali Bakery – always changing spots – ‘can you come here now?’

  The person would come and sit, ‘So, did you mean you wanted 3 grams of Charlie?’ Alberto would ask.

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  ‘Okay. So you have $300?’

  ‘Yeah, so where is the stuff?’

  ‘Under your seat, just put your hand there.’

  Selling drugs gram by gram, the smallest amount he sold, was risky because it exposed him to many people, and entailed always riding his bike with stuff on him. To limit the risk, he usually carried 3 or 4 grams in his helmet, each rolled up tightly in a little plastic zip lock bag and taped – each the size of a 2-centimetre pencil – then tucked into the padded helmet strap.

  On his bike, he’d sometimes glimpse a suspicious motorbike tailing him and do a few quick erratic turns to check. If they stuck, he’d ride like hell and outgun them, always losing them, but it would confirm his belief that the cops knew the island’s players.

  They had people everywhere doing operations. It was hot. I always kept this in mind, that I could have been followed, so I always kept an eye on the mirror, always.

  – Alberto

  When he was busy, he used two phones, often riding his motorbike with an earpiece in each ear, mikes dangling, so he could talk on the road. Sometimes calls were from overseas – always cryptic, otherwise he’d hang up. ‘Good waves in Bali at the moment, good time to bring some surfboards for a surf?’

  ‘Yes, bring as many boards as you can, the surf is great.’

  Those were kind of the most stressful days of my life, cos I was all the time riding the bike with two phones ringing. It was crazy.

  As part of his business set-up, he also used the island’s myriad four-star hotels to store kilos of blow. He’d book a room, paying $150 to $200 cash a night, using a fake name, promising to bring his passport later on, then stash the backpack in the room for a couple of nights; simultaneously, he booked a second room in another fake name, in a nearby hotel, so he could stay near the blow but not sleep with it.

  If days rolled on without finding a buyer, he’d save cash by leaving the bag in hotel storage. ‘Oh, I’m going surfing in Lombok. I’ll be back in five days, can I please leave my bag here?’ he’d lie, asking just what real tourists asked. In reality, he’d stay in Bali hunting for a buyer. Unwittingly, the hotel would be nursing a big bag of drugs. Most of the dealers were using this trick.

  One of Alberto’s friends was using it when he got busted. He’d left 1 kilo of hashish and 1.8 kilos of cocaine in storage at the Padma Hotel, telling staff he was going to Lovina in Bali’s north for a few days. Actually he had been staying in Legian to find a buyer and was now sitting in a hot, cramped police cell, with all his cash tied up in the drugs in the Padma’s storage room. Facing years in Bali’s hellhole Kerobokan Prison unless he could get his hands on some cash, he was desperately pleading with his friends to retrieve the backpack. It was a big risk.

  He needed money real quick, and asked many mutual friends, ‘Please somebody help me, I’ll give you 30 or 40 per cent of what’s there, please I need help, go and get my stuff and sell it.’ But everybody just ran away, as usual if somebody gets busted. Everybody gets so scared, ‘Hey, don’t call me anymore.’ They all change their phones, throw the SIM card in the garbage. Nobody answers calls from this guy anymore because you never know if he is talking to the cops. Maybe he bargained to be set free if he gives names, sets people up. This happened a lot, people get busted and the police offer them a deal: ‘Okay, you work for us and we’re going to set you free. You give us someone bigger and we “change heads” and you’re free.’ And they keep going like that, snowballing to get the bigger guy. So nobody knew if he was trying to set someone up, nobody wanted to touch it. But I thought, ‘You know what, I’m going to do this.’ All the guys couldn’t believe my courage.

  Alberto called the Padma and created a story for why he needed to access his friend’s luggage, then called again pretending to be his friend in Lovina, giving permission. It was set. The hotel staff would relinquish the bag to his friend, so Alberto took a taxi to the Padma Hotel, unsure if this was a sting.

  Were you nervous?

  Fuck yes. I was fucking really nervous. I went in a taxi to the Padma, looking in the rear-view mirror to see if I was being followed, full attention. I arrived there shitting my pants, but looking confident. I went in the reception looking all over, like 360 degrees vision, to see if there was someone watching, while trying not to look suspicious. Everything looked cool, so I went to the desk, ‘Hello, my name is Mr Ricardo, I just arrived from Thailand. I am from Buenos Aires and my friend was staying here and left luggage and he told me to come and pick it up.’

  They politely handed the drug-stuffed bag to Alberto, who booked a room and organised to meet the buyer he’
d already set up. By the end of the day, it was mission accomplished.

  I got all the money, and then I called my friend and said, ‘It’s done.’ And all my friends couldn’t believe it. That was another situation that I got a lot of respect from everyone. Cos I kept on doing things that nobody else would.

  Alberto swung from audacious nerves of steel to giddy paranoia. Most days life was infused with some paranoia, and using excessive cocaine exacerbated it, blurring his instincts. One hot morning, after partying for two days and nights, with friends coming and going, using cocaine in his room, he grew deeply paranoid. Sitting on his bed in the hotel room where he was living, he suddenly started believing the Indonesian people in the next room were cops, getting ready to bust him for the 250 grams of blow he was babysitting. He noticed them darting in and out of their room, peering suspiciously across at his balcony.

  ‘I started getting really paranoid. I had to move it that moment, right then and there.’

  In blinding panic, he whispered to his friend, ‘There’s something wrong, man, they’re here for me. I have to move the stuff now.’

  ‘Okay let’s do it,’ his friend agreed. Alberto took the plastic bag of coke from the room, ran outside, foraged in the bushes for more bags hidden in the garden, and then put it all on top his head, pulling on a cap to hide and secure it. ‘It was like two or three cannellonis of 100 grams each.’

  Then, in the midday heat, they jumped in the car and drove from the Kuta hotel to Legian beach. The sand was packed with families on holiday, happily enjoying their days in paradise, oblivious to the frenetic underworld all around them. Alberto found a vaguely secluded spot behind a bit of scrub on a small sand dune. He furtively dug a hole and buried the coke. His friend stood keeping watch, ready to whistle if anyone walked close. Alberto was also careful not to let his friend see exactly where he was planting it. At $100 a gram, it was worth at least $25,000, and he trusted few. Alberto then went back to his hotel and slept the rest of the day and night, catching up after the endless debauched nights of sex, drugs and partying.