Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  – News of the World, 6 July 2003

  Poca and Mario weren’t facing drug trials in Bali, but they were hot and hunted. The News of the World story was dismissed by DCI Whitehead, saying that Kate had only been ‘linking in with British victims and their families, so she will not have had the ability to impact on other nationals’.

  Despite telling the News of the World’s journalist that the Diaz brother Juan was a drug dealer, Borrador denied it in his interview with the Peruvian journalist, who knew Juan’s nickname was Poca.

  You know Juan Jose Mendoza Diaz, aka Poca?

  Yes, a Peruvian friend who lives in Indonesia.

  He dealt drugs?

  No, he is a photographer, he takes pictures of surfers. He made videos, edited, that’s his job. I don’t know if he had contact with drugs.

  – Caretas, 10 July 2003

  Adding significant weight to the theory that Kate was murdered by Poca, or a paid assassin – not difficult to find in Bali among the mercenary gangs like Laskar – was the revelation that Poca was the mystery person she’d called at 4 am. But police didn’t get the chance to talk to the Diaz brothers, as they’d fled the island.

  It was an unsettling time for all the dealers, with Interpol involved and British police sniffing around. Most dealers had their own theories, with whispers circulating that Poca had overdosed Kate, then dumped her body in a rice paddy, though no corpse was found. Everyone was keeping a distance. No one wanted to talk to the cops. Rafael was hitting the waves like a crazy man, taking long surf trips away, selling kilos but no small stuff, and keeping a low profile.

  I was a little bit hot anyway . . . and when I know all this shit about them, I keep distance, because the Peruvians were in trouble. Also, they didn’t come to me, they just disappeared; with the British police coming here, for sure they shit in their pants and run. I think that’s why they disappear – Borrador [Jose], Poca, Jerome. I think they never come back, that’s the last time I saw them, they just disappeared after this thing with this girl.

  – Rafael

  It was six months later, with Borrador in jail, no trace of the Diaz brothers and no more news, that Kate’s parents let go of hope. They knew their daughter would never ever put them through this torture if she was alive. They issued a statement to the press.

  After an extensive investigation into the disappearance of our daughter Kate, we are now forced to conclude that she has been murdered. It has been an unimaginably stressful six months for the whole family while we have lived in hope of Kate being found alive.

  – The Journal, 11 October 2003

  A year after Kate vanished, her family held a memorial service in England. Their nightmare would never end, but they said goodbye. DCI Whitehead, who’d been with them throughout the investigation, confirmed that UK police believed Kate had been murdered.

  Speaking for the first time about what he believes happened to Kate, Detective Chief Inspector Bill Whitehead said she was visited by the brothers two days before she vanished. She sent six text messages on the night of her disappearance to Juan Diaz’s phone and her final call – at 4.14 am on 18 April – was to him.

  ‘The brothers were associates of Jose Henrici and I feel that Kate suspected Jose was drug-running for them,’ he said. ‘Indeed his capture in Peru with 4.2 kilos of cocaine supports that. There is some evidence that she was outspoken about that activity and it may be that posed a significant threat to their venture.

  ‘There were four things that could have happened to Kate – she could have disappeared of her own volition, had an accident, committed suicide or been murdered. On balance, I think it is highly likely that she was murdered.’

  – The Journal, 21 April 2004

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

  While the search for Kate had been going on in Bali, Lemon Juice boss Marco was in Peru, doing what Borrador had been busted doing weeks earlier – buying coke in Lima and taking it out to Brazil, en route to Bali. Like Borrador, Marco wasn’t risking the Peruvian airports, dangerously manned by ruthless locals and America’s DEA, FBI, and sniffer dogs. Instead, he was floating peacefully down the Amazon on a boat.

  Marco was sleeping in his hammock, slung up with others, like a blur of colourful ribbons slashed across the deck, as the charter boat cruised down the river. It was cramped and noisy, but Marco was seemingly without a care in the world, having the time of his life. None of the 200 or so tourists camped out on their hammocks would have had a clue that the relaxed Brazilian’s hang-glider was loaded with blow.

  Marco was back trafficking coke, with several of the Bali dealers – including Dimitrius, Rafael and himself – investing. Having just done a 3-kilo run to Bali, he’d decided to up the ante and show the young horses how it was done. This time he was carrying an audacious 13.7 kilos. He’d just picked it up in Lima, Peru, and taken a boat to the city of Iquitos, where he switched boats and was now spending three days and nights cruising towards the triple border of Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

  I went by river from Peru all the way to my grandmother’s house in the Amazon. Beautiful trip . . . you must do it. Nice boatman, restaurant, air-conditioner, like a house in the river. More than 200 tourists, all had backpacks. At night we sleep on hammocks like you’re in a tree. I arrive in Manaus [Brazil], nobody checks anything, and I go to my grandmother’s house.

  With nearly 14 kilos of coke?

  Yeah, in Peru I had more than 100 kilos. In Peru, cocaine is like Coca-Cola.

  – Marco

  After saying goodbye to his 92-year-old grandmother, he set off from Brazil to Bali, confident of breezing across the globe like all the other times. En route he flew to Amsterdam, where he casually flouted a basic rule, calling friends in Bali and giving his arrival day on a mobile phone. It was potential suicide. Andre took one of the calls.

  He says, ‘Hey Andre, it’s Marco. I’m the man; tomorrow I arrive in Bali – big goal, big money. Let’s go to the club tomorrow when I arrive.’ I say, ‘Don’t talk bullshit in the phone, motherfucker. In 20 years, don’t you learn anything? Please, don’t talk like this. Come safe.’ You never talk about the day the shit is coming.

  – Andre

  But Marco wasn’t fazed. He flew out of Amsterdam on a KLM flight to Jakarta, where he planned to clear customs and take a domestic flight on to Bali. He flew into Jakarta Airport at 5.15 pm on Saturday afternoon.

  Things were about to turn.

  He walked across to his hang-glider on the floor and slung it on his back. One of the hustling trolley boys picked up his other bags and they headed for customs. The bags went through. But Marco was far from safe. He sensed it, too. Tonight, something was up. Police were highly visible. His long-time customs officer friend, who regularly helped him slip electronics from Singapore through customs, walked across, warning him there was a bomb threat; anti-terrorist police were working the airport and the customs chief was insisting they X-ray the hang-glider.

  Marco was ready. It had passed machines before. But this time, as it went through, four of the six tubes reflected a dark image. ‘What’s in here?’ the customs chief asked. Marco fidgeted, incessantly tapping his foot, quickly explaining that some tubes were made of carbon fibre and blocked X-rays. Unsatisfied, the officer pulled out a Swiss Army knife and started tapping the tubes; the hollow ones sounding tinnier than those loaded up with coke. ‘What’s in here?’ he asked more sternly.

  Marco was rifling through his bag. ‘Wait a moment, boss,’ he rasped.

  Now agitated, the officer barked, ‘Where’s your passport?’

  ‘Cool down, please. Wait a moment.’ Marco was still fumbling in his bag, finally pulling out his professional book. It contained more than 300 photos and a CV, something he always carried as proof he flew the glider. Now he was ready to fast-talk.

  ‘Man, I’m a professional,’ he said, pointing out the pictures. ‘These are special tubes for aerobatics, for making a loop.’ The officer was shaking
his head. Marco’s slick spiel was failing; he was twitchy, nervy. Things were about to get worse. The officer ordered him to ‘wait there’; he was going to get equipment to cut open the tubes. It hit Marco – he was going down with the biggest load he’d ever carried. Unless he did something fast.

  He knew he had only one chance. It was make or break, right now. There was no time to think. He couldn’t fight, so flight was his only hope. The airport was frenetically busy, people everywhere, with two packed Garuda flights arriving simultaneously with Marco’s flight. He glanced maniacally from side to side, his heart racing.

  The split second the customs officer turned away, he took his chance. In the blink of an eye he was off, the adrenalin shooting through his body, giving him an uncanny agility, despite his limp, to weave, duck and slip out of the crowded airport, untouched by police. In the car park, he leapt on the back of a random motorbike taxi, rasping, ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Terminal One?’ the guy asked.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Marco yelled, clinging to the driver as they tore off.

  I’m David Copperfield, brother, I can disappear in one minute, that’s why you have to lock me up. I can fly with no wings.

  – Marco

  The wind whipped Marco’s face as the motorcyclist raced along the road. He felt alive. He was on the run, an escapee. For these moments he felt elated – he’d done something no one else would have dared. It flashed through his mind that this was like a movie. When they got to Terminal One, he vaulted off the back of the slowing bike, slung 50,000 rupiah at the motorcyclist and leapt into the back seat of a taxi. ‘Find me a cheap hotel,’ he said, jerking his head from side, watching out for a police tail.

  When the driver pulled in at the front of Hotel Central Jakarta, at least 20 cops were swarming at the front gate – nothing to do with Marco, but he had to stay invisible. ‘Oh my god, let’s go. Take me to a shopping centre.’ He could hide among the crowds. Cops were outside the shopping centre too, but he got out anyway.

  He had about $120 and bought some cheap clothes to change into. Then for the next few hours he wandered aimlessly, round and round in circles inside the shopping centre, not sure what to do, his panic rising. By 11 pm, the long corridors were ghost-like, with only a few straggling shoppers. Lights were sporadically going out and the roller doors being pulled shut. It was no longer a sanctuary of camouflage, quite the opposite. It was time to go. He walked up the steps into the night, quickly finding a cab to take him to a cheap hotel.

  Without wanting to expose the passport still tucked in his pocket, he created a story, telling the receptionist his girlfriend would arrive later with ID. Once inside his room, he pulled a beer from the fridge, sat on the bed and lit a Lemon Juice joint that he’d smuggled from Amsterdam – an insane thing to carry when he was trafficking kilos of blow, but it was this insouciant confidence that had kept him untouched, until now.

  He’d bought a phone card and late that night went down to reception to use it. He called Carlino, the prime investor in this run, who’d paid for the flights, hotels and equipment, and was waiting in Bali for his 5-kilo slice of the 13.7 kilos. He answered, but refused to believe Marco’s implausible story.

  Carlino says to me, ‘Don’t fuck with me, man. If you don’t bring my glider now, I will kill you. Where is the fucking dope?’ I said, ‘Believe me, brother, I had a problem.’ He says, ‘You talk fucking bullshit. I’m going to kill you, motherfucker. You steal the cocaine.’ ‘No, believe me it’s true, brother, the police caught the wing.’ Dimitrius, Carlino, were all suspicion because they think, ‘Why is the guy here and not the glider?’ They think I hide the glider somewhere.

  – Marco

  Marco went back upstairs to lie down, exhausted but unable to sleep, with acute paranoia keeping him on high alert. This was now a deadly game of cat and mouse.

  At 6 am, wearing the new pants, shirt and Nike cap, he went outside. The sun was just rising but the streets were already busy. After eating breakfast at a nearby five-star hotel, he took a taxi to the bus depot, on the advice of the receptionist. It was full of police. Marco stood out as the only westerner, but hid his face beneath his cap, bought a ticket and climbed aboard, relieved he’d soon be in Bali with his friends, who had to help him. This was their problem too.

  On the bus, Marco didn’t sleep, as much from paranoia as a sense of panic as the bus driver hurtled like a maniac along the roads. Headlights flashed and horns blared constantly as they wove in and out of traffic. Marco tried to stay calm. He had to keep his wits. A wrong step now would be fatal. The bus crossed on the ferry from Java to Bali, where there was the routine police document check. Marco had already bribed the driver with 100,000 rupiah to let him stay in the bus, ostensibly for a sore foot. He pretended to sleep, evading the police again.

  Three hours later, the bus was close to its destination, Denpasar Bus Terminal. Exhausted but in survival mode, Marco approached the driver. ‘Listen, my friend, I have to go to Kuta, can you open the door now?’ He slung him another 100,000 rupiah. With cash the magic password, the doors swung open and Marco jumped as the bus slowed.

  His instincts saved him again. The depot was already under surveillance, with police passing around photos of the fugitive. They’d suspected he’d flee to Bali, as many of the 300 photos in his professional book left behind at Jakarta airport were taken on the island.

  Now on familiar turf, Marco’s ego and cockiness resurged with gusto. He was acting bizarrely, almost tempting police into a game of catch me if you can. Instead of going straight into hiding, he took a taxi to his favourite restaurant, the bustling La Lucciola, an expensive beachfront place patronised mostly by westerners. There he phoned Rafael, who’d unwittingly invested in the run but planned to stay well clear. Dimitrius, another investor, turned up, as well as Ron – a wealthy friend who’d flown at the same time as Marco as a back-up horse to help him on arrival. Andre, his rental partner in Amsterdam, came too, although he wasn’t an investor in this run.

  Marco was sitting at an exposed table at the front, wearing his pink and white Nike cap and sunglasses, waiting for his friends. He was typically restless, indiscreetly leaping up and down from his chair, pacing back and forth, with a glass of wine in his hand, to a little footbridge that led to the car park to see if they had turned up. As soon as he spotted them, he dashed across the footbridge to meet them.

  He was happy like a kid. ‘Hey guys, nobody can take me. I’m Mad Max, David Copperfield, nobody can take me. I’m the man.’ Dimitrius the Greek, fuck he’s angry. ‘What the fuck, shut up. Are you crazy, man? You left the cocaine there. Ron tells me you sniff coke on the flight. What you fucking doing with my money? You lose all the money for the operation, now the police are running behind you. You are fucking stupid.’ He’s really angry. And everybody is really angry, you know – me, Rafael, Greek, everybody is really angry, because it’s not a happy situation, but Marco was happy. ‘Oh, Mad Max, blah blah blah.’ Max was happy.

  – Andre

  They took Marco to their car to show him that day’s Jakarta Post. ‘This is real, brother, this is the Jakarta Post,’ Dimitrius said, pointing. ‘Look, look . . . Marco Archer Moreira, the fucking Brazilian drug smuggler, page one. Look!’

  A Brazilian paraglider reportedly failed to smuggle in 13.7 kilos of cocaine through Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Tangerang on Saturday afternoon, but did manage to escape arrest. His whereabouts is unknown, but customs and excise officers at the airport suspect that Marco Archer Moreira fled to Bali. It is the biggest smuggling attempt of cocaine in the country this year. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

  – Jakarta Post, 4 August 2003

  When he looked at the newspaper, he realised he was in trouble. In this moment he realised he had a big problem – ‘Oh, I cannot stay in La Lucciola’, but after a couple of seconds he was back to being the same stupid guy again. ‘Ah, I go to Lombok. Carlino is going to help me.’ Carlino is the Italian guy who was s
upposed to receive most of the cocaine here. Carlino was also really angry, because everyone knows Marco was using drugs while bringing it.

  On the plane?

  Fucking stupid. Every time, sniffing, sniffing inside the aeroplane, not normal. Call attention. Marco was really, really high on cocaine when he fell. I know all this cos I listen, 10 times, to Samuel. They arrived together. If Marco was a normal guy, no problem, but he was really nervous and this call attention to the cops. If he is professional, he come in easy easy easy. Stupid. Totally. Because you are playing with money, millions of dollars, and you are using. It doesn’t make any sense. Can you imagine he escaped . . . this is so crazy, just one guy, leg with a limp like that, how can he escape the airport?

  – Andre

  Despite their fury, it was the rules of the game to try to help a busted horse, especially their friend. Dimitrius drove Marco to Carlino’s house. Carlino was fuming, quickly arguing hotly with Marco over why he got busted. The run costs were about $40,000, but the real issue was the huge loss of potential profits. Andre deserted ship, this wasn’t his gig in the first place – he wasn’t an investor. Carlino, though, had to ensure Marco didn’t spill his name if he got caught. He drove him to a simple hotel in tourist hotspot Sanur, telling him to stay put. For the next couple of days Carlino came and went with supplies and news. Typically restless and hyper­active, Marco got bored fast. Several times, after dying his hair red and painting his face with fluoro-coloured zinc cream, he went to the lobby to stretch his legs and watch the communal TV. He realised he was undeniably hot news when he saw his own face up on the TV screen.

  It wasn’t surprising. He’d vanished right from under the noses of dozens of clearly inept, red-faced police and customs officers during a bomb alert. Security was meant to be watertight, but they had failed to stop a 42-year-old man with a limp. It was an international story and excruciatingly embarrassing; the Indonesians had lost face. This could cost jobs and now it was personal. They wanted Marco nailed, especially after they’d cut open the hang-glider tubes and found 13.7 kilos of blow. They were hunting with unprecedented force for a drug trafficker.