One of Ruggiero’s customers, American big-wave surfer Gabriel, had seen his previous dealers, including Alberto, busted. He’d been coming to Bali every surf season for years, buying coke from Rafael, then Alberto, and now Ruggiero. He was no good boy himself, using drugs and notoriously riding his big motorbike around the island topless, in his pink hibiscus-flowered Quiksilver board shorts, slurping on a Bintang beer. He also usually flew from LAX to Bali with a tiny bag of dope in his underpants, always slinging $200 to an official at Denpasar customs to avoid a search.
We would just tuck it into our underwear and cross our fingers. But we had a guy there . . . I’d go to the office and pay the guy a couple of hundred bucks and we’d walk out without them searching any of our shit. Money is the trick.
– Gabriel
Although he took his own risks, Gabriel felt his friend and dealer Ruggiero was way over the top, perilously acting as if he were Bali’s Scarface.
I was a bit scared to be around him, because I knew he had a big fat bag in his pocket, and I could be in trouble just being around him. I went to his place one time and he was there weighing up shit; he had like a kilo of coke, and was weighing it all up in grams, hundreds of packets, and I was like, ‘God!’ I just turned around and left. Just seemed crazy, he was just doing it right there – you know, not even hiding or anything – he just threw a towel over it . . . fucking crazy hot.
So I kept him at arm’s length. He was so loose, driving around in the middle of the night with 50 packets of blow.
Fifty packets?
He had packets galore. He was the guy at the time supplying everybody; he was the only one who had it, and he wanted to have it all ready, so he could be out on the streets, selling if someone needed one – here you go, like a 7-Eleven.
And you saw him pulling it out of his pocket?
Yeah. I’d tell him, ‘You’re out of your mind,’ shaking him by the arm. ’You’re going to get busted.’ But he was just bringing attention to himself, all drunk and loud, doing snorts right at the fucking dinner table.
Did you see that?
Yeah, he didn’t hide it, he’d do it every time I went out for dinner with him. He had a Scarface kind of attitude. I’d seen everybody go down; I’d seen three guys before him who were supplying in town and they got busted and people were telling him he would get busted, but he didn’t seem to listen or care.
– Gabriel
After Chino’s phone call, Rafael raced around to Ruggiero’s house to pass on the warning.
‘Ruggiero, be careful, man. Chino says they’re looking for you.’ But he spurned the tip.
‘Fuck off, I’m a street boy, you’re a family guy. I know what I’m doing, man; you’re just paranoid.’ Rafael left with a sense of foreboding. Chino didn’t issue gratuitous warnings. Chino had also alerted Andre, who zipped around to warn him.
I take my bike and go to Ruggiero’s house with my girlfriend. When I arrive, he’s sitting Ruggiero-style, legs spread, scratching his balls, and I say, ‘I come here just to tell you Chino says you must be careful.’ And Ruggiero says, ‘I don’t care if police come to me – I’ll kick their ass if they step in my house.’
– Andre
The next day, after watching a blazing sunset at a Seminyak beach bar, Ruggiero rode off on his motorbike. It would be the last ocean sunset he’d see for a long time. Two bikes with four men suddenly blocked his way and within seconds cops were leaping from the bikes and out of a car, surrounding him, screaming, ‘Police, police’. They pushed him up against the car, pinned his hands behind his back, then searched him and found a plastic container of hash in his pocket. Ruggiero was in shock watching the police laughing and hugging each other. They held the hashish, taunting, ‘You see? What is this? You’re going to jail.’
I fell down from heaven to hell in a blink of an eye.
The police already knew where he kept his stash, and drove him to the hotel, where they allegedly found 146 grams of hashish, 43 grams of cocaine, and one green ecstasy pill, though in court Ruggiero disputed this, claiming the amounts were a lot smaller.
The next morning at 9.30, Argentinian hashish dealer Frederico was sitting in Yopa café in Legian with his Israeli girlfriend Hanna, doing a delivery. As Hanna ordered a tea and a coffee, Frederico walked towards the bathroom. He sensed something wasn’t right. Suddenly, four men sprang up, surrounding him. It was a sting, a bust, an unbelievable nightmare. Frederico went ballistic, shoving a cop to the ground and hurling the dope over the wall. In the next second, he was flat on the ground.
Hanna watched in shock. Outside on Double Six Road there was a sudden traffic jam as motorbikes abruptly stopped, gridlocking; a crowd quickly gathered to watch the morning action – a big guy was being held on the ground by three men, as another was scaling the wall to retrieve the package, which contained 301 grams of hashish. Like spiders, these cops had created a web and caught their prey. And the dealers suspected who’d helped them to spin it.
Word spread fast when guys got busted. Andre got a call asking him to help his salesman Ruggiero, but he was dismissive. He’d already tried to help, but his efforts had been blithely fobbed off at the crucial point in time as puerile babble. Now it was too late and his altruism had expired too.
I got a call, ‘Oh Ruggiero, Ruggiero, Ruggiero’s been arrested, you need to help him.’ I say, ‘I knew this two days ago. I advised him and now I don’t want to see this bullshit guy. I don’t want to send money, I don’t want to help. He had his chance. This case is too stupid for me, sorry, please don’t call again.’ If somebody says, ‘Run away because tomorrow you’re going to get busted,’ you need to listen; we don’t play. The guy was just really, really arrogant.
– Andre
Rafael also refused to help when it became apparent to him that Ruggiero had set Frederico up to try to save himself. He denied it, but the dealers were all sure and the police divulged it to the press.
Ruggiero revealed his network, which also involved Frederico Vieyra Garcia, 24, from Argentina.
– Jakarta Post, 16 July 2003
This is why I have a little bit of a problem with Ruggiero. When they catch him, he gives up the Argentinian guy. Ruggiero was supposed to be released, but in the end he got fucked up too, both go to jail. Lucky for him Frederico was a pussy. In Brazil, he would be dead.
I should have helped him much more, but I didn’t because he did this. I don’t think it’s fair. For our group this was a little bit sad, we don’t give too much support to him after that. I was good friends with Ruggiero, but when he did this, my feelings changed totally . . . I was pissed off with him, but was sad too.
– Rafael
Now Ruggiero, Alberto and Frederico were all in Kerobokan Prison together and, like most prisoners, they were quickly trying to cut a deal. Frederico did so, paying for a five-year sentence to be quietly cut to two, the figure simply changed in court paperwork sent to the jail.
Ruggiero wasn’t so lucky. News of his snitching had spread, with the crew sure that, not only did he set up Frederico, but had tried with others, including a rich expat girl who was a regular customer. Out of the blue, he’d gone to her house with some coke and although she didn’t have cash handy he, unusually, gave it to her on credit. After he left, the girl sensed a sting and flushed it. Thirty minutes later, police were banging on her door.
The girl he tried to set up, she’s a princess, she’s from a royal family somewhere in Europe, really important, and well connected with a lot of rich and powerful people in Bali too, and everyone got pissed off. And they all went okay, fuck this guy, he is going to have to pay for what he just tried to do. He did exactly what we grew up understanding was the worst thing you can ever do . . .
Everybody was pissed off that he tried to set people up, nobody wanted to help him, everybody was like, ‘Fuck him, he can burn in hell.’ And a lot of people did what they could to fuck his case.
Does he know that?
Yeah, he does
know that. That’s why he got such a long sentence for such a small amount. If he got busted, held himself like I did, he’d get three, four years, guaranteed. But there were a lot of people telling prosecutors and judges, don’t help this guy.
The prosecutors would listen?
Yeah, if you have people coming and say, ‘If you help this guy we’re going to Corruption Watch,’ it’s a very delicate situation. So his case just went down.
– Alberto
Ruggiero’s lawyer had been promising to get him six months, for 300 million rupiah ($43,000), but on the eve of his court case, after he’d already paid, the lawyer delivered bad news.
He came to see me right before I got my sentence and he says, ‘Listen, there’s a problem.’ I said, ‘You promised me six months.’ He says, ‘They don’t want the money anymore and they’re even considering asking for a life sentence.’ I said, ‘What? Sorry, can you repeat that?’ He said, ‘Life.’ I felt the earth shake.
– Ruggiero
Ruggiero got 11 years – drastic compared to others like Englishman Steve Turner serving three years for 8000 ecstasy tablets, and Alberto’s and Frederico’s two-year sentences.
*
Soon after, Ruggiero’s customer, American big-wave surfer Gabriel, joined them in Kerobokan Prison. As part of the party set, he’d watched his friends get busted. ‘That’s why I was so blown away, I’d been witnessing this shit first-hand.’ He’d followed the waves from Hawaii to Tahiti, Bali and Australia, where he once had a fiancée. But for the last year and a half he’d settled in Bali, planning to start a surfboard storage business with his brother. He’d been hanging out with Marco in the days before his last fatal trip and saw Ruggiero, Alberto and Frederico all fall, like this was some kind of bad movie.
Marco was another one of these Scarface guys – he got some kind of notoriety and glamour out of it. It was an image I didn’t agree with. Marco is a really good, great guy, but he still had that same stupid mentality – they can’t touch me – and these guys were running around like Tony Montana.
– Gabriel
One afternoon, leaving his luxury rented villa, close to Kerobokan jail, and about to climb on his bike, three men approached saying they had a warrant to search his house. Initially, Gabriel didn’t believe they were cops.
One guy pointed to his T-shirt that had ‘Police’ written on it, and said, ‘Me police,’ and I said, ‘I can buy that in Kuta. I don’t care what that T-shirt says.’ The next guy goes, ‘Look, I have this, a badge.’ I say, ‘You can buy one of those too.’ And then the third guy shows me a gun and I thought, okay, maybe you are police. I didn’t want to believe it. I wasn’t dealing; I wasn’t selling drugs like Ruggiero. I didn’t want to let them in just because of some police T-shirt, but the old Balinese man whose daughter’s husband owned the villa talked me into it. He said, ‘They’re real police and that’s a real warrant and they’re going to search your place.’
I kept them outside for about half an hour. I was worried about being set up. I’ve always had that thought in my mind; you don’t want to mess with the cops, they can just put something on you, do anything they want. And I was thinking I don’t want these guys in my room, maybe a joint or something will fall out of my golf bag, something stupid. I just didn’t want them in my house. There was seven, one boss and six plain clothes, they all came in at the same time. And they all did the search at the same time.
– Gabriel
As police searched his villa, rifling through his clothes, bags, drawers, cupboards and under his bed, he was watching, pissed off, but staying calm. But every time they touched his impressive stack of 22 surfboards he imperceptibly winced, tensed, held his breath, aware they were close. They’d shuffle through the boards, getting hot, hotter, scorching, then . . . they’d walk away – until the next time. They were so, so close. In a tiny Velcro pocket on one of the leg ropes, Gabriel kept his personal stash of coke and maybe one or two stray ecstasy pills.
While they were searching, they picked the boards up in their hands 10 times, and every time I was like, ‘Whooo, oh god.’ I was thinking they might find it, even though I knew they probably wouldn’t, but I was worried.
– Gabriel
The boss kept intermittently taking him outside, playing good cop, repeatedly crooning, ‘We want to help you; tell us where your drugs are.’ After six long hours, and no drugs, a different cop took him outside to do the same little tap dance. This time, when he came back inside, the boss smirked at him.
I came back into my bedroom and the guy had his arm buried in my pillow. As soon as I walk in he goes, ‘Ahhhh’ and pulls out of the pillow a little blue plastic zip lock bag and says, ‘Gentlemen, drugs, heroin.’ I’m like, ‘No way, that ain’t mine.’ First, I don’t fucking keep drugs in my pillow and second, how does he know it’s heroin if he’s just discovered it?
They changed as soon as that guy pulled the drugs out; they got mean. They were laughing with a smirk on their faces, ‘Aha, we got you,’ and I was like, ‘Noooo.’ Running around the room, stamping my feet, pounding on the bed, screaming, ‘Noooo. Nooo, man, no, no, no, don’t do this. It’s not mine. Don’t do this to me, guys.’
He was just smiling at me, going, ‘We got you,’ and I was just fucking pissed, man. I was thinking, ‘This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this can’t be happening.’ Cos I knew that the worst thing is to get busted in a place like Bali, so when it started to hit that this guy was serious about busting me with his fucking shit, I got scared and worried then. They handcuffed me right then, they started tearing my place apart, even worse you know, they grabbed all my money.
They stole half of everything I had. The guys were packing bags for themselves when they were leaving; they were stealing stuff from me. I was walking out, so humiliated, and the guy’s wearing my best Quiksilver duds – they didn’t even fit him. He got my jeans vest. They took as much as they could carry when they walked out of there. I was so humiliated looking at these little short guys wearing my clothes. Like, I’m a big guy – they were walking out of the villa with me like a trophy, in my clothes. They looked stupid because they were like midgets wearing my sized clothes – they didn’t look good, they thought they looked good.
I can’t believe these guys loaded me up, man. I thought this only happened in the movies. And they took me to the police station and shut the bars on me and it was as real as it gets.
– Gabriel
*
In the police cells, he met Juri Angione. Juri was a 24-year-old Italian jeweller, who it turned out, was Carlino’s failed plan to help Marco. Carlino had asked compatriot Juri, living in Bali with his Timorese girlfriend, to do an emergency run to get cash to save Marco from a firing squad. Juri had already done between 20 to 30 international drug runs, carrying both in his stomach and in bags.
This time Juri took Carlino’s job and flew to Brazil to pick up the surfboard bag of coke. Juri instantly knew it was badly packed, but decided to risk it anyway, flying from Brazil to Amsterdam, and then via Bangkok to Bali, avoiding Marco’s failed, tainted route. But instead of helping Marco, he joined him. Customs in Bali busted Juri with 5.26 kilos in his surfboard bag.
Airport authorities on the resort island of Bali arrested a 24-year old Italian national on Wednesday afternoon for attempting to smuggle some 5.26 kilos of cocaine with a street value of about Rp 4.5 billion ($600,000) into Indonesia.
A thorough search of the bag produced three surfboards, two swim suits, two pairs of surfing shoes, a snorkel and 29 plastic packages hidden in the inner lining of the bag. Wrapped in black carbon paper, the packages contained suspicious white powder, which a simple test confirmed as high-quality cocaine. [Juri] Angione admitted that the bag, clothes, shoes and surfboards were his, but denied any knowledge of the cocaine.
– Jakarta Post, 4 December 2003
How were you feeling?
Juri: Fucked up. Yeah, fucked up. Way bad . . . It was the first time I bring something for som
ebody else. I always bring my own stuff. I always pack my own bags. I’m a user. But I do it this time because there was an emergency for Marco. They had to find someone to bring more stuff to make money to help Marco. I didn’t know Marco that time. But to help my boss, I say, ‘Yeah, okay, I go.’
Was it going to be sold in Bali?
Juri: No, in New Zealand and Australia.
Were you going to take it there?
Juri: No, not me. Somebody else take it by boat.
Fellow inmate: By catamaran.
Carlino’s plan had been to send the coke to Australia in his catamaran, as he’d planned to do with his slice of Marco’s load.
Instead, he now had two guys potentially facing the firing squad.
I remember the community of drug dealers, was a little bit . . . even me . . . say, ‘Fuck man, who does this guy think he is?’ He just has a problem with Marco and tries to send another guy to help and fucks up another one – actually he was my good friend.
– Rafael
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHITE CHRISTMAS
Marco after the accident repeats a thousand times, ‘If I don’t die in my accident, nothing is going to kill me.’ It’s like he challenged death; he chased death. This is so crazy, like karma, you attract the things you think about too much. Fucking crazy, one guy repeats every day, ‘I can’t die, I can’t die.’ Now he is on death row waiting to die. Looks like his energy attracted death. Like the book The Secret, it’s exactly like that.
– Andre
Everybody in Brazil who was a friend of his, we all tried to get money from everybody and send it to him, try to pay the police. But the thing was so big, they could not make a deal, you know. He’s not a bad guy, he’s a good guy.
Snowing in Bali Page 22