Snowing in Bali

by Kathryn Bonella

  I run away with the fake passport and the picture is totally different to me. I travelled all the countries, and nobody stopped me. It’s crazy.

  – Andre

  I remember he has the glue behind the ear. He took out, tuff, tuff. And his ears come back again like this, stick out.

  – Rafael

  Andre had escaped from a semi-open prison, a farm. He was able to literally walk out, and the guards discovered him missing only at roll call. In total, he’d now spent four years in jail, and thrown a million dollars at his cause: to make jail life easier, to be moved to less secure prisons in order to escape, and also to appeal his 37-year sentence. Now it had been cut to 12 years, which was why they’d put him on the farm.

  On day one, he’d escaped. Again he went to Laguna Beach, surfing for 15 days until his new false passport was ready. The photo was of a younger, fat guy with black hair and a wide jaw. Andre had dyed his hair black and planned to say he’d got sick and lost weight if anyone asked. He took a bus from Laguna to Argentina, where he stayed for a couple of days, then boarded a flight, transiting back into São Paulo, then on to Doha and Singapore on Qatar Airlines.

  Always on his toes and ready to tap-dance, he had a plan to reduce his risk. He started chatting to a Chinese girl in the seat next to him. ‘How are you? I’m Rodrigo, what’s your name?’ During the transit in Singapore he grabbed her hand. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

  He was ready with a slick reply: ‘You’re so beautiful, I’d like to walk with you. Let’s have fun.’ They strolled around the airport like a romantic couple. It was the perfect camouflage.

  When I come to take the plane again, the Chinese girl comes with me. I take the passport from her hand and give it together with my passport. And the guy says, ‘Oh, okay, going to Bali . . . nice.’ She would never ever imagine what I’m doing. Every time I do something different, because I know what I need to do for no suspicion. If I go with somebody, especially a girl who has the eyes like that, it’s fucking normal, you know an Asian travelling in Asia. When I arrive in Bali, I do the same with her.

  – Andre

  He breezed into Bali on his false passport, audaciously carrying in his checked-in luggage a tripod loaded with 150 grams of cocaine – 50 grams in each aluminium leg – which he’d sell for $15,000, and a couple of joints.

  Were you nervous?

  As nervous as if I’m bringing a phone in my pocket. For me it’s easy. I don’t think about that. I believe in myself, I believe in my job, I know really, really well how that works. I did this so many times here already. I know how to do it. I’m so confident with that.

  What did it feel like to arrive back in Bali?

  I’m fucking really happy, you know, happy again. But after you do it many times, it feels really normal also. I was prepared, maybe I get arrested on the way, maybe São Paulo, maybe somewhere. I was prepared for that also.

  – Andre

  Andre stayed at Rafael’s modest rented house but their now different worlds quickly collided.

  He was so used to being in jail, he talk all the time about kilos of coke. Was very hard, because I don’t belong to this anymore, and sometimes in front of the kids, like, ‘Oh, somebody got busted for this, for that, he take some lines.’ The kids say, ‘What?’ ‘Andre, come on.’ ‘Oh, sorry, sorry.’ Not because he want to fuck me, but he just came from jail.

  He says, ‘Oh, let’s do like this. I’m gonna have new connections.’ I say, ‘Uh-uh, I don’t want to do anymore, man. When you left here I was another guy. Now I have my business, start in the surf school, I don’t do anything wrong. I even have a Facebook.’

  I was very happy I bring him to my house, but Emily was a little bit afraid. She says, ‘Fuck, I want to live with you because you promised me you were going to stop this shit.’ She’s totally against drugs. She says, ‘I don’t feel safe living together in the same house with Andre here. Any time the police could break the door to catch him.’ Then she says, ‘Oh, Andre, it’s better you find another place to go.’ He felt a little bit sad with me.

  – Rafael

  Andre was quickly immersed in Bali’s drug world again, getting on his feet by selling Sumatran weed, but soon moving to quality imported grass, hashish and snow.

  Through a Brazilian friend working in Australia, he’d organised an Australian Hells Angels boss to meet cop Claudio in Brazil, to buy 200 kilos of cocaine to send to Sydney. Andre’s commission was $2000 per kilo. If it came off, he’d be making $400,000 and eagerly checked his emails for updates.

  Meanwhile, he was waiting on a FedEx parcel of hashish from Amsterdam, interviewing an English girl to work as a horse, and meeting with an unlikely horse, a 55-year-old Englishwoman, to buy hashish which she trafficked from India. His phone ceaselessly beeped with messages like, ‘The choc is on the island!’, or ‘Can I buy one surfboard?’

  He was also soon trying to get Rafael back working with him, but Rafael started keeping his distance.

  I don’t approve of this shit anymore. And I think, ‘If I stay with him, he get problem, going to get for me too.’ But I’m clear with him; I say, ‘Andre, I don’t want to.’ ‘Oh, let’s make money together, it will help you.’ I say, ‘No, man, I don’t want to get involved in this shit.’ He knew my view, but he kept trying to push me to make money. I think, ‘Are you my friend, or some evil person who wants to fuck me?’

  – Rafael

  Even seeing Andre’s fast return to living in style didn’t change his mind. Andre took out a three-year lease on a newly built, two storey house among rice paddies. The property comprised three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a swimming pool, and was just 200 metres from Canggu beach. He bought a new car, a fake Harley-Davidson, two scooters, a plasma TV and a bunch of new surfboards. He even got braces on his teeth to close a gap in the front that had widened in jail. He invested in a new restaurant on the beach and was living with a rich Indonesian girlfriend. The only thing Andre couldn’t do was safely leave Bali.

  I’m living now like a movie. I really had to make a choice about my life. Keep this life, or back to normal life. And I chose to keep my life like a movie. Day by day I party, crazy things on the phone, I chose this for my life.

  I have already 25 years of really dream life, I can choose where I want to go . . . Now I cannot fly, but before I fly – like I get bored in Bali, so I go to Koh Samui for one week; get bored, I go to Europe for a couple of days. And this life for me is really, really pleasure life. Every day is new things, new feelings, new adventures. I pray to my gods every day, help me another day, another adventure in Bali.

  Cos every day for me is a new adventure. Why? Because I don’t know what’s happening. If some police stop me in the street and ask for my passport, maybe I need to run, maybe I need to pay, maybe . . .

  You know what I mean – I don’t know what to expect in the next second. This is my day-by-day now. But this really really doesn’t make me sad, this excites me. I don’t know what new thing’s going to happen tomorrow. Maybe I am here, maybe I need to run away – every day is different feeling. I believe so much the life just flows away.

  – Andre

  *

  Although Rafael was out of the game, it hadn’t stopped snowing in Bali. The Island of the Gods was still full of rich expats and tourists wanting the buzz of intoxication – the parties on the beaches or in the five-star hotels kept going, but discretion had replaced blatant, arrogant indulgence.

  As long as there was a thriving market, there would be those ready to gamble their lives for a fast buck. A European guy sold snow to expats; Barbara, the Botox-faced woman, kept coke hidden in a hollowed-out Bible, and people still called Rafael sometimes, asking for his help to sell their kilos. For a while, there’d been a scarcity, but now it was snowing in Bali, with the price a sky-high $350 a gram. But Rafael refused to slip back.

  He was reminded often of the life he’d left behind, as it still frenetically whirled around him. When 55-year-old Englishwoma
n Lindsay Sandiford was busted at Denpasar Airport with 4.7 kilos of coke in the lining of her suitcase, at least two of his friends had to flee overseas.

  She give up so many people, she talk.

  When I see the news last week, I was thinking, ‘Fuck, Andre must be panicking, because he buys hashish from this woman.’ I don’t give a shit. I go to sleep. Andre comes, ‘Oh, be careful, the island’s hot,’ and I say, ‘I have nothing to be afraid of.’ I remember how I felt when it was my stuff that was bust; heart beat, no sleep. Now I sleep like an angel.

  – Rafael

  AFTERWORD

  SNOWSTORM

  Three weeks after the English woman was busted, another dealer’s life in Bali exploded. The Brazilian surfer who went down had been close to Rafael and others in Bali for years – and his bust caused panic.

  The dealer had been careful. Always. One sultry afternoon he was riding his motorbike, beside his partner in this run, to pick up a DHL parcel containing a backpack loaded with nearly 1 kilo of coke. He’d paid a Balinese taxi driver to collect it and bring it to him at the front of some surf bungalows near Canggu beach – familiar turf.

  The two bikes approached the waiting taxi. As soon as the Brazilian took the parcel, his life blew up. It was sudden frantic commotion. Police dressed like surfers burst from behind the gate. The Brazilian wheeled the bike around, but a cop grabbed his shirt, shouted, ‘Stop’ and put a gun to his back. The dealer kept accelerating. The cop fired a warning shot into the air. The dealer revved, trying to break the cop’s grip. Then, it was over. The cop whacked him in the back of the head with his gun and he fell off his bike.

  He wound up on the ground, with no hope of escape, four of the cops kicking and punching him. Young Balinese surfers came running out of the bungalows to see what was going on. They wanted to defend their surfer friend, but backed off fast when the men yelled, ‘Police’.

  The other dealer involved in the run had luckily escaped, not only the police clutches, but two bullets that were aimed directly at him as he tore off.

  Police took the Brazilian to his beach house, where they found his girlfriend, a gardener and a maid. They handcuffed the dealer to a shower pipe, then ransacked his house, searching for more drugs and going through his phone, his computer and his photos.

  Police wanted information; they wanted other dealers – especially the one who’d eluded them back at the scene. They interrogated the captives, pushing the gardener:

  ‘Who was the guy who escaped?’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  They hit the gardener in the face, giving him a black eye.

  ‘Where are his friends? You know his friends?’

  ‘No, I don’t know anybody, I don’t know anything.’

  He was actually Rafael’s gardener, on loan to the Brazilian to beautify a new garden with his ‘magic hands’, but his friend held his tongue, saving Rafael from certain interrogation.

  The dealer remained handcuffed to the shower pipe, released only occasionally for a beating and questions: ‘Who you going to sell to?’, ‘Who is your friend?’ and ‘Who sent this?’

  I think they beat him very bad, but he didn’t get any stitches or bruises. They know how to give you pain but no evidence.

  – Rafael

  The house was now swarming with cops. They’d discovered a stash of cash in a safe, and used some of it to buy a box of beer and food. They were walking around in the guy’s floral board shorts, floating in his swimming pool on his surfboards and watching his plasma TV, while the maid, the girlfriend, the gardener and the dealer were held prisoner in the bathroom.

  Bad news spread fast. Another Brazilian friend of Rafael’s had watched the whole drama through his window and called him 10 minutes after the bust. Rafael’s instant reaction was panic.

  I near to get heart attack. I think, ‘Shit, they are going to come to me.’ My heart beat dededede. But when I think calm and clear, I say to myself, ‘Relax, man, you did the right thing, you didn’t get involved. That’s it.’

  I go surfing in Uluwatu the day after in the morning cos I was, like, ‘Aah, I need to surf.’ I cancel my class. When I come out from the water, was 22 missed calls. I say, ‘Fuck.’ I have to put my phone off, because all the Brazilian community, everybody call me, ‘Where is the guy?’ ‘What’s happened?’ ‘What did he have, coke?’ I say, ‘Fuck, man, I don’t know.’ Then my surf partner was pissed off with me because I answer. He say, ‘Don’t answer the phone, man. Fuck, you’re going to get in trouble.’

  – Rafael

  In Bali, there was panic. The beach in Canggu was swarming with undercover cops, and the dealer’s friends, customers, partners and sellers were all getting strange phone calls. Some fled to other islands; others flew overseas. The dealer’s main seller, a European man, nearly fainted when someone broke the news to him.

  He lose the colour in his face. You know, like he say, ‘What? Ahhhh,’ nearly crying. ‘I have to go, I have to go.’ I think he already left Bali now – he’s very afraid.

  – Rafael

  Rafael drove past the dealer’s house on his way to the beach, and saw at least eight cops lounging back on their bikes out the front with their long hair, moustaches and board shorts.

  The next day he noticed his friend’s new car, his fake Harley and two scooters were gone, but there was a silver van in the driveway, which police would use to drive their captive to the airport en route to Jakarta. But before snatching him from his Bali life, they all huddled together with the drug dealer for a photo.

  He was the hunting trophy.

  – Rafael

  Later, the police returned to the house and swiped everything, from his furniture, clothes and leather shoes to his quiver of custom surfboards. When a friend called in later on, the place was stripped bare (though he later got some of it back with the help of an influential Balinese friend). The dealer’s girlfriend was too scared to stay there and had slept at the gardener’s house.

  The cops were still searching, phoning and interrogating his contacts.

  After his instinctive panic, Rafael relaxed, but with so much heat familiar feelings flared when he noticed someone riding closely behind him, with a helmet shield obscuring his face. Rafael tore off, zigzagging through the traffic until he lost him – realising it was probably just old instincts dying hard. But his number was in the busted dealer’s phone, and many people knew they were old friends, so he braced for a bang on his door.

  For two days, I just wait for the police to come to my house. I have some smoking papers, you know, so I clean everything and then I was ready for them, but this time I feel so comfortable. I say, ‘They cannot fuck me, I don’t have anything to do with this shit.’ My girlfriend was freaking out; she regrets to be with me, because I have this kind of friend. She near to leave me. ‘I have a kid, soon the police gonna come here, better I move.’ I say, ‘Do what you want. It’s me – you think I’m doing something with this guy?’ ‘No, I’m sure you don’t.’ ‘Then shut up, be quiet, nothing is going to happen, wait and see.’

  So, are you a little bit worried?

  Actually no, I don’t have anything to do with this shit. Since the day he get this problem, everybody called me saying, ‘Oh, be careful, be careful.’ I say, ‘Careful of what, man? I don’t have anything to do with this shit.’ It’s a funny feeling, because I’ve been so much closer, this one is so far away. I’m not scared at all. I sleep like a baby, I eat like a horse. I don’t give a shit, because I know this time I did the right thing. I don’t give a chance for them to involve me.

  – Rafael

  *

  The day before the bust, the Brazilian dealer had gone to Rafael’s house and asked him to make a few calls to help him sell a kilo of snow due on the island the next day.

  He comes to my house with his girlfriend and says, ‘Oh, tomorrow I’m going to get this shit, 1 kilo, it’s already in Hong Kong.’

  He says, ‘Come on, Rafael, you make a couple of
calls and you can make some money.’ I straight away say, ‘No, man, I don’t want to get involved – are you crazy? No way, José. All my buyers, they’re in jail or dead, everybody fuck up. Forget it. Keep your money, man, buy land, get out of this shit.’ He says, ‘I will give you some cash, because you need it to pay the school.’ I say, ‘No, no, I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me, please, man. Be careful, man.’

  But he tells me it’s coming with DHL. I say, ‘Are you crazy? Anna got busted with this shit. Be careful, man.’ ‘No, it’s okay. No chance they catch me. I have this taxi driver. But if something happens, you know what to do.’ I say, ‘Come on, nothing’s going to happen, don’t talk like this.’ And then, the day after, bang, bust.

  – Rafael

  You are living the dream until you bust and all the reality comes so fast and so bad; no more beach, just cops around, asking a million questions at the same time.

  This game is fucking dangerous.

  – Busted drug dealer

  EPILOGUE

  Rafael

  The busts that kept happening were a constant confirmation to Rafael that he had done the right thing. Despite struggling for cash these days, he felt happier than ever.

  Friends say, ‘Now you are a different person, you are the real Rafael. Before you have something evil. Even your eyes are different now. I hear a lot, ‘Oh Rafael . . . man, you look so different, I don’t know why but you look very nice.’ Now, actually I’m fit again, I go to the beach every day, I surf, you know . . . I can socialise in normal places, I can have straight friends, I can talk about normal business.

  In the end, after all the glamour, I don’t feel proud. I try to forget this shit. Because I don’t think it’s cool. I poison people here with this shit just for money, nothing else. Poison people, fuck families, even make people die from overdose. I like to show off in that time. For what?