Hotel Kerobokan

by Kathryn Bonella

  Honestly, I didn’t think they were going to and then, just all of a sudden, bang, they’ve done it. Like, they talk about it, they talk about it, they move them, they’re not going to do it and then one day it just comes up. You know. Like they’re not going to do it when they say they are and then they just surprise them. I watched it on TV. I had to see it to believe it.

  Was it a feeling of, as long as they don’t shoot them, I am safe?

  Yeah, kind of.

  – Scott

  Another death row inmate at Hotel K, Nigerian Emmanuel, was similarly shaken.

  Every day for five days before they killed them, water was coming out from my eyes. I wasn’t crying, it was just water coming from my eyes from morning to night. But as soon as they killed them, it stopped. On Sunday this water stopped from my eyes. I don’t know exactly why. I knew something was wrong. But I didn’t know what.

  – Emmanuel

  CHAPTER 12

  THE DEALERS

  Kerobokan is drugs paradise. Drugs all the time. No special time for drugs. Drugs twenty-four hours. You smoke cigarette, you smoke shabu. The party was daily. Every single day right after lunch we’d sit outside and get pissed, those who want to smoke shabu, smoke shabu, those who want to use smack, use smack. That’s on a daily basis.

  – Ruggiero

  They will never stop drugs, impossible. It’s a free market. Everybody is smoking shabu in almost every room.

  – Den

  Honestly, Kerobokan is full of drugs. The dealers are working with the prison guards, that’s Indonesia.

  – Saidin

  French inmate Filo was throwing a drugs party in his cell at 4 pm. The Frenchman was as famous for his off-the-wall party antics as for his blue room blow jobs. At a party a few weeks earlier, he’d set fire to the bare skin of English inmate Steve, sending him to casualty with third-degree burns and all of the other partying inmates to cell tikus. Today, to make it up to Steve and his other friends, Filo had invited them to a celebration of his birthday. He had two bags of drugs to share – one bag of smack and one of coke. Several of his friends were now walking across the jail to his cellblock, Block B. It was time to party. It would end with a bang.

  When Brazilian Ruggiero turned up first, Filo held up two bags of white powder, one in each hand. ‘Smack or coke?’ he asked. Ruggiero didn’t do heroin, so opted for coke. Filo dropped one of the bags on the table, and hid the other in a small compartment he’d carved into a step in case guards showed up. He then got down to business, chopping several lines on a CD cover. Ruggiero sprang from the bed as soon as he finished and quickly inhaled a line through a straw. Instantly he felt an excruciating pain in his head and slid down the wall to the floor. Several other western inmates had turned up, but no-one noticed Ruggiero’s unusual behaviour. They were too busy taking their own turns to snort.

  As more westerners walked across to Block B, a couple of guards noticed the convergence and headed the same way, guessing the foreigners were up to something. The guards reached the cell at the same time as Australian inmate Mick, who was too late now to join the party. The cell door was being held shut by a German inmate, Joachim, to keep guards out, while French inmate Michael, Englishman Steve and Filo snorted lines. Ruggiero was still slumped against the wall, feeling worse. He was shaking his head and making strange noises, trying to clear the haze closing in around him. Still none of the others noticed, too preoccupied by doing lines and then dashing across to hold the door to keep the guards out, taking it in turns like it was a party game.

  The guards were getting angry, yelling and shoving their weight against the door, banging it slightly ajar each time. Any second, they would knock the skinny inmates flying and burst into the cell. Filo knew he had only seconds to make the rest of the white powder vanish. He had to decide whether to throw it down the squat toilet or use it. He opted not to waste it. He inhaled three lines in three seconds. It was a bad decision – he had confused the two bags of white powder. What he was snorting was pure heroin.

  A moment later, Filo collapsed on the floor near Ruggiero, breathlessly muttering pleas for help before passing out. Ruggiero was teetering on his hands and knees, unable even to lift his drooping head or focus his eyes. He was in no shape to help his friend. Filo was out cold and turning blue. He was overdosing. No oxygen was getting to his brain. His body was going into a spasm. Michael, still upright, knelt beside Filo and started yelling for someone to get salt to put on his tongue to stop him choking on it.

  They’d let go of the door and the two guards were inside, shocked by the scene. Ruggiero and Joachim were crawling on the floor, and Filo was on his back with his eyes shut and his lips and face turning blue. They had to get him to hospital fast. The guards didn’t want a foreigner’s death on their hands – a local’s death could be swept under the carpet; a foreigner’s would involve a consulate and a major investigation. That was too much trouble.

  Instructed by the guards, two tamping prisoners scraped Filo off the floor, slung his limp arms around their shoulders and rushed him across the jail to the front door, passing a throng of gaping inmates. As the guards drove Filo to hospital, Ruggiero was called to the offices. He stumbled along the jail pathways, heavily supported by two prisoners. The guards wanted to question him. But Ruggiero was incoherent and the guards told the tampings to take him back to his cell. Prisoners along the way all stopped to look at the lifeless Brazilian; his head dropped like a dead weight and his bare toes scraping the ground.

  I was overdosing because I never use this shit before. I didn’t know what was going on. They put me in my room, and I was crawling on the floor and puking. After I puke I enjoyed the high.

  How were the others?

  Michael and Steve were okay. Those two used to buy smack, chop some Xanax, mix and snort it together, every day. Ten Xanax, not one. That was how much they were doing. They used smack every day, so they were happy. I don’t use it. I’m not used to it. Filo didn’t either. He was just like me. He looked like snow when he came back from hospital after three days.

  – Ruggiero

  Almost as soon as he was conscious, Filo took steps to stop the incident turning into a big deal. If news of his heroin overdose leaked, he would face new charges, Hotel K would lose face, and police would get a warrant to raid the jail. Everyone would suffer, especially the big drug dealers who had to dump thousands of dollars of drugs before every police raid. So Filo splashed $7500 to the doctors to keep it quiet. It worked. Newspapers reported that a French inmate had overdosed on the legal pain killer Tramadol.

  A French guy overdosing on heroin in Kerobokan Jail is big shit. He paid around $5000 to keep it quiet.

  – Inmate

  It was uncommon for the westerners to overdose, but local addicts were regularly overdosing, and were often not taken to hospital for hours.

  Overdose happened nearly every second day. Many, many overdose – when it happens to a foreigner, they take them to hospital. Locals – bad luck. After Filo overdosed, this local guy, a tamping, died a couple of months later. It was 4 am Ramadan and he hadn’t eaten, and tried loading himself up with ecstasy and shabu, but used too much. He was coughing; people started to massage him, called the doctor, but couldn’t take him to hospital because the boss of the jail had to come first. But if he’d been a foreigner, they would put him in a van and just take him to hospital. By 7 am he was dead. Before block open, they’d take body away. I was sad, because he was another drug person who became an addict in jail. Overdosing happens many times – all the junkies, they have this experience – they know how to bring him back. The blood stops flowing to his brain – this will either kill or they bring him back – if they bring him back, the guards would not even know.

  – Mick

  First thought to be overdosing on drugs, a prisoner at Kerobokan Prison, Arifin 45, died yesterday, however there is no detailed information on the exact cause of death. The head of Kerobokan Prison Tulus Widjajanto confirmed the inmat
e had died, however, he denied that a drug overdose was the cause of death. ‘His death was not because of a drug overdose, but because of ill health. He had been sick since 3 am. The doctor examined him, but then he had a seizure.’

  – Denpost, November 2004

  Most inmates were on drugs charges, and incarcerating them in Hotel K was like sending a gambler to Vegas. They were buying, selling and playing twenty-four hours a day. Across the jail, inmates were chasing the dragon, smoking shabu, shooting up, and popping ecstasy pills like tic tacs. In almost every cell and in every corner across the jail, drug deals were being done. Prisoners would sidle up to new inmates and croon, ‘You want shabu? You want ecstasy?’ Hotel K was Bali’s drug hub, its biggest and busiest drug market.

  ‘We are aware of the illegal drugs trade in big quantities in this prison. That’s why we wanted to launch a crackdown yesterday by dispatching 300 personnel to give them shock therapy,’ police spokesman I Gde Sugianyar said last night.

  – The Daily Telegraph, 20 June 2009

  Most dealers were small time, selling a few ecstasy pills or a bit of shabu or smack to pay off their own drug bills. But there were also drug bosses checking in, the high rollers. They could earn up to $10,000 a day, supplying to nightclubs in Bali and Jakarta, to other jails and to their regular customers outside. The high rollers organised shipments across the globe, moving drugs from as far as Peru to Sydney from their cells, utilising their regular suppliers in places such as Mexico, Bangkok, Pakistan and Jakarta.

  Hotel K drugs were the cheapest, and often the purest, in Bali. The free market and international dealers inside jail, who could buy high quality drugs in bulk from their overseas sources, drove the prices to rock bottom. A 50,000 rupiah ($7) packet of heroin inside Hotel K would cost 200,000 rupiah ($28) outside.

  Inmate and Mexican dealer Vincente was working exclusively in the Hotel K high-roller room, and didn’t bother dealing on the public floor with the inmate masses. He didn’t need to. He was making thousands of dollars a month, using his private cell as an office. He regularly made calls to contacts in Mexico to organise deliveries of cocaine for his high-profile multi-millionaire Chinese client on the outside. Before each delivery, his client made a payment into Vincente’s falsely named bank account, which Vincente checked by phone. His courier then flew into Bali, checked into a cheap hotel designated by Vincente, hid the cocaine in a drawer or cupboard, and gave the key to the front desk, saying, ‘My friend Wayan will arrive soon, please give him the key’. After Vincente had confirmed with his courier that the drop was made, he rang his client to give him the collection details. Vincente set it up so the client and the courier never met. It ensured his client’s invisibility. More importantly, it secured Vincente’s lucrative job as the middle man.

  The system served both Vincente and his client well. The client still got his pure cocaine, which he cut and sold to a network of customers in Australia and New Zealand, sending it by boat, and keeping him rich. It also made Vincente a wealthy man from jail, and ensured he and Clara were treated like platinum guests at Hotel K. By applying a cash lubricant to just the right people, Vincente’s rich client was able to look after him. The client bought the Mexicans their up-market private cells, and also conjugal time together – after their sham airport relationship had turned into a real love affair in jail. Some nights the client would come into Hotel K, and send a guard to collect Vincente and his own brother, who was also doing a stint for drugs, from their cells. They’d sit in front of the tower block with the jail boss, drinking Johnnie Walker in the warm night air.

  Although Vincente didn’t bother with selling drugs inside, most of the drug traffickers and dealers who continually checked into Hotel K fought for a slice of the lucrative market. For a while, female inmate Nita was working with a local man, Ketut Dana, whom she started a relationship with after Tony had run away in the great escape. Ketut was stocky, with tattoos covering almost all of his skin from his fingers, along his arms and right up around his neck. He was a member of one of Bali’s biggest gangs, Armada Rucun – a rival gang to Laskar Bali who later ruled the jail – and was doing time for hacking a man’s head off. Ketut shared the top inmate job of Pemuka with fellow head hacker Saidin – the power spots in jail always taken by the toughest. Being Pemuka put him in a useful position for the dealers. Ketut was also able to walk in and out of jail freely, so was often used as a drug courier.

  Ketut and Nita joined together in business after their love affair started. It was a smart move. She knew the suppliers outside; he could easily collect and deliver the drugs. Nita was also in a prize position to sell. She worked as a cashier in the small canteen in the centre of Hotel K, selling everything from Nescafé, instant noodles and Sunsilk shampoo, to packets of shabu and hashish. She was also the main seller in Block W, where drugs were equally as popular. Whenever random groups of women were urine tested, usually eighty per cent came back positive for drug use. The women often sat smoking shabu in Nita’s cell during the day. Because she was a tamping, the guards usually left her cell alone.

  The most ruthlessly competitive dealer was Arman Maulidie. He’d worked as a drug boss on the outside for years, and had spent five months in a Jakarta jail before being busted again in Bali. Police had raided his home and, after shifting a heavy cabinet in his bedroom and ripping up suspicious floor tiles, they had found a bunker filled with thousands of ecstasy pills and hundreds of grams of shabu. There were also bank books showing deposits of A$3500 a month, and drug ledgers. Arman went down for ten years. But in Hotel K he didn’t miss a beat, selling shabu and ecstasy to the strong domestic market, and also working as Iwan’s front man. He had cutthroat ambition, striving to be Hotel K’s drug lord with an exclusive and protected monopoly, like dealers in some of Indonesia’s other jails.

  In Jakarta’s Cipinang Jail, for example, the drug world was tightly structured. One drug boss inmate paid a monthly fee of fifty million rupiah ($6700) to the jail authorities to own exclusively the hugely lucrative marketplace of 3000 inmates. Guards knew the system and enforced it, brutally bashing anyone else caught selling and locking them in tiny isolation cells, sometimes for months.

  In another Jakarta jail situated right next door, the drug business was also strictly controlled but worked differently. Several dealers paid for immunity. Only these five or six inmates could sell, but it was still fiercely competitive. Each dealer would sit at a small table in his cell selling heroin to a long line of addicts. Out the front of each of these cells, a prisoner who’d paid to own a syringe business would sit at a card table, renting out needles and syringes for ten cents a turn while spruiking for business, ‘Come my place, come my place, buy something nice’.

  You pay one thousand rupiah, you take the syringe, you go inside, you give money to one guy, syringe to the other guy and he fills it in for you. If you have your own syringe, you give him your own syringe and he fills it.

  – Thomas

  Hotel K’s free market was at the other end of the spectrum from these organised drug worlds. No-one had blanket protection from the guards or exclusivity to sell. Arman would later become the number one boss when he aligned himself with Bali’s most violent gang, Laskar, but in the meantime, he had to share the market, using only his ruthless ambition, and even his wife, Ratih, to build his business and beat the competition. Ratih had been caught with drugs and sentenced to two years in jail. Inside Hotel K she was famous for something else – her pink penis dildo. After news of a spontaneous cell check one day, she had scrambled to hide anything contraband and hurled her pink dildo towards the back window. But, in the panic, she missed. It hit the cell wall, and ricocheted out the door and onto the footpath, where it started jigging in front of a long line of girls waiting for roll call. The story of the dancing dildo titillated the jail, and earned Ratih a reputation as well.

  Arman was less amused when he discovered his wife was having a lesbian affair with Nita, but looked at it pragmatically. He hoped it wo
uld split up Nita and her boyfriend, Ketut, marking the end of their business relationship and giving Arman a chance to consolidate with Nita. It didn’t. But Ketut was later transferred to another jail and Arman lured Nita into working with him. Arman ultimately finished his underhanded scheme by stealing Nita’s supplier and cutting her out.

  Arman sold ecstasy to many people in karaoke clubs; many, many karaoke clubs take ecstasy from him, shabu from him, so this time in Bali, many things actually came from jail.

  – Thomas

  Austrian Thomas was another high roller who stirred up the market. He got pure and cheap smack from his regular sources, so started undercutting the others. It was a price war. Thomas sold both to inmates and his customers outside. When he received a delivery, he sent his regularly collaborating guard, Pak Giri, outside to collect it and bring it into Hotel K. This would usually take place at the start of the guard’s shift at around 10 pm. All night, Thomas then sat in his cell weighing the smack into packets to match orders from outside customers and crushing it into a fine powder to put it into straws for prisoners to buy. Thomas used a cigarette lighter to melt the ends of the straws and seal them, often employing his cellmates to assist. Sometimes they would work for hours, filling up three or four hundred straws, which he’d sell for 50,000 rupiah ($7) each.