Snowing in Bali (32 page)

Jose Henrici (Borrador) holds a photo of Kate Osborne, his English girlfriend missing in Bali, while in jail in Peru. ‘If I knew where Kate was, I'd tell you in a second,' he told a Peruvian journalist. He admitted to a British newspaper that he believes the Diaz brothers, Poca and Mario, ordered her murder to shut her up after she threatened to reveal a dark secret.

The two Brazilians, Rodrigo and Marco, now live together on death row in the Super Maximum Security (SMS) Prison on Nusakambangan Island, dubbed Indonesia's Alcatraz, off the west coast of Java.

Rafael invented the method of using windsurfer booms to traffic cocaine. This is now widely used. The coke is crushed baby-powder fine, then pounded hard into the aluminium tubes to avoid any air bubbles or small rocks, making it X-ray-proof.

M3 Car Wash Café in Bali's Sunset Road was used for pimping and washing sports cars, but most importantly it was a giant laundry to wash drug money. For years its owner, Chino, was Bali's biggest drug boss, operating with immunity, until the Jakarta Police arrived. Chino fled the country to evade arrest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, thank you to all the people who spoke to me; sharing details of their lives and giving me unique material to paint a picture of Bali's drug underworld.

Special thanks to the charismatic Rafael, who revealed deeply personal and graphic details, much of which he's now ashamed of – although he still gets excited with a sparkle in his eye as he relives the moments. Like most of the dealers I interviewed, Rafael had never spoken to anybody about much of what he was telling me.

Thanks to Andre and Alberto for the long days of compelling interviews, and to Marco who I talked to in jail several times and spoke to on the phone regularly for months. I hope he is freed one day – as is his belief. He divides opinion among those who know him, but the one thing everyone agrees on is that he is a very funny guy. He often made me laugh. Amazing, considering his situation.

Thanks to Chino, who I tracked down on trial in another country where he's facing mandatory death if convicted of the drugs charges against him. When Chino first saw me walk into the courtroom, he later told me, that he thought I was with Interpol. But, I explained I was a journalist, writing a book, and had flown in especially to see him and his reply was, ‘I'm honoured'. I had lunch with him a couple of times at court, and visited him in jail. He was very polite and friendly, almost always smiling, and clearly liked by those around him. We continued talking on the phone afterwards.

Hopping over to the other side of the law: thanks to Operation Playboy boss Chief Fernando Caieron, who is passionate about his job and the arrests that were made during his Playboy Operation. Chief Caeiron sent me endless emails answering hundreds of questions, as I tried to connect the dots – in one of them he even joked about the many emails.
‘Hope you're doing pretty good!!!! By the way, do you know how many emails we've changed? (lol) Fernando Caieron.'
His emails were often colourful, and showed his sense of humour.

Thanks also to Detective Chief Inspector Bill Whitehead, of Cumbria police in the UK, who also spent a lot of effort emailing answers to my queries about the Kate Osborne case.

Thank you to Indonesian translator Desi Mandarini, Portuguese translator Daniela Ortega, and Swedish researcher Axel Johansson.

And a huge thank you to those friends and family who read random chapters during the writing of
Snowing in Bali,
especially Caroline Frith, Sue Rose and James Foster, who among others gave me their blunt critiques – I'm always guided by your opinions. And thanks also to James for using his hawk-eye to help me in the editing process.

Thank you to staff at Pan Macmillan; to freelance editor Mark Evans for doing the first edit, Editorial Assistant Alex Lloyd for his help with the picture section, and huge thanks to Managing Editor Emma Rafferty, who also edited
Hotel Kerobokan,
and who is undoubtedly one of the best in the business – and lovely to work with.

And finally, thank you very much to non-fiction publisher Tom Gilliatt. I wrote this at the end of
Hotel Kerobokan,
and it's true again –
Snowing in Bali
is unlikely to have been written without Tom's belief and enthusiasm, and the total free rein he gives me to go out and produce a book.

ABOUT KATHRYN BONELLA

Since studying journalism at RMIT in Melbourne, Kathryn Bonella has worked as a journalist in television and print. She moved to London eighteen months after graduating and spent several years freelancing for
60 Minutes
as well as numerous English and American television programs, magazines and newspapers. She returned to Australia in 2000 to work as a full-time producer for
60 Minutes
. She moved to Bali in 2005 to research and write Schapelle Corby's autobiography,
My Story
, and
Hotel Kerobokan.

www.kathrynbonella.com

Also by Kathryn Bonella

Schapelle Corby – My Story
Hotel Kerobokan

ALSO BY KATHRYN BONELLA

Hotel Kerobokan

Welcome to Hotel Kerobokan, the ironic nickname for Kerobokan Jail, Bali's most notorious prison, and home to a procession of the infamous and the tragic: the Bali Bombers, Gold Coast beautician Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine, among many others.

In Hotel Kerobokan's filthy and disease-ridden cells, a United Nations of prisoners live crushed together in misery. Petty thieves and small-time drug users share cells with killers, rapists and gangsters. Hardened drug traffickers sleep alongside unlucky tourists, who've seen their holiday turn from paradise to hell over one ecstasy tablet.

Hotel Kerobokan
reveals the wild ‘sex nights' organised by corrupt guards for prisoners who have the money, the rampant drug use, the suicides and killings, and days out at the beach. It exposes the jail's role in supplying high-grade drugs to the outside, the gang that rules through terror, the corruption that means anything is for sale, and the squalor and misery endured by prisoners.

Written by Kathryn Bonella, the co-author of Schapelle Corby's bestselling autobiography, and backed up by hundreds of prisoner interviews, the truth about Hotel Kerobokan explodes off the page.

‘With descriptions sometimes TOO shocking, it paints a vivid picture of the horrors faced by the inmates on a daily basis'

NEWS OF THE WORLD

‘. . . an insightful and sharply observed account of life inside Indonesia's most notorious prison . . . Bonella casts a cool, journalistic eye over some horrific events . . .'
SUN-HERALD

Some of the people in this book have had their names changed to protect their identities

First published 2012 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

Copyright © Kathryn Bonella 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Bonella, Kathryn.

Snowing in Bali: the incredible inside account of Bali's hidden drug world/Kathryn Bonella.

9781742611327 (pbk.)

Drug traffic—Indonesia—Bali Island.
Drug dealers—Indonesia—Bali Island.
Drug couriers—Indonesia—Bali Island.
Organized crime. Trials (Narcotic laws)—Indonesia.
Bali Island (Indonesia).

363.45059862

EPUB format: 9781743349618
Online format: 9781743349601

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover design by www.blandmine.com

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