Snowing in Bali (7 page)

Rafael was fuming as he stormed out of M3 with two of Chino's meanest-looking soldiers. They were hard-faced thugs, with hulked up, tattooed bodies, who could scare the living daylights out of someone by just showing up.

As soon as Dimitrius unwittingly opened the door, Rafael burst into his house shouting, ‘Why are you doing this to me, motherfucker? Why are you playing behind my back?'

The Greek shot back, ‘What are you doing, Rafael? You can't just come in here.'

It was a mistake. One of the thugs cracked him hard on the back of the skull. The Greek's legs buckled. The thug lifted his shirt to flash Dimitrius a glimpse of his pistol. Rafael's eyes blazed as he looked at the Greek, ‘Take your glasses off and look in my eyes. Tell me the truth. Did you put any coke in Bali this week?' Chino's two attack dogs were champing at the bit, waiting for a chance to tear him apart.

The Greek was now a fawning mess. ‘Sorry, sorry. Please don't kill me. It was not my project, was my friend's.'

Now it was conclusive. Rafael wasn't interested in pathetic excuses.

‘I don't give a shit, my friend; now you are going to pay. You come here, you sell on the island, you think you are the boss. Now the big boss wants to kill me. He thinks I put the shit here behind his back. Now you must come and explain yourself to my boss.'

The Greek fell to his knees sobbing. ‘I'm not going anywhere; are you gonna kill me?'

Rafael felt like punching him, but right now this guy was too pathetic to hit, with his hands in prayer position, on his knees, pleading for his life. ‘Maybe, depends what you say. If you still have some cocaine, you must give it to us now. I'm supposed to take everything you have and kill you, but I want to just buy what you have, then you have one week to go, otherwise, these are Chino's words, “We gonna fuck him very bad.” I believe it's better you leave the island.'

He was pissing his pants, like a chicken, he was so nervous, he was such a puss.

– Rafael

The Greek quickly confessed to having half a kilo of blow still stashed in a safety deposit box up the road in Legian. He offered to get it later, when it got dark.

‘No, now,' Rafael shouted. ‘If I come back to Chino's office without the coke, without you, I'm gonna get trouble, so it's better your mother cry than mine. Let's go.'

Dimitrius asked if he could first change out of his wet board shorts. Rafael agreed, trailing him to the bedroom to ensure he didn't try a stunt, like leaping out a window. The thugs came too.

‘Only you come,' Dimitrius said to Rafael, creating instant suspicion.

‘Why, you have something up there?' Rafael asked, turning to Chino's thugs and ordering, ‘Come.' They tore apart the bedroom as the Greek stood in the corner, changing his pants, but found nothing. They jumped on their bikes and rode to the safety deposit boxes, where Dimitrius handed Rafael the half a kilo of coke.

Calmer now that he had sorted this out, Rafael said to his ex-friend, ‘You have one week to get out of Bali, my friend.'

The Greek quickly acquiesced. ‘Okay, I will fix my ticket. I don't want a problem with you, Rafael.'

‘Okay, if you come here again, call me first, we're gonna pay you the same price, but you can't come here and put your stuff in the street. You think you're Al Pacino, Scarface? Well, you're not.'

We pay him only $10,000 for the coke; was good stuff. We kick him out from the island. And everything was okay.

– Rafael

Several months later, the Greek returned to Bali, often working in a separate clique to Rafael with Italian dealer Carlino. But they didn't conflict with Rafael or Chino, as they sent the coke to Australia on Carlino's luxury catamaran, or sold to inter­national buyers in Bali, but never in the streets. Soon, all of them, including Rafael, would be investors in an audaciously big run that turned deadly for one of their mutual friends.

Rafael was getting so busy he was tossing money into other people's runs, including Marco's Lemon Juice, like a big gambler slinging handfuls of chips onto numbers on the roulette table. Lots of people were investing. Chino had people putting up a million dollars for a container load of drugs, doubling their money in days. The odds were gigantic, and the risk minimal if you knew the secrets of the game.

Chino was a calculated gambler and knew Rafael was trustworthy and smart, so he started investing in his runs, rather than just buying on arrival. Some weeks, they were bringing up to 20 kilos to Bali, using two or three horses on different flights. They were also able to traffic big amounts using Rafael's creative new method of packing the coke into windsurfer booms.

Rafael had pioneered the boom method, after surfboard bags became overused. Always wanting to be a step ahead, and have new options, he'd spent weeks studying sports equipment, pondering what to try next. The first boom he packed was the trickiest. He bought the equipment, then set to work in a beach bungalow with Poca. It took them two full days of figuring it out to ensure it was be X-ray-proof.

It was a complex job to make the coke invisible. First they put it in a blender to make it baby-powder fine, obliterating any rocks, then they used a funnel to fill the boom. Finally, they used a tailor-made metal rod, with a coin welded to its end, to pound the coke down hard into the aluminium tube to compact and cement it, and eliminate any air bubbles. This first time, their technique was imperfect – they lost 2 per cent of the coke, as the fine dust blew all over the room, covering them.

I start punching the coke . . . suddenly, poof, the coke shoots out from the tube like a bullet from compression of air; we get coke in the eyes, in the face, and that shit comes in my mouth, on my skin, I start to feel itchy. It mixes with your circulation when you sweat and goes in your pores, makes you high; I was like, ‘Man, I don't feel good,' – breathing in all the powder, feeling dizzy, hallucinating from the dust, I start to see two people when I look at Poca . . . I say, ‘Let's stop this shit, let's go to the beach, close up and come back here tomorrow.'

Fuck, it was a big job. That night my body was so tired, pain in my muscles, my hands full of bubbles, I can't sleep; I was totally fucked.

– Rafael

The next morning, a fine mist of snow had settled on the room, covering everything, and they quickly got high again. But they finished the job, sent the boom with its invisible kilo to Malaysia, made $65,000 and, most importantly, had a new winning method. The pair flew to Peru to teach their packers there how to do it, under strict orders to keep it secret.

Obviously, there were no patents in the drug business, and before long horses would talk, booms would get busted, and other traffickers would become aware of the method, but for the time being it belonged exclusively to Rafael and Poca.

Chino knew of the new method, but he left those details up to Rafael. For Chino, being an investor with Rafael from the get-go meant an extra leg of risk, but he got a low price and it also ensured he knew when and how much blow was coming to the island.

But it wasn't always a win. Chino and Rafael were involved in a run by two attractive Mexicans, Clara Gautrin, 32, and Vincente Garcia, 29, who came into Denpasar posing as lovers, but with an audacious 15.2 kilos of cocaine in their surfboard bag. As Vincente picked up the bag from the carousel, it was already being watched by Bali customs officers. They'd been faxed a tip from Vincente's ex-drug boss in Mexico, as revenge for being cut out of the loop.

Prosecutors asked for death for Vincente; the second drug trafficker in Bali to face possible execution. But the right palms were greased. Clara got seven years and Vincente got life, with a wink that if he kept quiet he'd get out in years. It had been impossible for the judiciary to give a lesser result without the risk of exposing the bribe, as a French trafficker had just been sentenced to life for carrying a lot less.

Michael Blanc got busted at Denpasar Airport with 3.8 kilos of hashish in his dive tanks. He could have cut a deal, but didn't. His mother Helene had been told a payment of between $330,000 and $420,000 could buy her son a 15-year sentence. But she refused, believing her son was innocent, and threw away the only strategy that had a chance of working.

Clara and Vincente were both sent to Kerobokan Prison, in the heart of Bali's tourist area. By chance, Chino's twin brother Toto, an addict, was also soon busted for using drugs. Doing a few months in Kerobokan meant he could easily be the liaison between the Mexicans and his brother. Chino organised private cells for them, and visiting time together. In the less strict men's block, Vincente got a 26-inch LCD television mounted on the wall, internet and a pump for hot and cold running water – making his cell more luxurious than most Balinese homes.

Vincente became a fitness fanatic and kept a low profile as advised, quickly becoming regarded by other inmates as aloof and arrogant. It was all part of the strategy to one day slip out and go home unnoticed.

Outside, Chino was busy juggling his businesses, and delegating to those he could trust. When he invested in Rafael's runs, he handed over the cash as well as the reins. Rafael by now had his business streamlined – with packing crews in place in Brazil and Peru – so he could call the shots from strategically chosen public phone boxes in Bali.

Things were becoming more easy . . . I just call, organise, transfer the money through Western Union, and in Peru and Brazil they pack the bag, send the horse and I pick up here.

– Rafael

But it was always a gamble and a horse could crash from the slightest slip. One of his best horses, who'd done 11 runs, got busted on his twelfth. He was flying out of Buenos Aires with 5 kilos of coke in windsurfer booms. The guy was smart, cool and unflappable. On his past three runs, he'd used the tactic of driving from South Brazil to Buenos Aires, as Argentina's airports were slightly easier to penetrate. This time, an X-ray took him down. Rafael's packers had failed. He paid them a hefty $10,000 fee per bag, as the job was dangerous and vital. But they'd failed to fill the booms completely with cocaine, and plugged the ends with fabric. The X-ray showed different colours, creating suspicion. It was an expensive mistake.

Rafael waited for the guy, but he simply didn't turn up. It was always a risk that a horse would either do a runner, or get busted, which was why Rafael felt an adrenalin rush every single time a horse emerged from the airport doors into the Bali sun. Almost always he went to the airport, either to pick up the horse or to spy on them, shadowing their taxi to the Bali Subak Hotel, to ensure they didn't flee or have a police tail.

Once Rafael picked up the coke from the horse, he'd meet Chino at a small beachfront hotel in Nusa Dua. Chino always turned up in a bland chauffeur-driven Toyota Avanza, non­descript on the outside, with a spruced up red leather interior, never using his attention-attracting sports cars. His soldiers would park jet-skis on the beach so, if necessary, he could sprint across the sand and be in the water in seconds. Safety was his priority and so far his scrupulous attention to detail had kept him out of jail. He always insisted Rafael come alone. Their meetings were quick; he'd efficiently test and weigh the coke, then go.

Chino has soldiers everywhere, local people working for him. They make into small quantities and sell gram by gram in the street.

High quality cocaine?

Oh, but they mix, they do all the shit.

At the clubs?

Yeah, I think they sell in Double Six. At the door of the toilet the guys say, ‘Coke, coke, ecstasy?'

And Chino sends it overseas?

He has good connection; he sends it to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia. His main goal was to send it to Australia because it's the best money.

– Rafael

After Chino had left the hotel with the coke, Rafael would clean up the evidence, often giving the black plastic wrapping to one of his friends. They would use a knife to scrape off the oily remains stuck to the plastic. ‘My friends were so happy, they could sometimes take 5 grams because the plastic grabs a lot of coke.'

Other times, he'd just burn it. On his way home, he'd buy a litre of petrol in a glass bottle from one of the infinite shanty-style shops along the roads selling to local motorcyclists. He'd ride to the beach or a rice paddy, throw all the plastic bags and evidence down, douse in petrol, flick a match and burn the lot. When the coke was carried in a surfboard bag, he'd get rid of the plastic and wash the bag, simply dunking it in his swimming pool or getting the maid to wash it in the shower, making it safe to re-use: ‘The water takes all the coke, kills the coke.'

Rafael's deal with Chino was to get half his cash the following day and the rest a couple of weeks later. It was delivered in the same spot, same way. One of Chino's men would ring, saying, ‘Meet me at the petrol station near the Bali Deli, 10 pm.' That night they'd arrive on motorbikes. Chino's guy would give Rafael a plastic shopping bag, often with about $50,000 in it and a sarong loosely tossed on top. It would be a quick, no chitchat exchange. Rafael would then take the bag home, adding it to the copious stash in his safe or wardrobe.

Ostensibly, Rafael was exclusive with Chino, but covertly he broke the rules, operating his own pyramid of sellers – such as Brazilian Ruggiero, or several French, Italian and Australian people, who sold small packets to western customers. Selling gram by gram was riskier, as it required dealing with more people, but the prices were high. It meant that even in times when it was snowing, or a Peruvian was undercutting, Rafael could still easily make $50,000 a kilo by getting his guys to sell grams, mostly to rich expats on the island – professionals, business people, doctors and lawyers – delivering to their villas, luxury homes or sometimes their restaurants. These people often paid $150 to $200 a gram.

Rafael also sold kilos to international buyers, but only if Chino wasn't aware of the coke arriving. Rafael felt this was fair, as Chino was sometimes fully stocked and told him to wait because he'd bought cheaply from a Peruvian.