This day, exhilarated after their wild dash out, they were ready to talk tactics, and figure out the best way of using Chino’s Porsche to traffic a few kilos of blow to Australia. His car had just won a tuning competition in Jakarta and was being sent to a motor show in Sydney. This was a slam-dunk for a creative drug trafficker – a waste not to use it. Rafael’s creative brain lit up with ideas. Undulating on their jet-skis, they agreed the best strategy was to fill the Porsche’s spoiler with coke and cover it in resin, ensuring it would emit no smell.
It worked without a hitch. Chino flew to Sydney with his team and a spare spoiler and simply switched them, selling the 3 kilos of coke to one of his many connections and earning a quick $450,000.
Known as the world’s multi-billion-dollar glamour drug, coke’s array of euphemisms included snow, blow, Charlie, white dust and nose candy. Given the many borders it had to cross to get to Sydney, prices often skyrocketed to $250,000 a kilo. And using the police method for working out the value of a bust to trumpet it to the press, Chino’s 3 kilos in Sydney would be worth well over a million dollars in ‘street value’ – assuming each gram sold for about $350 and the 3 kilos would be cut and mixed into 6 kilos.
Chino was au fait with Sydney, given it was a drug bosses’ mecca on his doorstep, and often spent months at a time there, slinging cash to an Australian consulate official to give him visas in his rotating false passports. He set up an ecstasy factory in Sydney’s beachside suburb of Maroubra so he could feed the voracious Australian market without crossing international borders. An Australian car wash café chain gave him the inspiration for his Bali car wash.
Chino’s life in drugs started in Bali in the early 1990s when he was invited by a friend to join a rock band. He was in his early twenties and moved from Java to Bali, making $15 a night playing keyboards to tourists in pubs and private clubs. He played alongside guitarist Manto and bassist Putu Indrawan, once both stars in the Bali band, Harley Angel, critiqued by the Jakarta Post as ‘arguably the best rock band Bali has ever produced’. The guys covered songs by bands like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Chino’s favourite was Pink Floyd’s ‘Comfortably Numb’ – an omen, perhaps, for a state he’d one day need to get used to.
His life seemed as simple as his signature clothes – a baseball cap, sunglasses, sandals, T-shirt and Capri pants – but at this point Chino was sizzling with ambition. He bought a two-door Honda Civic, rented a house in Kuta, and started a T-shirt business, while covertly moving into ecstasy. When the band split after two years, they lost touch until one day, many years later, Chino rocked up at bassist Putu’s unsophisticated family restaurant in a back street of Denpasar in a shiny new green Porsche.
One day he came to my warung [restaurant] by Porsche and told me, ‘I’m rich now.’ ‘What?’ ‘Yes, I’m rich.’ I hadn’t seen him for a long time, and suddenly he comes here with a fancy car and I’m wondering, ‘Why are you rich now?’
Did you ask him?
Yes. He just smiles, so I didn’t ask deeper. I was just happy to have a rich friend who still remembers me.
But were you surprised?
Yeah, very, very surprised. Basically, I didn’t know for a long time why this guy was rich.
– Putu
Despite the new Porsche, Putu noticed Chino still wore the same simple clothes; the only subtle difference was his sandals were now Louis Vuitton.
Chino invited Putu to bring in his car for a wash at M3. Putu drove a 1977 Toyota Hilux, so he declined, but he did accept invitations to lunch at the M3 café, where Chino would slip him 400 or 500 thousand rupiah [$40 or $50] from his wallet – for most Balinese, about half their monthly salary.
For me he’s Robin Hood but for other people he is evil, and I don’t care.
Why?
It’s his own business, not my business.
– Putu
He also invited Putu to the grand opening party of M3, held months after it was operating. People from many walks of Chino’s life turned up that night, from musicians and local journalists to drug dealers, including Rafael. If the journalists were aware M3 was a giant laundry, they didn’t write it. There were many nights when Chino threw open the doors for parties. The glassed-off café would come alive with music, sometimes with ex–band members Putu and Manto jamming, or large screens erected to broadcast international sports events, while kids, including his own son, played video games.
The drug boss had created a grand Bali life, with status, close ties to politicians and cops, real estate and ritzy toys. He owned a large property on the river in the heart of Legian, with a house, swimming pool and huge parking area for his favourite toys – a fleet of prestige cars and motorbikes. The jet-ski rental business comprised a pier and racks on the sand to stack his 20 machines. He was also building a go-kart racetrack, and dreamt of one day hosting the world go-kart championships in Bali.
To stay safe, Chino flew high on the radar with his legitimate businesses, or laundries, but was able to use his smarts, connections and cash to switch any radar off the true source of his immense wealth. There was no better place for the slinging of bribes than Bali and Chino had a number of police on his payroll, with local papers reporting he was ‘a close friend of some high-rank government officials’. Police officers working for him would sometimes even pass over envelopes filled with cash to the island’s drug dealers.
Sometimes I go to Chino’s place, M3, to receive $10,000, or $20,000, and the cop, in uniform, full uniform, gives me the money, says, ‘Hey, Andre, Chino left this money for you.’ ‘Oh, thanks for this.’ I would never talk to him about drugs, and he never asked, but for sure the cop knew it’s cash for drugs, because he was working for the big boss of cocaine in Bali and moving money for him. The police work for good money to give Chino protection. In a police job in Bali, how much do they get? Two million per month [$200]. Chino pays $2000 per month for the guy just to stay inside and not let the other cops in. Chino is the big boss who works directly with the police.
– Andre
Chino was slightly short, slightly plump, with a round happy face and swollen lips. With his easy laugh, intelligence and quiet nature, he was the sort of person most people liked. To him, what he was doing to make his millions was illegal, but not sinister. It was business. He did it professionally, selling the best quality drugs to voracious markets. He worked hard, making himself and others filthy rich, especially anyone who could help slip drugs past the Australian borders.
Just being a conduit to a pliable customs officer at any Australian sea or air border could turn someone into an overnight millionaire. Corrupt customs officials quickly became obscenely rich. Chino used strategies to ensure they kept their jobs by sporadically ‘throwing a load’. Once Chino had a border contact, it was vital to keep him in that position and ensure he didn’t incur suspicion for never busting a load. So Chino would send a container especially to bust. To make it look even more legit and successful, he’d sometimes pay someone to do a bit of jail time. Chino could then keep using his guy to clear his drugs. This was a trick used by big drug traffickers across the globe.
For Rafael, working with Chino made things quick, easy and safe. He could just sell the bulk of his coke to someone he liked and trusted; they were friends now, but it was the business that bonded them. The deal was that any coke Rafael got, he’d sell to Chino so that he could try to have some control over Bali’s cocaine market, to augment his booming ecstasy business, renowned for its world-class pills.
My pills are the best in the world.
– Chino
The deal suited Rafael, despite riling the other Indonesian buyers, who were being overshadowed by Chino.
It was hard because they knew each other. They got jealous. It was a buyers’ war. They say, ‘Why are you selling to him and not to me?’
But Chino wanted to control, he had big eyes. He says, ‘You are going to work with me; you cannot sell to Nanang or anybody, only to me. Come to me with e
verything you bring. Anything that comes from your friends, I want to buy. Just bring it to me and I will give you commission. You don’t need to take any risk.’
And I say, ‘Okay.’
– Rafael
Chino knew about most of the big loads of coke coming to Bali, with his men instructed to keep an ear to the ground. If he got news it was suddenly snowing and one of Rafael’s guys had smuggled it in, he’d get his right-hand man, Bejo, a tall, skinny Indonesian, to go to Rafael’s house, collect him and bring him to M3 to explain.
Bejo is a danger guy, fucking danger guy.
Why?
He was in the jail here, Kerobokan, two or three times. He’s from Laskar Bali; now he has the biggest security company here, for banks, and this guy always has guns. He’s a scary guy.
And he still works for Laskar?
Yeah.
– Andre
Sometimes I was in my house, doing nothing, and then Bejo comes. ‘Rafael, Chino wants to talk to you.’ ‘About what?’ ‘I don’t know.’ I say, ‘Okay, let’s go.’ Then we go and Chino says, ‘Do you know that some coke has come in the island?’ ‘No.’ ‘Well, my people know, somebody is selling coke here. Find out who this guy is. I hear it is Brazilian.’ Sometimes it was French, or Italians, but Chino’s soldiers knew when the shit started selling in the street. He says, ‘Rafael, find this motherfucker, let’s fuck him.’ I say, ‘We don’t need to do anything, they are going to fuck themselves.’ It’s funny, because sometimes people come, they don’t even speak English, they don’t have any connections, they just hear it’s good to bring coke to Bali, and they bring it. They try to do it themselves. It’s hard, you have to have connections to sell 1 kilo. Whoa, if you try to sell coke in the street, gram by gram, it’s very dangerous.
They fuck up. Or they cannot sell, and they start using it, getting crazy, and in the end they come to me, ‘Please, Rafael, help me to sell the shit.’ I say, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before, did you sell to someone else?’ Because I worry about getting a problem with Chino.
– Rafael
Usually, Rafael and Chino would work it out amicably, but sometimes Chino’s temper blew, revealing his cold-blooded side.
Bejo and three Indonesian gorillas came to my house with guns. Chino ordered them, ‘Go to Rafael’s house, ask him what the fuck he’s doing, why didn’t he sell the shit to me?’ But the shit was not mine.
Bejo says, ‘Let’s go to Chino to talk to him.’
I say, ‘No problem, I can talk to him anytime, but why are the fucking guys here with guns near my family, my kids?’ I got very pissed off.
– Rafael
At M3, Chino was waiting and angrily flipped a table as Rafael walked in. ‘You wanna fuck with me?’ he yelled.
‘Man, this shit isn’t mine. I don’t have anything to hide. If you want to play hard, I can find out who put it here, then fuck him very bad, teach him to not fuck you.’
I find out it is this guy, fucking Dimitrius the Greek, who brings and sells it here. He put my name in the fire. Somebody maybe asks him, ‘Who brings this stuff?’ and he says, ‘Rafael’. He knows I am the guy, so why does he try to do this behind my back? He was going to get the same price with me, and I make a commission too.
I come back to Chino and say, ‘This is the guy. What are you going to do?’
‘Let’s fuck him.’
I say, ‘Beat him, put him out of the island, let’s take action.’
Chino tells me, ‘Okay, take two guys and give him some shit.’
– Rafael
Rafael was friends with the Greek, who used to do frequent Lemon Juice runs for Marco, and had even asked Rafael about doing coke runs. He was smart and hung out with the crew at the club and their other usual haunts. But now he was starting to invest, and keen to be a boss. Rafael had introduced him to many of his Bali contacts, which made his betrayal even more bitter.
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.’