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SNOWING IN BALI

time in Bali and it was the early 1990s, so things were very basic, with few hotels, and stinking open drains flanking the sides of roads. Andre checked into a room, grabbed his board and hit the beach.

Within days he was connected to the island’s Peruvian players, who were pioneering the coke scene, easily paying for a life of surfing and partying by bringing blow from their backyard. Andre’s LSD didn’t sell, but he quickly learnt coke was the drug to play.

I saw these Peruvian guys in Bali, really rich: Poca, Mario, Borrador and Jerome. Big hotels, the best cars, big, big boats, they live like kings. This opened my eyes, this got me interested in smuggling to Bali. These guys introduced me to the buyers of cocaine, to boats, the best waves, many girls, cars, everything. I came here for one month, stayed three months, and went back with my mind really, really running: ‘Wow, that place was amazing.’ Perfect for me, first because I met the Peruvian guys, and because it felt like paradise. The most friendly people, always smiling. If you have money in Bali, you live like a king. And I started bringing here.

Andre did three coke runs to Bali, stashing one or two kilos into the speakers of a sound system. The first time he sold to Chino and made $40,000, he was hooked. But he was savvy, with the opinion that, if you’re smart, you become an investor or boss, avoiding the risk of carrying. He was quickly using a stable of horses to move coke from Brazil to Bali and Amsterdam. And, with his tactic of turning horses around in Amsterdam, repacked with ecstasy and marijuana, his business exploded. Suddenly, the world was his playground . . . just the way he’d pictured it.

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