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DARK PARADISE

I wasn't a smuggler or anything, it was personal use, but we were set up by the police and I actually watched the police pay the informant out of my wallet.

– Richard Stephens

It is not uncommon for dealers to inform police if the buyer is a foreigner, sometimes snaring a lucrative payment for the information.

– WA Today, 7 October 2011

The police took Richard to a café, gave him a cup of tea, and told him to pay $10,000, explaining in broken English, 'It will help you, you go home soon.' To communicate more easily, Richard pulled out an Indonesian phrase book, and the cop pointed to uang lebih, 'more money'.

'Oh, do you want more money?' Richard asked.

'Yeah, yeah.' Their eyes lit up.

He realised I had understood what he said, but stupid me goes, 'Nah, get fucked, I don't co-operate with the police.' I said, 'No money, you are not getting no more,' and he laughed. I wondered why he was laughing and didn't really care. And then I realised, when I got to the police station, [and] in the next days, that you can buy your way out — that we had our chance but now it had gone too far, too many people had seen us, and too many people had to be paid. So I had to go to jail. If you keep your mouth shut and pay money straight away, you can basically slip out without anyone knowing.

– Richard

Missing your chance to deal early only guaranteed the cost of the bribe would skyrocket, as more people required payment and camouflaging a deal got trickier. Richard hired a female lawyer, who did the negotiating.

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