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and show the young horses how it was done. This time he was carrying an audacious 13.7 kilos. He’d just picked it up in Lima, Peru, and taken a boat to the city of Iquitos, where he switched boats and was now spending three days and nights cruising towards the triple border of Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

I went by river from Peru all the way to my grandmother’s house in the Amazon. Beautiful trip . . . you must do it. Nice boatman, restaurant, air-conditioner, like a house in the river. More than 200 tourists, all had backpacks. At night we sleep on hammocks like you’re in a tree. I arrive in Manaus [Brazil], nobody checks anything, and I go to my grandmother’s house.

With nearly 14 kilos of coke?

Yeah, in Peru I had more than 100 kilos. In Peru, cocaine is like Coca-Cola.

– Marco

After saying goodbye to his 92-year-old grandmother, he set off from Brazil to Bali, confident of breezing across the globe like all the other times. En route he flew to Amsterdam, where he casually flouted a basic rule, calling friends in Bali and giving his arrival day on a mobile phone. It was potential suicide. Andre took one of the calls.

He says, ‘Hey Andre, it’s Marco. I’m the man; tomorrow I arrive in Bali – big goal, big money. Let’s go to the club tomorrow when I arrive.’ I say, ‘Don’t talk bullshit in the phone, motherfucker. In 20 years, don’t you learn anything? Please, don’t talk like this. Come safe.’ You never talk about the day the shit is coming.

– Andre

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