📸 Photo

SNOWING IN BALI

they had failed to stop a 42-year-old man with a limp. It was an international story and excruciatingly embarrassing; the Indonesians had lost face. This could cost jobs and now it was personal. They wanted Marco nailed, especially after they'd cut open the hang-glider tubes and found 13.7 kilos of blow. They were hunting with unprecedented force for a drug trafficker.

The customs and excise officers have closed down access to all airports and seaports in the country in an effort to find Moreira, who is still at large. Head of customs and excise at Soekarno-Hatta airport, Jusuf Indarto, said that Moreira was not only a courier, but that he was part of an international drug syndicate. ‘He’s a Brazilian athlete,’ he said, showing Moreira’s picture in a Brazilian newspaper.

– Jakarta Post, 6 August 2003

Eluding police would have been a lot easier if Marco hadn’t left his professional book behind. It gave them hundreds of pictures of himself and his friends, and the cops were hotly pursuing the photographic trail, raiding all his haunts – the club, Bali Village, his friends’ villas – and interrogating people, making the Kate Osborne search two months earlier look like a picnic.

After three days in the hotel, Carlino told Marco it was time to move. ‘Marco, it’s very hot here, you have to go. Police have photos everywhere.’ They decided to stock Carlino’s luxury catamaran with food so Marco could sail to Brazil.

But Carlino, motherfucker, he doesn’t want to give up the boat. I’m ready to sail from Indonesia to Brazil and he changes his mind. I say, ‘Brother, don’t forget me – I have a death sentence, man.’ But he didn’t