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CHAPTER FIVE
M3, THE SUNSET
CAR WASH

Many people in Peru dream about getting a job like that – to come to Bali, get $10,000.

– Rafael

Bali’s M3 Car Wash Café in Sunset Road was set in a unique building, prominent on the four-lane highway that stretched along the spine of Kuta, Legian and Seminyak. It was a concrete shed the size of a soccer pitch. Its unusual aesthetics stood out even among the oddly eclectic architecture in Bali, with round holes cut into a metal façade. Drug dealers, musicians, politicians and journalists all came to sports nights there; stories were written about the refined water M3 used to wash luxury cars, but never the fact that M3 was a giant money laundry. Its owner, nicknamed Chino from his Chinese heritage, was Bali’s biggest drug boss, and regarded as the island’s Chinese mafioso.

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