restaurants while his couriers flew the skies. The drug boss had told Juri he needed him for an emergency run to get bribe money to save Marco from a firing squad. Juri flew from Brazil to Amsterdam to Bangkok, where he changed airlines from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to Thai Airways. It was here he got a stark warning.
A Thai customs officer saw something suspicious in his surfboard bag as it went through the X-ray machine. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, touching the top of the bag. ‘It’s plastic,’ Juri said. The officer moved his hands towards the zip. Juri had to act fast to convince him not to open it. ‘It’s just plastic, it protects my board.’ He stood watching as the officer’s hand smoothed across the top of the bag. His hand stopped at the zip . . . hovering. ‘It’s just plastic,’ Juri urged, trying to sound blasé despite his heart slamming into his chest. ‘Okay,’ the officer said, waving him on and casually shifting his attention to the next passenger’s bag. Juri grabbed the bag and walked away before letting out a huge breath. It had been an unbelievably close call. But his sense of relief was fleeting. He knew that the bag was not well-packed when he left Brazil, but he’d taken it anyway. Now that a routine X-ray scan had picked up something suspicious, his fears were confirmed. And he still had to get through Bali customs.
Throughout the Thai Airways flight to Bali, he debated whether or not he should just leave the bag at the airport. He’d lose the cocaine but keep his life. He’d smuggled drugs at least twenty times, but this was different. He was exposed by the badly packed bag. By the time the plane hit the Bali tarmac, he’d resolved to go through with it. ‘At the end I say, okay, I will try, I will keep playing. I wanted to play.’ Even the ‘Death to drug traffickers’ signs around him as he queued to buy a tourist visa failed to change his mind.
As he walked down the long corridors from the plane’s exit to immigration at Ngurah Rai Airport, customs officials were already circling. After another routine X-ray in Bali had raised suspicions, a sniffer dog confirmed the bag was piled with drugs. Customs then sent it as bait out onto the carousel to see who would pick it up. Like Michael and Vincente before him, Juri was a walking target as he entered the baggage hall and walked across to collect his bags. The surfboard bag was sitting inconspicuously on the floor among dozens of other bags. He scooped it up and walked towards the green line; nothing to declare. But this time he wasn’t so lucky.
A thorough search of the bag produced three surfboards, two swim suits, two pairs of surfing shoes, a snorkel and 29 plastic packages hidden in the inner lining of the bag. Wrapped in black carbon paper, the packages contained suspicious white powder, which a simple test confirmed as high-quality cocaine. [Juri] Angione admitted that the bag, clothes, shoes and surfboards were his, but denied any knowledge of the cocaine .
Airport authorities on the resort island of Bali arrested a 24-year-old Italian national on Wednesday afternoon for attempting to smuggle some 5.26 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about Rp 4.5 billion [$600,000] into Indonesia .
– Jakarta Post , 4 December 2003
The prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Juri, as they’d done with Vincente and Michael. But the Bali court sentenced him to life in jail. Juri’s fellow drug trafficker, the Brazilian, Marco, lost his appeal against the death sentence and was sent to a maximum-security prison on Nusakambangan Island to await his execution.
Why didn’t you listen to the warning in Bangkok?
Juri: On plane from Bangkok to Bali I was thinking do I get the bag or I leave the bag in airport? I was thinking that. I was expecting I might get caught. But I was thinking no, I don’t want to lose that stuff, what a waste all this stuff. At the end I say okay, I will try, I will keep playing. I
A Thai customs officer saw something suspicious in his surfboard bag as it went through the X-ray machine. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, touching the top of the bag. ‘It’s plastic,’ Juri said. The officer moved his hands towards the zip. Juri had to act fast to convince him not to open it. ‘It’s just plastic, it protects my board.’ He stood watching as the officer’s hand smoothed across the top of the bag. His hand stopped at the zip . . . hovering. ‘It’s just plastic,’ Juri urged, trying to sound blasé despite his heart slamming into his chest. ‘Okay,’ the officer said, waving him on and casually shifting his attention to the next passenger’s bag. Juri grabbed the bag and walked away before letting out a huge breath. It had been an unbelievably close call. But his sense of relief was fleeting. He knew that the bag was not well-packed when he left Brazil, but he’d taken it anyway. Now that a routine X-ray scan had picked up something suspicious, his fears were confirmed. And he still had to get through Bali customs.
Throughout the Thai Airways flight to Bali, he debated whether or not he should just leave the bag at the airport. He’d lose the cocaine but keep his life. He’d smuggled drugs at least twenty times, but this was different. He was exposed by the badly packed bag. By the time the plane hit the Bali tarmac, he’d resolved to go through with it. ‘At the end I say, okay, I will try, I will keep playing. I wanted to play.’ Even the ‘Death to drug traffickers’ signs around him as he queued to buy a tourist visa failed to change his mind.
As he walked down the long corridors from the plane’s exit to immigration at Ngurah Rai Airport, customs officials were already circling. After another routine X-ray in Bali had raised suspicions, a sniffer dog confirmed the bag was piled with drugs. Customs then sent it as bait out onto the carousel to see who would pick it up. Like Michael and Vincente before him, Juri was a walking target as he entered the baggage hall and walked across to collect his bags. The surfboard bag was sitting inconspicuously on the floor among dozens of other bags. He scooped it up and walked towards the green line; nothing to declare. But this time he wasn’t so lucky.
A thorough search of the bag produced three surfboards, two swim suits, two pairs of surfing shoes, a snorkel and 29 plastic packages hidden in the inner lining of the bag. Wrapped in black carbon paper, the packages contained suspicious white powder, which a simple test confirmed as high-quality cocaine. [Juri] Angione admitted that the bag, clothes, shoes and surfboards were his, but denied any knowledge of the cocaine .
Airport authorities on the resort island of Bali arrested a 24-year-old Italian national on Wednesday afternoon for attempting to smuggle some 5.26 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of about Rp 4.5 billion [$600,000] into Indonesia .
– Jakarta Post , 4 December 2003
The prosecutors asked for the death penalty for Juri, as they’d done with Vincente and Michael. But the Bali court sentenced him to life in jail. Juri’s fellow drug trafficker, the Brazilian, Marco, lost his appeal against the death sentence and was sent to a maximum-security prison on Nusakambangan Island to await his execution.
Why didn’t you listen to the warning in Bangkok?
Juri: On plane from Bangkok to Bali I was thinking do I get the bag or I leave the bag in airport? I was thinking that. I was expecting I might get caught. But I was thinking no, I don’t want to lose that stuff, what a waste all this stuff. At the end I say okay, I will try, I will keep playing. I
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