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LEMON JUICE KING

I've been playing narcotics in Brazil for a long time. My friend Beto put me in this business when I was a little boy. He pushed me to get cocaine, not for business - he's a user. He would bring me to the bottom of the favela, stop the car far away, and say, 'Go.' Then I walk up 20 minutes, all the way to the top of the mountain with my schoolbag, past 20 dangerous policemen with guns. At the top they call . . . 'Little boy, what you want? Black or white?' Black is marijuana, white is cocaine. 'I want white.' 'Ooh, good boy.' I say, 'I like cocaine.' Bullshit. I never used the cocaine. I was a little boy, I was a child. I go up with my lunchbox and come down with a stack of cocaine for my friend.

– Marco

It wasn't long before Marco was doing much more than filling up his lunchbox. Starting to hang-glide at just 14 years, he quickly realised a natural talent. By 16 years he was competing internationally, with his first overseas trip to Bogotá, Colombia, Pablo Escobar's turf. Marco won and flew home with a gold trophy in his hands and white snow in his pants.

Beto told me, 'Marco, take this.' So I arrive back in Brazil with seven hang-gliding pilots, a trophy and 100 grams of cocaine in my underwear. Nobody checked anything.

– Marco

To Marco it was the perfect set-up; trafficking drugs gave him the means to fly, and flying gave him the means to traffic. It catapulted him into a playboy lifestyle. On his second overseas trip to America, at 17, his career of commercial trafficking began.