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THE HORSE WHISPERER

You get one lifestyle, really high, you know. Going to the airport and taking a flight is as normal as taking a bus.

Andre also sometimes got his horses to bring cash back – up to €300,000, in €500 notes, hidden in secret compartments in their suitcases. 'If the police in Brazil catch you with €200,000, they either kill you or steal your money. The big risk is in Brazil.'

The risk in Europe was having the cash confiscated, as Andre found out one day. Flying out of Holland with €100,000, he was searched. Customs found two packets of €500 bills stashed in a pouch in his underpants. They took the cash, made him sign a document in Dutch, and then let him fly back to Brazil. He immediately called a lawyer, who knew a sponk lawyer in Amsterdam, who worked exclusively for drug traffickers.

This guy ask me, 'How much money?' €100,000.' 'You sign something?' 'Yes.' 'It was Dutch?' 'Yes.' 'You understand Dutch?' 'No.' 'Okay, you can get your money back.' This sponk gets the money and sends it to my lawyer in Brazil. I pay 20 per cent for the two lawyers; I lost €20,000, but better than losing it all.

And only because they made you sign something you couldn't understand?

Yeah. In Holland they are really, really precise with the law.

Andre had invested his megabucks into the businesses only after his father died, using the excuse of an inheritance for suddenly being flush with cash.

When my father passed away, for me it was the big launder for the society. My father was not a rich man, but he had something. I tell my

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