📸 Photo

SNOWING IN BALI

It was all fully based on trust. That was the quickest deal I’ve done in my life. And I think that was one of the safest ways I’ve ever done business. Nobody would ever suspect a drug deal took place; just greet each other, swap backpacks, not open them, shake hands and go.

I went home, counted all the money, perfect, everything beautiful, like not even $100 short. Was like real gentleman business.

So did you meet him again after that?

Many times, we did a lot of business after that.

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Alberto was often doing one or two big deals a week, as well as selling to friends or expats by the gram for a high rate. One customer was a big-wave surfer, Gabriel, from LA; another was a famous Australian surf photographer who died, ostensibly from a spider bite, the day after buying some pure Peruvian cocaine from Alberto.

I was with him the day before and he wanted to buy coke, and I scored the coke for him. And the next day I found out he was found dead, and I would say he OD’d – that’s what I would think.

Alberto and the other playboys often heard of people overdosing in Bali. Alberto had come perilously close himself when on his birthday his friend put a full gram on a plate in the letter A for Alberto, and he snorted it in one go.

I can’t believe I didn’t OD at that time. I did it all in one go. Bang. That could kill me. It was pure Peruvian flake, the best quality cocaine... I could have OD’d there and then. I’m so lucky that I had such a high