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SNOWING IN BALI

He came to see me right before I got my sentence and he says, 'Listen, there's a problem.' I said, 'You promised me six months.' He says, 'They don't want the money anymore and they're even considering asking for a life sentence.' I said, 'What? Sorry, can you repeat that?' He said, 'Life.' I felt the earth shake.

– Ruggiero

Ruggiero got 11 years – drastic compared to others like Englishman Steve Turner serving three years for 8000 ecstasy tablets, and Alberto's and Frederico's two-year sentences.

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Soon after, Ruggiero's customer, American big-wave surfer Gabriel, joined them in Kerobokan Prison. As part of the party set, he'd watched his friends get busted. 'That's why I was so blown away, I'd been witnessing this shit first-hand.' He'd followed the waves from Hawaii to Tahiti, Bali and Australia, where he once had a fiancée. But for the last year and a half he'd settled in Bali, planning to start a surfboard storage business with his brother. He'd been hanging out with Marco in the days before his last fatal trip and saw Ruggiero, Alberto and Frederico all fall, like this was some kind of bad movie.

Marco was another one of these Scarface guys – he got some kind of notoriety and glamour out of it. It was an image I didn't agree with. Marco is a really good, great guy, but he still had that same stupid mentality – they can't touch me – and these guys were running around like Tony Montana.

– Gabriel

One afternoon, leaving his luxury rented villa, close to Kerobokan jail, and about to climb on his bike, three men approached saying

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