Bali 9: The Untold Story (11 page)

T
o Michael Czugaj, it must have almost seemed too good to be true. An all-expenses-paid eight-day vacation in one of the world’s best holiday spots. For any nineteen-year-old, it would be an exciting adventure. But to the nineteen-year-old Queensland glazier with no international air miles notched up, it would have been almost unbelievable: the white-water rafting and surfing, swimming and jet-ski riding; the busy sidewalks packed with good deals; the nightlife that gives Kuta a buzz from dusk to dawn, and then the loud, chaotic din of city living that revolves around making tourists feel special. And the beer—really cheap beer. Bali’s diversity has always been its drawcard—it offers everything for everyone. And that’s how it must have seemed for the Oxley teenager, who was in a Brisbane nightclub one week
and on the holiday to Bali the next.

On the day Czugaj arrived in Bali on board an Australian Airlines flight with his Brisbane mate Scott Rush, one Australian dollar converted to about 7500 Indonesian rupiah—one can only imagine how many beers that exchange rate allowed. And the good deals didn’t stop at the bar: a seafood barbecue meal, the likes of which Czugaj might never have tried back home, could cost as little as $10, and a plate of
nasi goreng
(fried rice) or
mie goreng
(fried noodles), a staple for the locals, only cost a few dollars, if that.

In comparison, a night out in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley could cost Czugaj or Rush more than $100 by the time they paid for parking, nightclub entry, a bite to eat and a few rounds of drinks. But here that kind of money could keep you going for night after night. People flocked to have dinner at one of the hundreds of cheap-as-chips restaurants. The low-budget accommodation, which looked pretty upmarket to the Brisbane boys, seemed to attract hundreds of Australians just like them. They didn’t care for the ritzy joints along the beach, but those places were filled with Westerners too, all helped by the lucrative exchange rate.

However, this holiday was going to be lucrative in another way, even if Michael Czugaj didn’t really understand all the consequences of that. He was along for the ride.

Within one day of Czugaj’s arrival, though, the picture postcard of Bali started to lose its gloss. His buddy and
roommate, Scott Rush, answered his telephone, taking a call from Tan Nguyen. Nguyen had been responsible for getting Rush and Czugaj to Bali, providing the connection which allowed their stay to be financed. Now he was inviting the pair to the Centre Stage bar at the Hard Rock Hotel. It was 9 April. Saturday—the beginning of the weekend.

Rush and Czugaj went to the Centre Stage, which seemed to target people just like themselves: young, toned and single. It was already busy on this Saturday afternoon, and the real entertainment was still hours away. That’s when the Hard Rock Hotel’s Centre Stage bar would come alive with anything and everything: body-painting competitions; bar-top dancing; a good live band. It all happened here on a Saturday night. But now, at this afternoon meeting, Nguyen was sounding more like a businessman than a tourist.

Nguyen told the two Brisbane teenagers that they would be required to carry a ‘package’ back to Australia in seven days’ time. It was all part of the deal. And, if they were successful, they would pocket A$5000 each, according to information provided early to police. If they were suspicious at that time about what kind of package it was, or if they asked anyone about it, they didn’t let on to the police who questioned them later.

In the meantime, the youths could kick up their heels. They had a week, Sunday through to Saturday, and a hell of a lot to try. Parasailing, jet-skiing, banana-boat riding and rafting could all fit their adventurous spirits. And those things could be interspersed with
more serene activities like regular dips in the big hotel pool, along with drinks from the sunken bar. That was all the man-made stuff—but right at their doorstep sat Kuta Beach, where the sunsets were surreal. Tourists flock there for a dip in the ocean or a ride on its waves, or a walk on its sands. Czugaj didn’t miss the chance to have a surf. He loved taking on the waves on Queensland’s Gold Coast, and now here was an opportunity in Bali, renowned for its surfing.

Each day, hundreds take off their shoes and walk down to the trendy district of Seminyak. Rentals dot the strip. Not just for surfboards, but for whatever one may need. Licensed vendors and hagglers sell their wares there too: sarongs, T-shirts, board shorts and all manner of Bali souvenirs. The sound of tourists haggling over the hire of a deckchair and umbrella, asking about the price of a beachside massage or manicure, or to have their young daughters’ hair braided in dozens of tiny plaits, provides the background music. And the smell is of toned bodies and food: suntan lotion and the Indonesian fare—mostly noodles and snacks cooked on gas burners with big woks—that tourists down between their morning and afternoon beach visits.

Two doors down from the Sari Club bombing memorial, in Jalan Legian, is a different kind of place, one of those trendy new bars and restaurants that have sprung up in recent years to challenge the traditional venues in Bali. Some people love it; others loathe it, remembering the less commercial 1970s and ‘80s in
Jalan Legian and places like it, and believing that the new type of place changes the heart and soul of Bali.

The Mbargo Bar is one of those places. It was built and opened in the wake of the 2002 bombings, on the opposite side of the road and just one or two shops up from where the Sari Club once stood. The site’s former building was destroyed in the bombing and Mbargo is a world away from the Sari Club. Members of the Bali Nine spent a bit of time there in the week leading up to 17 April, indulging in drinks and dancing. Some would later claim to police that it was there that they met other members of the gang for the first time, although some of those claims are disingenuous.

Open from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m., the Mbargo doesn’t serve food, and its décor mirrors that of trendy bars and clubs the world over. It has big open spaces and two rooms, one graced with leather lounges which are scattered throughout. In the other room, a series of red squares dominates one wall and a huge fresh flower arrangement sits atop a table smack-bang in the room’s centre. This room is more decadent than the other but one can’t help wondering how, on a busy night, the flower arrangement doesn’t fall victim to the rowdy talk and jostling banter of the club’s patrons.

Everyone fits in at the Mbargo club—the well dressed, well manicured and well suntanned mingle with the casually dressed tourists who have just lobbed into Bali searching for the same tan. Beers sell for the equivalent of A$2, and A$4 will fetch a gin and tonic. With those prices it’s not the cheapest joint in town,
but it has its pluses—it’s upmarket and large and open, and still cheap if you compare it to Sydney or Brisbane. Sukumaran later told police that this is where he first met Andrew Chan and Matthew Norman—a claim later shown to be untrue. And it was also the club where he planned to celebrate his twenty-fourth birthday, had he not been arrested that evening. Lawrence and Stephens also visited Mbargo once, but never when Rush or Czugaj were present. Chan and Sukumaran’s insistence that the two groups of mules not meet took care of that.

The Brisbane crew of Rush and Czugaj were making the most of their time in Bali. They were acting for all the world like a couple of true tourists. One day they tripped up to Ubud, just over an hour’s drive northeast of Kuta. It too has become gentrified in recent years, with boutiques and swish restaurants nestled alongside market stalls. Described as a cultural centre where artists and painters like to make both their homes and their livings, it’s known for its art. The famed Monkey Forest is also nearby, and here hundreds of monkeys run around trying to steal tourists’ bags while baring their teeth. Most tourists buy little bags of food at the front gate to feed them, their cameras at the ready to ensure no opportunities are lost. A Hindu temple has been built just inside the forest grounds.

Rush and Czugaj also visited the mountains of Kintamani, to see Mount Batur, a semi-active volcano which last erupted in 1994. Its crater, Lake Batur, is the biggest lake in Bali and on a clear day the view is
spectacular. On a cloudy day, however, you can feel a bit ripped off.

The Brisbane lads were like the thousands of other visitors to Bali each year who take note of the guidebooks and hotel brochures, which invariably recommend a trip to Ubud and Kintamani. Shopping, too, is highly recommended, partly because it allows an extra bag of gifts for those at home without breaking the bank. Clothes are on sale everywhere, but wood carvings are popular too (especially of male genitals) and planeloads of them—as stand-alone ornaments of all sizes or as key rings—have become a popular, if not comical, souvenir of many Bali holidays.

Some of the nine young Australians in Bali that week also wanted them as keepsakes. Mana Hanang, a handicraft shop in Jalan Legian, sells them along with a variety of other wooden objects, not all of them aimed at foreigners’ senses of humour. Indeed, when Stephens and Lawrence went there during their week in Bali, Stephens chose a medium-sized replica penis as a keepsake of his Bali holiday. The pair was not alone on that shopping trip, however—they had a companion who was helpfully suggesting which souvenirs they might like to take home with them. It was Andrew Chan. And their choices were not strictly souvenirs they would cherish for ever—they were pragmatic purchases which would later be used to divert attention to their luggage and away from themselves when they were arriving home in Australia.

In addition to shopping with others, Andrew Chan was out and about inspecting the local wares on his own, but his shopping was strictly business. On his second Monday in Kuta, he wandered the streets inspecting the market stalls that lined the roads. Here, he put his mind to shopping for shirts—brightly coloured ones like those tourists the length and breadth of Bali were donning. But he was specific: he wanted blue shirts with white, yellow or other coloured flowers as motifs. And they needed to be big-sized. The skimpy little versions, also popular, were useless to him. They had to be loose.

Chan found that the shirts he wanted were a dime a dozen and he had no trouble sourcing them. Every second place offers them for next to nothing, just a couple of dollars—depending, of course, on your bargaining skills. And reductions are always offered for bulk purchases. That helps when it comes to haggling, a sport enjoyed by both the locals and the tourists. You can tell those who aren’t on their first trip to the markets—they start bargaining at half the asking price and secure a deal quickly. Others don’t know what to do, which disappoints the stallholders, who are genuinely let down if they get a tourist who won’t bargain.

Chan was in a good position to bargain. He didn’t want one or two of the shirts, but at least four and all in different sizes. They were gifts to others in the Bali Nine, whether they welcomed them or not—Renae Lawrence and Martin Stephens, who were both stocky, and Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj, who were a bit smaller. Chan
didn’t need to buy the smallest size, though—he wanted the shirts to swim on the wearers. They were a uniform, needed to keep secret the kilograms of drugs that would be strapped to the waists of the four young Australian mules.

Scott Rush and Michael Czugaj were having a swell holiday, tripping off around the tourist sites. But sometimes they were forced to remain in town, as on 12 April, when they were summoned to a meeting, again at the Hard Rock Hotel. Chan was there; so was Sukumaran. And, of course, their Brisbane connection, Tan Nguyen. It was a crucial meeting, one that reminded all present that it was business at the heart of this trip, not pleasure.

It was Nguyen who delivered the news to the nineteen-year-olds: that they would be returning home on an Australian Airlines flight with packages strapped to their bodies. The packages would contain heroin, although evidence varies on whether they were aware of that. That’s why the boys were brought to Bali, and that was the catch. If Czugaj had had any secret doubts about the true nature of their ‘free’ holiday, they would have hit him now with spectacular clarity. Heroin. On his body. A game of life and death—literally. But certainly lucrative too, they were told. If they made good with the task, a cool A$5000 would be handed to them as a reward.

Chan, Sukumaran and Nguyen seemed organised—SIM cards were handed out with an instruction for the
boys to install them in their phones. One number programmed into the cards was particularly important—that of the person they needed to call on touchdown in Sydney.

Then the meeting was over, and Czugaj and Rush had two days before their scheduled return flight on 14 April. Two whole days.

Rush and Czugaj might have been given their instructions on this day, 12 April, but it was also the day that Bali intelligence squad officer Nyoman Gatra was taking possession of the AFP’s letter. The next day at 8.30 p.m., Officer Gatra, who was in charge of the investigation, convened a meeting with other members of the surveillance crew to dish out the tasks and work out who would monitor which Australians. Like a net cast into the ocean amid a school of unsuspecting fish, it was being thrown wide over the group.

Their tasks assigned, officers set about their work; by 10 p.m. the surveillance crew knew that Rush and Czugaj were in room 404 at the Hotel Aneka, Chen and Norman were at the White Rose, and room 5314 in the Pop section of the Hard Rock was inhabited by Chan. It was a good start. But they still had to locate Stephens and Lawrence.

In a covert operation, officers moved into the room opposite Chen and Norman so they could better monitor their movements. As things turned out, the surveillance crew—many of whom had never done an operation quite like this before—would have more
time than they originally thought for their task. Had things gone the way they were first planned, the group of Australians would have been departing for Sydney with their heroin the next day. But there had been a hitch: Cherry Likit Bannakorn, who was to supply the drugs to the Bali Nine, had not brought enough of it with her on her first trip to Bali, and Chan wanted to wait for another shipment before the mules set off home. So, with the decision made, the mules’ return flights were changed.