Bali 9: The Untold Story

To our nieces and nephews: Cody, Ella, Darcy, Emmalee, Charlie, Lauren, Chelsea, Mitch, Nathan, Tanya, Shea, Zoe, Kel and Holly—and to all your nieces and nephews. May every one of them grow up believing in themselves.

Cover Page

Dedication

Cast of Characters

I Dressed and Ready

II The Support Crew

III A Free Ride

IV Bust at the Melasti

V Friendship in the West

VI Growing up in Wallsend

VII Life in the Spotlight

VIII From Illawarra to Denpasar

IX The Quakers Hill Boy

X The Brisbane Connection

XI Let Me Follow

XII Recruitment over Karaoke

XIII Planning Ahead

XIV Bali Bound

XV On the Trail

XVI Chan’s Bali Adventure

XVII A Week in Bali

XVIII A Woman Called Cherry

XIX A Last Supper

XX The $2.4 Million Gift Wrap

XXI Ride and Risk

XXII The Blame Game

XXIII Kerobokan Jail

XXIV Friends and Foes on the Inside

XXV Keeping it in the Family

XXVI Name and Shame

XXVII Shame on our Streets

XXVIII The Legal Lobby

XXIX The Role of the AFP

XXX In Court: Michael Czugaj

XXXI In Court: Renae Lawrence

XXXII In Court: Martin Stephens

XXXIII In Court: Scott Rush

XXXIV In Court: Myuran Sukumaran

XXXV In Court: Andrew Chan

XXXVI In Court: The Melasti Three

XXXVII Judgment Day

XXXVIII Bad News

XXXIX Life Behind Bars

Photo Section

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

Copyright

About the Publisher

R
enae Lawrence and Martin Stephens turned to each other, smiled and shook hands. They’d done it. Or so they thought. It was the performance of their lives and everyone seemed to have fallen for it, right from the moment they climbed out of their taxi in front of Bali’s Ngurah Rai international airport. They had looked just like everyone else, holiday-weary and sunburnt, as they grabbed their bags and headed for the queue to check in to their Australian Airlines flight back to Sydney and their homes.

It had been a long eleven days, looking over their shoulders, worried about the moment when they would alight from their taxi and begin an eight-hour act aimed at fooling those trained to see through their disguise. Their clothes had cost just a few dollars at one of the hundreds and hundreds of market stalls lining
the busy Kuta streets, the loud shirts, baggy shorts and thongs looking almost like the tourist-issue uniform. That’s what people wore every day on their island holiday: in the bars that served cheap beers and exotic cocktails; in the hotels where accommodation costs were half the price they were back home. Lawrence and Stephens hadn’t even picked out the clothes they wore now—someone else had done that for them. Just like someone else had dressed them, plastering chunks of heroin onto their thighs and torsos with cheap adhesive tape. But no one else knew that. No one was watching them. They looked just like everyone else, going home tired from the holiday of a lifetime. They were fitting in just fine.

It was just a few minutes past 8 p.m. on Sunday, 17 April 2005. Climbing out of the taxi, Stephens and Lawrence were careful to carry their own bags, politely refusing the offers of the porters who make their living in the airport forecourts. They didn’t fidget or look nervous, their self-assurance strong that their secret was safe. After all, Lawrence had done this once before—just six months ago, she told police—and nothing had gone wrong; the $10 000 bonus she received at the other end proof she had survived the few nerves that surfaced every now and again.

Together, the pair of Sydneysiders walked purposefully through the doors of the big international departure terminal, past the colourful Garuda bird carving, the statues of squat little men wearing traditional
black-and-white checked sarongs, and the maroon umbrellas. Once inside, they dumped their bags on the big X-ray conveyor belt that scans tourists’ luggage, its technology wired up to alert officers to anything suspicious or dangerous.

A dog sat at the other end, where the conveyor belt spat out the checked luggage. Not a fruit-finding beagle, either: a dog trained to sniff out those who broke Indonesia’s tough drug laws; a dog that could help assign the guilty to a frightening death by way of a bullet to the heart. Indonesia was tough on drug smugglers; it was an attempt by those in charge to stamp out a ballooning problem that was playing havoc with the republic’s young. Lawrence and Stephens knew they had to walk past the dog without it picking up the scent of the wads of heroin strapped to their bodies—the 4.8 kilograms of smack that could fetch between $1.4 million and $2 million on the streets of Sydney. But at that time they didn’t know how much was taped to them, or what it was worth. They did, however, know it was a risk; a life-threatening one.

It was just on 8.15 p.m. when they wandered past the canine trained to pick up the scent of law-breakers. If they were nervous they hid it well, their act so polished that it could fool anyone who had not been tipped off to their secret.

Lawrence and Stephens chatted, taking their place at the popular Qantas/Australian Airlines check-in counter, handing over their tickets and waiting to be
assigned their seats. And with their luggage on its way to the plane’s cargo hold—or so they thought—the pair continued their journey. The canine reappeared, its handlers ensuring that not much space was left between the two Australian travellers and their dog. But still nothing. Not a whiff. The dog, like all the others at the airport, was trained to sit down quickly on its haunches the moment things weren’t right. Everything seemed to be okay with these two though, and the dog and its handlers moved on.

Lawrence and Stephens walked towards the escalator. Twice in a matter of minutes, they had evaded the front-line policing at Bali’s international airport. Twice they’d been tested, and neither had folded. No alert. No alarm. No suspicion. And that’s when they turned and smiled conspiratorially at each other. They had made it, their handshake an intimate sign of victory that their secret was safe. Onwards and upwards from here, across the skies that joined Australia and its backyard island holiday destination. Without a hitch.

Well, almost. Renae Lawrence could feel one of the packs on her thigh begin to slip and it was working itself loose with each step. Something like this could undo everything; she knew it had to be fixed, properly and quickly. So Lawrence ducked into the ladies’ toilet to make sure the pack couldn’t fall further, below her shorts and down her leg. She didn’t take long, and shortly rejoined Stephens. They strolled by the duty-free
shops where throngs of passengers were looking for one last good deal, something for someone back home or even something to help them remember April in Bali.

Neither Stephens nor Lawrence was interested. They wandered on by, the young woman from Wallsend in Newcastle and the twenty-nine-year-old born-and-bred Illawarra boy, who shared a workplace in Sydney. This wasn’t a holiday, after all—their family and friends were unaware that they had left Australian shores. No need for memories of this trip, either—batik shirts and sarongs were an unnecessary reminder that this ‘holiday’ was work. Hard work.

Departure gates three and four loomed large in front of them, presenting them with the challenge of one more security check before stepping onto the plane. Most travellers didn’t bother with it until the last minute, spending their time looking through the shops and making use of the last cigarette stop in one of the many cafés that allowed it, or savouring the last moments of their holiday. Not Stephens and Lawrence. They marched on, keen to pass through security and board their plane. But it wasn’t to be. The flight was not yet open and staff told them to take a seat nearby. They would hear the flight being called.

From the moment Lawrence and Stephens alighted—even before—their every movement was being tracked; surveillance teams who had spent the past four days watching them heralded their arrival. The agents watched as the pair stepped out of their taxi disguised
as tourists. Watched as they passed through the first security check, and by the customs dog that guarded it. Watched as they booked into their flight and passed their second brush with the drug-detection dog. And that’s when they almost lost one of them.

One officer radioed ahead, warning his colleague that Lawrence and Stephens had separated when Lawrence walked into a toilet on her own. A search couldn’t locate their target, and it was only when Lawrence walked back out that, relying on pictures of the surveillance targets, they realised the stockily built twenty-seven-year-old with short hair and a manly gait was actually a woman.

Back on track, the surveillance team kept up with the pair, determined to do the job assigned to them. They were just part of a larger outfit—others had watched the pair and their friends for days, ever since the tip-off from the Australian Federal Police.

Renae Lawrence. Martin Stephens. They were just two of the bunch. A further three would come later: Michael Czugaj, Scott Rush and Andrew Chan. All of them were involved in smuggling drugs, according to intelligence gathered first in Australia and now here, on Indonesian soil. It was going to be a busy night. Still others in the surveillance team were assigned elsewhere—to Matthew Norman, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen and Si Yi Chen. And the other one—the black-skinned man who didn’t have a name.

Customs officers Gede Senopati and Ketut Sumarka strode towards Renae Lawrence and Martin Stephens. It was time to act.

‘I am a Customs officer. Would you follow me. We want to check your luggage, your hand-carry luggage and your body,’ they were told.

Stephens’s answer hid the panic that was almost certainly gripping his big frame. ‘My body—why?’ he asked Senopati. He wanted to look innocent in the face of overwhelming guilt.

Senopati was aware of that, and his answer was not 100 per cent truthful. ‘This is just a routine check,’ he said. ‘You are part of a random check. Just follow me.’ He guided them to a small Customs room nearby, home to searches night and day.

Senopati knew the drill backwards. He went through the motions of searching the duo’s hand luggage, finding nothing except some DVDs, clothes and a few wooden souvenirs. He wasn’t surprised at the stash of DVDs—they were all pirated, able to be picked up for just over a dollar in Bali, and most travellers stocked up before leaving the island.

Stephens’s and Lawrence’s performances, which had been so polished to this point, started to falter. That’s what happens when terror grips the body—you can forget your lines. The colour began draining from their faces, leaving both deathly white. But Senopati kept going—his job just started. He called for one of Customs’ drug detection dogs, but not the canine that had let the pair slip through the net earlier. This new
dog, Maxy, wandered around and around his targets. However, he remained standing—an indicator that the pair was free of drugs.

Not convinced, Senopati ordered Lawrence and Maxy from the room. He told Stephens to unbutton his shirt. He did, with his singlet still hiding his secret. Senopati asked him to take down his shorts. Now Stephens was trapped. But he followed the orders given to him, revealing his tightly bandaged thighs. Still he tried to perform. With every ounce of his being, he tried to stop the inevitable.

‘What’s this?’ the investigator asked.

‘Nothing. Just an accident,’ Stephens responded.

‘What kind of accident?’ said Senopati.

‘A banana-boat accident. It’s a very dangerous game, you know.’

Stephens was filled with panic. Terror. He knew he was moments away from being caught attempting to smuggle drugs out of Indonesia.

Senopati reached for Stephens’s thigh, squeezing it to see if Stephens gulped in pain. But Stephens had obviously forgotten his last line—he didn’t even wince.

Both he and Senopati knew the game was up.

Outside, the same fear that was engulfing Stephens was gripping Renae Lawrence’s guts. She puffed away on a cigarette, ignoring the no-smoking signs, desperate for the nicotine to help keep her thoughts in check. She didn’t know what was happening to Stephens—but
she knew her turn was next. She never uttered a word while she waited.

Customs officer Ketut Sumarka, a twenty-five-year veteran of Bali airport, stood next to her. He had seen this performance time and time again and he allowed her to flaunt the no-smoking rules. Worse was to come, he knew. He kept a gentle hold on her arm before leading her into the room. Then he touched her thigh, instinctively identifying her secret.

‘There is something here,’ he said.