1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:19,320 --> 00:00:23,200 SÃO MIGUEL, AZORES 4 00:00:41,720 --> 00:00:46,480 The whole of the island of São Miguel is awash with cocaine. 5 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,920 Approximately 300 kilos of cocaine were discovered yesterday afternoon 6 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:53,240 on the north coast of the island of São Miguel. 7 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:57,480 It was transported by an Italian, who dumped hundreds of kilos 8 00:00:57,560 --> 00:00:59,200 before being caught. 9 00:00:59,280 --> 00:01:00,280 Yeah. 10 00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:03,040 A lot of people even thought it was trash. 11 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:04,680 A packet here, a packet there. 12 00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:08,720 "Oh no. I don't believe it." 13 00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:12,440 He looks up and sees all these packets floating in the water. 14 00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:13,800 2.6 MILLION DOSES 15 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:19,080 He was carrying a torn bag on his back, and the packets kept falling out. 16 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:22,720 Five thousand escudos got you a small packet. Full of it! 17 00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:30,160 Women breaded fish with cocaine, thinking it was flour. 18 00:01:30,880 --> 00:01:36,320 Kids marked the lines on soccer pitches with cocaine. 19 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:45,960 These people had never seen cocaine. 20 00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:47,760 It was distributed on the cheap. 21 00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:51,880 It would have dreadful, catastrophic consequences. 22 00:01:51,960 --> 00:01:53,640 RABO DE PEIXE A DISASTER ZONE 23 00:01:53,720 --> 00:01:55,920 I got caught with 33 guns and 2,000 bullets. 24 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,200 I lost some good friends. Very close friends. 25 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:08,560 Just these great lumps of coke all over the floor. The guy was crazy. 26 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:11,600 Out there every day 27 00:02:11,680 --> 00:02:14,400 From sunup to sunset Out there on the street 28 00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:16,480 Gun stashed in your coat 29 00:02:16,560 --> 00:02:19,680 The rich get rich And the poor sell dope 30 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:27,080 TURN OF THE TIDE THE SURREAL STORY OF RABO DE PEIXE 31 00:02:28,760 --> 00:02:32,280 IN 2001, A BOATLOAD OF COKE TURNED UP ON AN ISLAND, CHANGING IT FOREVER. 32 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:35,160 IT WAS GOOD LUCK OR BAD, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU LISTEN TO… 33 00:02:38,840 --> 00:02:42,640 Adrenaline acts almost like a drug. 34 00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:45,640 It leads to dependency. It's addictive. 35 00:02:51,520 --> 00:02:55,520 And being in the police is addictive. 36 00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:06,200 I first came into contact with guns in Angola, where I was born. 37 00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:09,280 I was maybe eight when I fired my first gun. 38 00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:11,040 It was normal. 39 00:03:11,120 --> 00:03:13,640 It was at a time when the liberation movements 40 00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:16,920 were intensifying hostilities, and massacres were taking place. 41 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:19,280 And so the authorities made the decision 42 00:03:19,360 --> 00:03:23,160 to hand out weapons to civilians for protection. 43 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:26,920 I arrived in the Azores in 1993 44 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:30,280 and began working in the narcotics division in 1994. 45 00:03:30,360 --> 00:03:34,240 Finding evidence, drugs, money. It's like a game of cat and mouse. 46 00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:35,440 The way I see it, 47 00:03:35,520 --> 00:03:38,320 the hunter's on one side, the prey's on the other, 48 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:40,240 and that gets the adrenaline pumping. 49 00:03:40,320 --> 00:03:43,000 IN 2015, THE WORLD LEARNED OF THE EVENTS IN SÃO MIGUEL. 50 00:03:43,080 --> 00:03:45,000 A SAILBOAT. AN ITALIAN. KILOS OF COKE. 51 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:48,280 TWO REPORTERS PUBLISHED THE STORY IN EL PAÍS. THE SPANISH WOMEN. 52 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:56,560 My first contact with the island of São Miguel was in 2009. 53 00:03:56,640 --> 00:03:59,240 I arrived here on June 25… 54 00:03:59,320 --> 00:04:00,400 REPORTER 55 00:04:00,480 --> 00:04:03,480 …and initially came to work for Portuguese public television, 56 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,840 but ended up in Portuguese public radio. 57 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:09,720 My first contact with the Azores was in 2010. 58 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:11,480 I traveled to São Miguel… 59 00:04:11,560 --> 00:04:12,560 REPORTER 60 00:04:12,640 --> 00:04:14,960 …because my brother studied biology there. 61 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:19,400 After four days of sightseeing, he said, "Let's go to Rabo de Peixe." 62 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:23,520 And I remember getting to Rabo de Peixe and my brother saying, 63 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:27,720 "Close the windows and lock the doors. This is an area of…" 64 00:04:27,800 --> 00:04:31,520 I think he said "conflict." I don't remember the exact word. 65 00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:38,920 WRITER OF GENERATION-DEFINING HITS SUCH AS "EU NÃO VOU CHORAR" 66 00:04:39,000 --> 00:04:40,880 Rabo de Peixe means everything to me. 67 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:44,800 I grew up among Rapexinhos, with my cousins in Rabo de Peixe. 68 00:04:44,880 --> 00:04:48,120 Nothing's easy in Rabo de Peixe. Nothing's given. 69 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:50,160 People work hard. 70 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:54,040 Seafaring folk, fishermen. Cold people. 71 00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:58,240 It wasn't advisable to go there. No one would invite you to go there. 72 00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:02,400 Until quite recently, it was considered the poorest neighborhood in Europe, 73 00:05:02,480 --> 00:05:04,880 with a high level of illiteracy. 74 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,360 What happened here? It felt like there'd been some terrible storm 75 00:05:08,440 --> 00:05:11,880 that had left all these people scarred. 76 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,320 It wasn't poverty. It was a feeling that something had happened. 77 00:05:16,400 --> 00:05:20,960 In 2001, a huge amount of cocaine arrived on the island 78 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:23,120 via a sailboat that had sustained damage. 79 00:05:23,200 --> 00:05:25,760 Most of that coke ended up in Rabo de Peixe, 80 00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:28,080 carried by the tides and currents. 81 00:05:28,160 --> 00:05:30,400 These people had never seen cocaine. 82 00:05:30,480 --> 00:05:34,760 When I arrived in the Azores, I was clueless about the real crime rate. 83 00:05:34,840 --> 00:05:39,960 If something happened, we pretty much knew who the culprit was. 84 00:05:40,040 --> 00:05:43,800 And when something was stolen, it might be worth five euros. 85 00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:46,560 A pudding, a cut of meat. Something like that. 86 00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:50,440 Crime here was almost childish. 87 00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:52,080 But by the mid-1990s, 88 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:55,240 criminality in the Azores had taken a different turn. 89 00:05:55,320 --> 00:05:58,280 Repatriates from the US, who were used to armed robbery, 90 00:05:58,360 --> 00:06:01,880 ended up passing on their criminal know-how 91 00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:04,240 to people who committed crimes here. 92 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:06,960 In America, they called them Portuguese. 93 00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:09,400 In Portugal, they call them Americans. 94 00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:12,160 In reality, they're citizens of nowhere. 95 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:15,840 I'm from Rabo de Peixe But don't be afraid 96 00:06:15,920 --> 00:06:19,160 A jug makes me thirsty I am a boozer 97 00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:22,520 I took a look at a gun And I never went to school 98 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:25,760 Walking down the street Selling Coca-Cola 99 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:27,960 I'm not gonna cry 100 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:32,760 This life wasn't for me 101 00:06:32,840 --> 00:06:34,840 I'm not gonna cry 102 00:06:34,920 --> 00:06:36,680 I'm from Santa Clara in São Miguel. 103 00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,160 I immigrated here with my parents when I was nine years old. 104 00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,800 We moved to the Boston area, Winter Hill. 105 00:06:44,560 --> 00:06:46,400 An Italian neighborhood. 106 00:06:46,480 --> 00:06:49,200 Irish, as well. And Mafia. 107 00:06:50,920 --> 00:06:53,040 And that's where I grew up. 108 00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:54,280 When I was 13, 109 00:06:55,360 --> 00:06:56,640 my cousin 110 00:06:57,920 --> 00:06:59,600 showed me what cocaine was, 111 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:02,800 and I started selling drugs for him. 112 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:26,400 HISTORIAN 113 00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:30,200 The integration of these repatriates 114 00:07:30,720 --> 00:07:33,000 was anything but easy. 115 00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,880 A lot of people were repatriated there because of drugs. 116 00:07:36,960 --> 00:07:39,640 They were repatriated because of fights, 117 00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:41,200 stealing cars. 118 00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:43,400 They were people that were branded 119 00:07:44,080 --> 00:07:46,360 as criminals. 120 00:07:46,960 --> 00:07:49,960 But when they got to this small island, 121 00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:52,760 they couldn't commit the crimes they'd committed here. 122 00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:55,680 They'd done time, served sentences. 123 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:59,800 They were taken to the airport and unloaded at Ponta Delgada. 124 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:04,160 Some families refused to take them in. 125 00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,880 So they were sent back. Most of them had no family here. 126 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:10,680 What were they doing here? They didn't know anyone. 127 00:08:10,760 --> 00:08:13,360 There was a sharp rise in the criminal workforce. 128 00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:16,400 The vast majority continued to use drugs. 129 00:08:16,480 --> 00:08:19,960 And they needed money for that, so they committed petty crimes. 130 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:21,760 Things sometimes turned violent. 131 00:08:21,840 --> 00:08:26,080 To feed their addiction, some committed serious crimes. 132 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,000 THE AMERICAN DREAM OF MANY AZOREANS BECAME A NIGHTMARE. 133 00:08:29,080 --> 00:08:32,040 THEY ARE CITIZENS OF NOWHERE. THEY ARE THE REPATRIATES. 134 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:42,520 REPATRIATE 135 00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:46,840 In 1969, I was what? 136 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:48,160 Eight years old. 137 00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:50,960 And we moved to the US, to New Jersey. 138 00:08:51,680 --> 00:08:53,160 To a huge city. 139 00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:56,000 No one spoke Portuguese at school. 140 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:01,000 I was just a little boy from a small village, 141 00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:02,720 surrounded by all those people. 142 00:09:02,800 --> 00:09:04,120 And I was scared. 143 00:09:04,840 --> 00:09:08,080 So I'd just follow my classmates around. 144 00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:10,240 I didn't have anyone else. 145 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:12,800 And I couldn't even talk to them. 146 00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:15,600 So it was difficult for me. 147 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:18,200 Tony had been involved in other things. 148 00:09:18,280 --> 00:09:22,360 Petty crime, selling small amounts of drugs. 149 00:09:22,440 --> 00:09:27,000 His nickname, his criminal alias, is Fenais Tony. 150 00:09:27,080 --> 00:09:30,880 That Lopes, he was a petty little cop, 151 00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:34,040 trying to rack up medals, you know, 152 00:09:34,120 --> 00:09:36,920 by putting people in jail, which he did to me. 153 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:39,200 He was mean, people said, 154 00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:41,640 and he didn't like the guys 155 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:44,320 who did drugs or trafficked. 156 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:55,760 Rui Couto. 157 00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:57,840 I don't remember exactly. 158 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:00,120 I think he was from the States 159 00:10:00,200 --> 00:10:05,960 and had been convicted of drug trafficking there. 160 00:10:06,040 --> 00:10:09,880 I'm not sure about armed robbery, but certainly drug trafficking. 161 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:12,600 He was repatriated from the States 162 00:10:12,680 --> 00:10:15,720 and ended up in Achadinha on the north coast of São Miguel. 163 00:10:17,680 --> 00:10:20,360 Rui Couto was deported from the US. 164 00:10:20,440 --> 00:10:22,560 And in Achadinha 165 00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:26,560 there weren't many people who spoke English or smoked weed, 166 00:10:26,640 --> 00:10:28,400 but Rui Couto did. 167 00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:32,320 Rui's from here, from New Bedford. He was deported back there. 168 00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:34,840 Rui knows what blow is. 169 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:56,440 I started getting into drugs in America when I was 16. 170 00:10:57,280 --> 00:10:58,880 I'd won a drawing competition, 171 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:02,760 and they offered me a scholarship to Boston University, 172 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:04,160 but I turned it down. 173 00:11:04,240 --> 00:11:05,840 My mother used to say, 174 00:11:05,920 --> 00:11:09,320 "Our Rui could be a gentleman today." 175 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:13,480 But that was something… I don't know. 176 00:11:13,560 --> 00:11:18,240 Then in '78 I got caught with cannabis, spent a year in jail, 177 00:11:18,320 --> 00:11:21,520 and was voluntarily repatriated to the Azores. 178 00:11:21,600 --> 00:11:24,400 If I'd stayed in America, I'd be dead by now. 179 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:30,000 I came here, and I volunteered for the army. 180 00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:33,320 I had the time of my life, and they let me go to Terceira. 181 00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:36,440 I liked it there. I was a bartender. 182 00:11:37,240 --> 00:11:40,400 It did me a lot of good. I sold weed in the army. 183 00:11:42,160 --> 00:11:43,800 I shouldn't have said that. 184 00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:56,040 The Azores is a very remote region. 185 00:11:56,120 --> 00:11:59,160 The islands are in the North Atlantic… 186 00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:00,160 SKIPPER 187 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:02,520 …approximately 800 nautical miles 188 00:12:02,600 --> 00:12:04,240 from mainland Portugal, 189 00:12:04,320 --> 00:12:09,240 and 1,600 nautical miles from the United States. 190 00:12:11,920 --> 00:12:15,880 All sailing vessels that come from the American coast, 191 00:12:15,960 --> 00:12:20,080 the first place they reach on their way to Europe, 192 00:12:20,160 --> 00:12:22,840 the entrance to Europe, is the Azores. 193 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:25,240 ACCORDING TO A REPORT BY EUROPOL AND THE EU, 194 00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:27,680 THE AZORES IS THE MAIN GATEWAY FOR COCAINE INTO EUROPE. 195 00:12:30,040 --> 00:12:32,560 JUNE 7, 2001 THE HIDING PLACE 196 00:12:32,640 --> 00:12:34,960 It was a fisherman who gave the alert, 197 00:12:35,520 --> 00:12:38,040 a man out fishing with a rod. 198 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:40,520 He spotted the drugs, 199 00:12:40,600 --> 00:12:43,400 all these bundles of drugs, 200 00:12:43,480 --> 00:12:45,880 and alerted the police. 201 00:12:46,760 --> 00:12:49,040 I'd gone fishing with a colleague. 202 00:12:49,120 --> 00:12:51,360 He'd already caught plenty of fish. 203 00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:54,040 He left, and after 15, 20 minutes, so did I. 204 00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:55,240 FISHERMAN 205 00:12:55,320 --> 00:12:57,560 As I left, I saw these things on the ground. 206 00:12:57,640 --> 00:13:00,720 There were so many. I decided to hide it all in a cave. 207 00:13:00,800 --> 00:13:04,000 It took a while as it was heavy. I hid it in the cave. 208 00:13:04,080 --> 00:13:06,480 When I got to the cave, 209 00:13:06,560 --> 00:13:10,440 I saw more bags in the back. Lots of them. 210 00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:14,080 I picked one of them up and unwrapped the rubber. 211 00:13:14,160 --> 00:13:16,040 I unwrapped the rubber, 212 00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:20,320 then I unwrapped the plastic, then more plastic, more rubber. 213 00:13:20,400 --> 00:13:23,680 It took me almost half an hour just to unwrap one packet. 214 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:26,200 Then I saw this white tablet. 215 00:13:26,280 --> 00:13:30,440 I took it out and started tapping it to see what it was. But I'm no fool. 216 00:13:31,360 --> 00:13:33,880 I wanted to see if it was drugs or something else. 217 00:13:33,960 --> 00:13:35,800 And it really was drugs. 218 00:13:35,880 --> 00:13:38,640 It was a very rocky slope, 219 00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:42,160 and there was a shallow cave, 220 00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:46,560 about 100, 150 feet from where the waves broke. 221 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:50,480 The path was marked so it could be seen from the sea. 222 00:13:51,000 --> 00:13:53,240 Some crosses, a few broken reeds. 223 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:55,720 The path was clearly marked. 224 00:13:55,800 --> 00:13:57,680 When I got up there, 225 00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:00,800 I saw Zé Manel Brasileiro. 226 00:14:00,880 --> 00:14:03,400 "Hey, Parceiro. Nice fish you've got there." 227 00:14:03,480 --> 00:14:05,240 "You caught a lot." 228 00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:07,840 "I caught something even better." 229 00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:10,800 I took out what I had, took off all the plastic, 230 00:14:11,560 --> 00:14:13,160 and showed him. 231 00:14:13,240 --> 00:14:16,520 "Man, that's not drugs. That's pure cocaine!" 232 00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:20,760 The drugs were seized 233 00:14:20,840 --> 00:14:23,520 by the police and the maritime police, I think. 234 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:26,760 They took the drugs to Ponta Delgada. 235 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:31,280 They searched the area where those 277 packets were discovered, 236 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:32,880 but found nothing else. 237 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:37,280 Word got around, and everybody, 238 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:41,000 children, women, men, everybody headed down there. 239 00:14:41,080 --> 00:14:45,480 They got down there, went into the water, and brought all the drugs up. 240 00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:49,400 They dragged up 420 kilos from down there. 241 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:53,920 Approximately 300 kilos of cocaine were discovered yesterday afternoon 242 00:14:54,000 --> 00:14:56,080 on the north coast of São Miguel. 243 00:14:56,160 --> 00:15:00,400 A major police operation is underway in the area, 244 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:05,600 and the authorities are not giving out more details about the case. 245 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:10,040 And that's when the investigation into the sailboat began. 246 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:15,880 There were reports that the boat had sailed along the northern coast 247 00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:17,600 towards Rabo de Peixe. 248 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:21,960 And we found out it had set sail from the port of Rabo de Peixe 249 00:15:22,040 --> 00:15:23,480 and headed west. 250 00:15:23,560 --> 00:15:27,560 It stopped briefly in the Pilar da Bretanha area, 251 00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:30,440 where the first packages were unloaded. 252 00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:35,200 We later heard it had entered the marina in Ponta Delgada. 253 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,400 We immediately sent a team there, 254 00:15:40,480 --> 00:15:43,080 and another one to Rabo de Peixe. 255 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,920 Rabo de Peixe is a very tough place to work. 256 00:15:46,000 --> 00:15:48,160 It's hard for us to be there. 257 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:52,920 There are suddenly a lot of people around, and we couldn't risk being too close. 258 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:57,120 It could jeopardize the investigation. It could make him run. 259 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,320 We had another ongoing investigation, 260 00:16:00,400 --> 00:16:05,040 and it soon became clear that there was a connection 261 00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:07,640 between the suspects in that investigation 262 00:16:07,720 --> 00:16:10,720 and Rui Couto and Tony. 263 00:16:11,320 --> 00:16:13,720 I arrived in the Azores 264 00:16:13,800 --> 00:16:16,760 and met my friend Tony the next day. 265 00:16:16,840 --> 00:16:17,680 Pacheco. 266 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:20,320 And we got to chatting. 267 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:23,600 "I'm from America," and so on. We started speaking in English. 268 00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:27,200 So I gave him some weed. 269 00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:29,880 And he'd come to see me every day. 270 00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,480 It wasn't about the weed. He'd come over just to talk. 271 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:34,880 That's how I met Rui Couto. 272 00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:37,520 Pacheco's like a brother. He's more than a friend. 273 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:39,520 He's like a brother. 274 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:45,160 I started selling coke. 275 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:46,720 Pure coke. 276 00:16:46,800 --> 00:16:48,480 I went to Venezuela twice. 277 00:16:48,560 --> 00:16:52,400 The first time I went, I swallowed almost a kilo of coke. 278 00:16:52,480 --> 00:16:57,600 The guy told me that in 30 or so years, he'd never seen a packet burst. 279 00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,360 They do it so well, and I witnessed it. I saw it. 280 00:17:01,440 --> 00:17:04,400 They take one of those white seal presses. 281 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:06,880 It does five, seven, and ten grams. 282 00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:11,800 I took the smallest ones. The big ones don't fit in my throat. 283 00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:18,920 They put it in a press and seal it in transparent plastic. 284 00:17:19,440 --> 00:17:23,720 They stick their finger in, tie it up with dental floss, and cut it. 285 00:17:23,800 --> 00:17:26,920 Then another finger, one knot inside the other one, 286 00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,080 pull it tight and repeat four times. 287 00:17:30,120 --> 00:17:34,440 Then they dip it in honey, which creates a barrier on the rubber 288 00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:37,440 to protect it from stomach acid so it doesn't burst. 289 00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:42,840 To swallow it, they put it in a bowl of ice to numb your throat. 290 00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:46,120 I'd swallow ten, and walk around the apartment. 291 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,720 Then have a little chicken soup, just a spoon of the broth, 292 00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:54,600 to calm my stomach. 293 00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,520 Then they'd give me an injection, and hasta la vista. 294 00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:03,200 The first time I swallowed it, I went to bed. 295 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,720 I freaked out a little. I thought that shit would kill me. 296 00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:10,320 I had it in my stomach for three days. 297 00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:13,800 You can drink soup, beer, whiskey. You can do anything. 298 00:18:13,880 --> 00:18:15,640 You just can't eat too much. 299 00:18:15,720 --> 00:18:17,880 And you can't have milk or yogurt. 300 00:18:17,960 --> 00:18:22,360 None of those dairy products, you know? 301 00:18:22,440 --> 00:18:25,360 I got to the Azores, drank a glass of milk, 302 00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:27,720 and just sat in the bathtub like a broody hen. 303 00:18:28,520 --> 00:18:29,720 Or so I hear. 304 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:34,400 The first time I was in the Azores was in Porto Formoso. 305 00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:37,920 I was caught smoking a hash joint, 306 00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:40,520 about 500 escudos' worth, I think. 307 00:18:40,600 --> 00:18:42,920 Or was it 1,000? No, 500. 308 00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:44,240 The bare minimum. 309 00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:47,800 And I had to pay 65,000 escudos. 310 00:18:47,880 --> 00:18:51,920 The judge said, "Mr. Rui, you don't mess with hard drugs, do you?" 311 00:18:52,000 --> 00:18:54,960 I said, "No, ma'am." "Stay on the soft drugs." 312 00:18:55,040 --> 00:18:58,520 A month later, I'm standing in front of her with 2.5 kilos of coke. 313 00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:01,320 What the hell. 314 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,000 And she remembered my fucking face! 315 00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:19,000 Rui Couto had connections in Venezuela, 316 00:19:19,080 --> 00:19:22,960 and he went there to bring back a suitcase with two kilos of cocaine. 317 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:25,240 Rui Couto arrived in Lisbon 318 00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:28,080 with another young guy called Rui, from Ribeira Grande. 319 00:19:28,160 --> 00:19:32,400 He'd been hired to take the blame should anything go wrong. 320 00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:36,280 He was just the courier, the guy who'd carry the suitcase 321 00:19:36,360 --> 00:19:39,680 and take the blame if things went wrong, which they did. 322 00:19:39,760 --> 00:19:43,480 Rui came back here. The other guy was held in custody in Lisbon. 323 00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:46,920 Phone taps were requested for them 324 00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,640 so we could find out what they were planning, 325 00:19:50,720 --> 00:19:53,480 what was going on, 326 00:19:53,560 --> 00:19:57,080 and whether they were dealing with large quantities of drugs. 327 00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:59,640 This was about a month 328 00:19:59,720 --> 00:20:02,360 before the island was flooded with cocaine. 329 00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:13,640 JUNE 16, 2001 LOST PACKETS 330 00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:18,080 The sea here in the Azores may look calm on the surface, 331 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,280 but there are a lot of strong undercurrents. 332 00:20:22,240 --> 00:20:25,160 When Antonino Quinci got close to the coast, 333 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:27,280 he had to get rid of the cargo. 334 00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:29,120 We later found a nautical chart 335 00:20:29,200 --> 00:20:32,520 where he'd kept a full record of the trip. 336 00:20:32,600 --> 00:20:35,520 He'd even marked the spot where the rudder broke, 337 00:20:35,600 --> 00:20:40,560 about two-thirds of the way between Venezuela and the Azores, 338 00:20:40,640 --> 00:20:44,160 from where he managed to make it to São Miguel. 339 00:20:44,240 --> 00:20:48,120 He knew he had to get rid of the cargo before entering port, 340 00:20:48,200 --> 00:20:52,240 in case customs searched the boat 341 00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:54,960 with the drug packages in plain sight. 342 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:57,960 He approached the island from the northwest 343 00:20:58,040 --> 00:21:01,280 and headed to Pilar da Bretanha in a rubber dinghy. 344 00:21:01,360 --> 00:21:05,320 That's probably where he unloaded most of the drugs onboard. 345 00:21:05,400 --> 00:21:07,280 He then headed east, 346 00:21:07,360 --> 00:21:11,440 along the coast towards Capelas, 347 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:16,080 and in a cove off Capelas, a small bay, 348 00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:20,240 he decided to unload and hide the rest of the drugs. 349 00:21:21,000 --> 00:21:25,200 Just as he was bringing the cocaine ashore 350 00:21:25,280 --> 00:21:27,680 at the point off Capelas, 351 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:30,040 he spotted a fisherman. 352 00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:35,720 The fisherman saw from a distance that he was bringing something ashore. 353 00:21:35,800 --> 00:21:39,320 Quinci then set about tying the dinghy 354 00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,160 to the sailboat, 355 00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:45,120 and decided to head back west towards Bretanha. 356 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,520 And there, he weighted down the cargo with an anchor and a chain, 357 00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,120 and sank the last packets of coke. 358 00:21:51,720 --> 00:21:55,120 About 100 kilos, give or take. 359 00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:59,400 So what did he do? He wrapped the drugs in bags, 360 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:01,920 and weighted them down. 361 00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:05,320 Maybe the packaging wasn't strong enough 362 00:22:05,400 --> 00:22:10,560 to withstand the currents below the surface. 363 00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:15,240 And that probably caused the bags and the bundles to break up, 364 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,440 and they spread around the island. 365 00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:21,160 Packages washed up on the north and south coast. 366 00:22:29,120 --> 00:22:31,880 "Your cousin wants to talk to you." 367 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:35,920 So I call him, and he says, "Sandro, we're rich." 368 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:41,880 "You need to come see us." 369 00:22:41,960 --> 00:22:45,520 Word of it spread quickly. Someone must have spotted something. 370 00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,600 There was a mad scramble to find the cocaine. 371 00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,720 We're not talking about one. We're talking about hundreds. 372 00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:53,120 There were heaps of them. 373 00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:58,280 When we heard that a boat in Capelas, 374 00:22:58,360 --> 00:23:02,480 a yacht, had lost kilos of coke or had dumped it overboard, 375 00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:05,520 we went to Capelas to see if we could find 376 00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:08,720 a gram or two to have ourselves a little party. 377 00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:10,880 Most people didn't know what it was. 378 00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:14,680 The people who did know were the repatriates. They knew. 379 00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:17,480 Nobody in the world would've believed it. 380 00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:20,200 That wasn't just coke. It was money. 381 00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,920 Bags of money washed in by the sea. 382 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:26,200 It's the same thing. 383 00:23:36,680 --> 00:23:38,160 I started to research a bit. 384 00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,200 There was nothing on the Internet. 385 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:42,800 Absolutely nothing. 386 00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:45,720 How could such a tragic event, 387 00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,920 which took place in the European Union, not have been reported? 388 00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,080 So we started making plans, 389 00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,240 started preparing a trip to the Azores 390 00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:55,880 to try to tell this story. 391 00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:01,760 We got to Rabo de Peixe and met a group of teenagers. 392 00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:03,600 And we said to them, 393 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,760 "We're from Spain, and we're investigating what happened in Rabo de Peixe." 394 00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:09,200 They started laughing. 395 00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:11,800 Their reaction was a little intimidating. 396 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:15,760 And suddenly, our friend leaned back against a lamppost 397 00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:20,920 and took out a lump of hashish she'd just scored. 398 00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,160 And she started burning it. 399 00:24:24,240 --> 00:24:28,920 About 20 guys had surrounded us. 400 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,000 Then this testosterone circle opened up, 401 00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,040 and Telmo appeared. 402 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:54,160 RAPEXINHO (NATIVE OF RABO DE PEIXE) 403 00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:56,760 He approaches us and says, 404 00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:59,480 "So, what is it you girls want?" 405 00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,600 That was our gateway to the whole of Rabo de Peixe. 406 00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:11,120 Back in the day, people here were hungry. 407 00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:15,160 My friends would go to my house just to eat. 408 00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:16,400 It was real hunger. 409 00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:21,000 Cocoa, sugar, bread, tuna, chickpeas. 410 00:25:21,080 --> 00:25:23,600 We'd eat chickpeas, count out each one. 411 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:27,280 We'd split the cans of chickpeas between five or six of us. 412 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:31,160 And I used to steal sausages from my mom. 413 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,600 Cans of sausages. That upset her. 414 00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,520 I'd come home and take a couple. Sometimes I'd hide them. 415 00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:38,680 I'd pull a couple of cans to the front 416 00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:41,560 and take the one in the middle. 417 00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,720 My mom would be like, "What's this?" 418 00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,800 When we were 12, we went surfing with flippers. 419 00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,360 We had no idea what it was. 420 00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,720 We started breaking it, banging it on the rocks. We had no idea. 421 00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,360 We smeared the rocks with it, smeared everything, then ran off. 422 00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,320 There are stories of children writing on the ground with it. 423 00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,920 "Maria loves João." 424 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,120 "Luís is a jerk." 425 00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:11,160 We wanted to play soccer one day, and there was no whitewash 426 00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:13,880 to mark the pitch with. 427 00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:15,600 I showed up, and they'd painted it. 428 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:18,920 They'd marked the lines on the pitch 429 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,080 with the packets they'd found in the sea. 430 00:26:21,160 --> 00:26:23,880 There was loads of it scattered everywhere. 431 00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:26,360 A lot of people even thought it was trash. 432 00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,280 There were like 20, 30, 40 packets here, 433 00:26:29,360 --> 00:26:32,520 five or six there, 50 over there. 434 00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:34,280 Kilos and kilos of it. 435 00:26:34,360 --> 00:26:38,040 In Calhetas, it was all along the coast. Packets everywhere. 436 00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:40,560 Fishermen at sea even found packets in their nets. 437 00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:42,720 On the islands too. 438 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,840 It was like going to the store to pick up a packet of sugar. 439 00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:47,000 It was everywhere. 440 00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,400 I found a package shaped like a ball, 441 00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,640 took out my knife and cut it. 442 00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:53,920 When I cut it, I heard this squeak. 443 00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:55,440 It was glass. 444 00:26:55,520 --> 00:26:59,280 I broke it open with a stone, and there was powder inside. 445 00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:01,280 It was like an actual rock. 446 00:27:01,360 --> 00:27:04,480 I scraped a bit out with my knife and tasted it. 447 00:27:05,160 --> 00:27:09,120 I didn't know what it was, but a friend who'd lived abroad for years 448 00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,280 said it was flour for frying fish and gave me 400 escudos. 449 00:27:12,360 --> 00:27:15,560 And it was a big rock, about this high and this thick. 450 00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,120 A kilo, more or less, of street cocaine. 451 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:23,480 And they all told basically the same stories, you know? 452 00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:28,240 The women who breaded fish with cocaine, 453 00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,320 thinking it was flour. 454 00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,520 Or putting cocaine in coffee, thinking it was sugar. 455 00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:35,360 It was like science fiction. 456 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,360 They told us these completely crazy stories, 457 00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:40,920 but they kept repeating them. 458 00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:43,960 Sensible people who had their lives sorted 459 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:45,480 handed it in to the police. 460 00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,280 But the clever guys, the mobster guys, 461 00:27:48,360 --> 00:27:51,280 began collecting it all. That's obvious, right? 462 00:27:51,360 --> 00:27:55,600 They started to collect it because they knew what to do with it. 463 00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,200 The guys who'd been deported from the US knew what drugs were. 464 00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,080 They'd been schooled in crime. 465 00:28:01,160 --> 00:28:03,800 I got caught with 33 guns and 2,000 bullets. 466 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,520 They knew what street life's like. 467 00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:09,880 It involves drugs. 468 00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,040 It involves prostitution. 469 00:28:12,600 --> 00:28:14,960 It involves bank robbery, murder. 470 00:28:23,120 --> 00:28:25,800 We went to Capelas and waited until two in the morning 471 00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,160 for the guy who was going to do business with us. 472 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:30,720 And sure enough, 473 00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,400 at two in the morning he shows up with a gram of blow. 474 00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,400 So that night we had a little party. 475 00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,440 Had a few drinks, did a few lines. 476 00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,360 The next day, at one o'clock in the afternoon, 477 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,320 I hear a motorcycle pull up outside my door 478 00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,800 and think it must be someone for me. 479 00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:51,040 There's a knock on the door. It's Rui Couto. 480 00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:55,240 And he's holding a construction glove full of cocaine. 481 00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,680 I open the door, and he comes in. 482 00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,080 He walks over to my kitchen table, 483 00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:02,880 dumps the coke, and says, 484 00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,120 "Get busy with that, 485 00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,000 and I'll talk to you tonight." 486 00:29:10,240 --> 00:29:13,360 The friend I did the deal with asked me if I had any heroin. 487 00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,440 I said I had about 100 grams. 488 00:29:15,520 --> 00:29:18,960 I get in his car, and he tosses this 300-gram ball into the back. 489 00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:20,400 "A gift for you," he says. 490 00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:24,760 And Jacky, who'd found a load of packets at Capelas, 491 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,520 had been here too. And he'd been at Rui's. 492 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,120 Just these great lumps of coke all over the floor. 493 00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,840 I'm like, "This guy's crazy." Coke smells. 494 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:37,680 So I say, "Is that coke?" 495 00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,320 "You've got coke all over the car." 496 00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,320 And he says, "Rui, that shit's ruined my life once, 497 00:29:43,400 --> 00:29:45,000 and it'll do so again." 498 00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:47,560 That's exactly what he said to me. 499 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:49,880 Jacky's passed away already. 500 00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,680 We did a deal for eight kilos in that house once, 501 00:29:54,320 --> 00:29:56,600 and he wanted eight million escudos. 502 00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:58,840 A million per kilo. 503 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,480 So we start haggling with Rui. 504 00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:05,240 He was good at that. 505 00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,480 "Come on, we're friends. You could give us a discount." 506 00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,280 And those same eight kilos cost five million. 507 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:14,240 He had another couple of kilos in the car. 508 00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:18,440 You open the trunk, and he has sausages, cheese, containers, 509 00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:22,640 and he starts selling wine glasses full of coke. He was crazy. 510 00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:24,200 So we talked to him 511 00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:26,400 and got a ton of blow. 512 00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,720 It was like a miracle for them. 513 00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:31,000 It was like, "Oh no." 514 00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,880 "I can't believe that Jesus is looking down on us from Heaven." 515 00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,480 For a lot of people, it was a miracle. 516 00:30:55,880 --> 00:30:57,080 JUNE 20, 2001 SEARCH 517 00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,600 I was preparing for a sailing lesson, and at the entrance to the marina 518 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:02,800 I saw a yacht at anchor. 519 00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:06,640 When a yacht's at anchor, there's often a problem. 520 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,040 I asked if everything was okay, 521 00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:11,200 and they said, 522 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,880 "There's a problem with the rudder. We'd like to moor." 523 00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:16,400 JUDICIAL POLICE 524 00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:20,120 Any repairs that are carried out 525 00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:23,520 on a vessel's moving parts 526 00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,040 below the waterline, 527 00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,200 anything that's submerged, have to be done on land. 528 00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:32,840 You can't fix a rudder without making a hole in the boat. 529 00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:38,680 There were two crew members. Two on deck, at least. 530 00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,200 And one of them, the youngest, 531 00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:44,960 had a wad of cash. 532 00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:47,360 It was still escudos back then. 533 00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,720 A large wad of cash. 534 00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:53,360 "We'll pay you if you help us dock." 535 00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:57,080 I said, "I don't want money. There's no need to pay me." 536 00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:59,240 I helped them dock, and that was that. 537 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,640 Anyone who anchors their boat before clearing in, 538 00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:08,240 or heads to a different port instead of the one where the authorities are located, 539 00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:10,920 immediately arouses suspicion. 540 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:14,640 If you're not European and have to enter Europe, 541 00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:19,960 the first thing you need to do is register with the port authorities. 542 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:23,200 When we got to the boat, I remember there was a ladder, 543 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:27,760 and I think we called out for someone to come outside. 544 00:32:27,840 --> 00:32:30,160 And when he approached us, I said, 545 00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,680 "We're the police. We have a search warrant." 546 00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:36,280 The guy's hair was a bit disheveled. 547 00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:38,560 He had long, curly hair. 548 00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,840 He was a tall guy, maybe six feet. 549 00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:45,200 A big, strong guy. 550 00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,280 He was using a false identity he had. 551 00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:50,000 Giovanni Speranza. 552 00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:54,480 I think it was Italian. He had various documents in that name. 553 00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,280 And when we searched the sailboat, 554 00:32:57,360 --> 00:32:59,760 we found more documents, 555 00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:03,680 some belonging to a Spanish citizen called Javier Gómez, 556 00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:05,880 and we found ID for an Antonino Quinci. 557 00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,440 We thought it was just another fake identity. 558 00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:11,720 But no. Once the situation was clarified, 559 00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:13,840 Antonino Quinci assured us 560 00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:16,920 that was in fact his real identity. 561 00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,640 He was quite cordial. 562 00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:23,880 We always ask, "Is there anything you'd like to hand over voluntarily, 563 00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,160 anything that might incriminate you, or do we have to search the boat?" 564 00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:31,520 And Quinci said there was nothing illegal onboard. 565 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:35,120 I explained to him in Italian 566 00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:36,680 what we were going to do. 567 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,800 We had a sniffer dog trained to detect drugs. 568 00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:43,520 It was a cocker spaniel. A small dog. 569 00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,680 The dog was taken onboard and went around the boat. 570 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,960 I could smell the cocaine. The boat reeked of it. 571 00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:54,560 But the dog didn't pick it up. 572 00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,800 And when it left the boat, 573 00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,360 I saw Quinci breathe a sigh of relief. 574 00:34:01,440 --> 00:34:04,000 His heart rate returned to normal. 575 00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,760 He escorted me back down the steps, as if to say, 576 00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:11,920 "Well, the dog didn't find anything. You're leaving now." 577 00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:14,680 And I said, "We're not done yet." 578 00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,280 "We're going to search the boat. We'll get started now." 579 00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:25,160 There's a lot of imagination involved in hiding drugs. 580 00:34:25,240 --> 00:34:26,960 They create fake compartments, 581 00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:28,400 false walls. 582 00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:32,120 They hide it in canned goods 583 00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:36,400 to make it look like food for the trip. 584 00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:41,440 We had to remove everything, or almost everything, 585 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,920 so we could start searching the boat from the aft to the bow 586 00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:48,880 for secret compartments where the drugs could be hidden. 587 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,520 I noticed Quinci was getting worried. 588 00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:55,800 There was an intense smell of cocaine. 589 00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,520 It had been in bales, crossing the Atlantic for weeks. 590 00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:03,800 You can't avoid that smell. You can't mask it. 591 00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,800 We ended up finding close to a kilo. 592 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:13,080 A packet from which he'd taken some drugs for personal use. 593 00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:17,080 That's when I realized he felt the game was up. 594 00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:20,600 He felt trapped by the fact that he had the drugs. 595 00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:22,080 And not just that. 596 00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:27,200 The bag the cocaine was packed in, 597 00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,920 the packaging that was used, 598 00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:34,960 exactly matched the packaging of the cocaine we'd recovered earlier. 599 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,600 The bag was linked to the other bag, 600 00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:41,000 not least because of its specific characteristics. 601 00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:44,920 An Italian suspected of transporting a large quantity of cocaine on his yacht 602 00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,440 has been arrested in Ponta Delgada. 603 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:52,800 The amount seized is enough to make more than 2.5 million doses. 604 00:35:55,240 --> 00:35:57,840 LAWYER 605 00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:00,360 He reminded me 606 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,280 of my idea of a pirate when I was a child. 607 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:07,680 Maybe because he was a sailor, but he just had that look about him. 608 00:36:07,760 --> 00:36:12,280 I went to the prison to talk to Mr. Quinci, 609 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:15,360 and he spoke very little. 610 00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,880 The exact opposite of a normal lawyer-client relationship, 611 00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:23,440 where they tell their story so we can outline a defense strategy. 612 00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,440 That never happened. 613 00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:27,560 He was the one asking the questions, 614 00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:32,720 and he was unwilling to share information. 615 00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:39,080 He was always very worried about extradition. 616 00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,560 Not about serving time in Portugal, 617 00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:45,240 but about the possibility of extradition. 618 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,520 He was intimidating because of his silence, 619 00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:52,160 because of his intense gaze, 620 00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:54,880 and his long periods of silence. 621 00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,120 And because he was so withdrawn. 622 00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,360 He was an unusual person. 623 00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:05,000 Good evening. Enough for more than 2.5 million doses of cocaine. 624 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,400 That's 456 packets of drugs, 625 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:12,040 which have been seized at various points along the coast of São Miguel. 626 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,640 JUNE 15, 2001 THE ITALIAN'S BLOW 627 00:37:17,720 --> 00:37:19,440 Cocaine is a stimulant. 628 00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:21,000 HEAD OF SOCIAL SERVICES 629 00:37:21,080 --> 00:37:22,960 It activates bodily functions, 630 00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:27,040 so you feel like you have more energy, more capabilities. 631 00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,920 But it's also a drug that can trigger 632 00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,480 the development of psychoses, 633 00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:38,280 paranoia, a distrust of the world, and it wears you down. 634 00:37:38,360 --> 00:37:42,600 Imagine being at 100 miles an hour, all day, every day. 635 00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:44,960 It's a so-called hungry drug. 636 00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,360 Because of its effect on the brain, 637 00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:50,400 the more you take, the more you want to take. 638 00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:51,960 The cocaine was uncut. 639 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:55,040 So it was 98% pure. 640 00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:57,760 I said, "What the hell is this coke?" 641 00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,520 The cocaine that shows up on the market at street level 642 00:38:01,600 --> 00:38:03,320 is usually cut. 643 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:06,960 They add substances to increase the volume and weight 644 00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:08,400 to make more profit. 645 00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:12,880 Transatlantic cocaine is always very pure. 646 00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:17,240 If it doesn't come in at 95%, it comes in at 90% or 85%, 647 00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,600 but it's always very pure. 648 00:38:19,680 --> 00:38:21,240 What you find on the street 649 00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,360 is around 10%, 15%, 20% of what it is at the source. 650 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,840 You didn't get much cocaine around here, and it wasn't very strong. 651 00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:33,320 When this appeared, it was a bit too… 652 00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:37,440 -The Italian's blow was something else. -It was pure. 653 00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:39,920 We called it "the Italian's coke." 654 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,240 "That's the Italian's blow, see? It's the Italian's coke." 655 00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,520 Because the cocaine is purer, it has a greater effect on a person. 656 00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:51,920 They either become more intoxicated due to the effect on the brain, 657 00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:54,200 or they overdose and die. 658 00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:05,480 The stuff you only see in movies. 659 00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:09,560 Everyone got an education. 660 00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:15,800 Because nobody knew what it was. 661 00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:20,480 They sold it in cups. They didn't know to put it in a bag. 662 00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,920 They put it in cups and sold the cups. Then the cups ran out. 663 00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,440 And what about the fishermen? 664 00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:30,520 They found the drugs. 665 00:39:30,600 --> 00:39:33,080 They were at sea, catching limpets or fish, 666 00:39:33,160 --> 00:39:34,400 and they found it. 667 00:39:35,440 --> 00:39:39,960 And they sold it for 100 or 200 thousand escudos. Peanuts. 668 00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:42,200 Those with money could buy it cheap. 669 00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,000 They just had to offer 100 or 200 thousand escudos, 670 00:39:45,080 --> 00:39:46,920 and they'd get two or three kilos. 671 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,160 A lot of people made a lot of money. 672 00:39:50,560 --> 00:39:54,400 There was this kid who was diving, and packets kept hitting his snorkel. 673 00:39:57,120 --> 00:40:01,040 He looks up and sees all these packets floating in the water. 674 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,280 And he's like, "What the fuck's this?" 675 00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,520 Then he looks over at the rocks and sees this other kid 676 00:40:07,240 --> 00:40:09,960 stuffing packets into an old bag. 677 00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:14,920 He was carrying it on his back, and the packets kept falling out. 678 00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,040 That kid found a lot too. 679 00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,960 He was always very drunk. 680 00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,320 He drank a lot. And when he drank, 681 00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:27,000 he'd go to the cafés and talk about the drugs. 682 00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,240 And someone threw him off the rocks. 683 00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:33,880 The people who sold it cheap didn't know what they were dealing with. 684 00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,480 They didn't even realize how dangerous the substance was. 685 00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:41,920 Five thousand escudos got you a small packet. Full of it! 686 00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:44,560 It was so accessible and so abundant 687 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,080 that it wasn't sold by the gram. It was sold by the cup. 688 00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:51,320 Coffee cups of it. 689 00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:54,680 For five euros or five thousand escudos. Some shit like that. 690 00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:57,720 On the street. Not even in a plastic bag. From their pocket. 691 00:40:57,800 --> 00:40:59,640 "What do you want? Here." 692 00:40:59,720 --> 00:41:03,840 They'd put their hand in their pocket and hand it out. Just like that. 693 00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,600 In their greed to make money, 694 00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:09,800 if one guy sold it for ten, another would sell it for eight. 695 00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:11,520 And another for five. 696 00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:14,800 It got to the point where they'd say, "Got any coke?" 697 00:41:14,880 --> 00:41:16,960 "How much do you want?" "This much." 698 00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:18,400 There was no control. 699 00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:22,640 The problem was they couldn't sell it anymore. Everyone had some. 700 00:41:22,720 --> 00:41:24,760 Another way to sell it 701 00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:28,840 is to get it off the island to America, Canada, Portugal, Europe. 702 00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,840 Mainlanders came over to buy it too. 703 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,800 They'd buy a few kilos, which they'd cut with whatever. 704 00:41:34,880 --> 00:41:36,040 They would know. 705 00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:39,040 At the time, all anyone talked about was cocaine. 706 00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,960 The Italian taught Rabo de Peixe what good blow is. 707 00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:47,200 The locals had never seen a line, let alone a kilo. 708 00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:51,960 An interesting thing happened. 709 00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,880 The few people who had contact with the Italian 710 00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:57,960 had a kind of Stockholm syndrome. 711 00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,320 They all described him as a very burly person. 712 00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:03,440 Not aggressive, but stocky. 713 00:42:04,720 --> 00:42:09,440 But they also spoke as if he was perhaps a good person. 714 00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,920 They said he had a heart. He wasn't heartless. 715 00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,120 I remember talking to him and telling him 716 00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:20,640 the situation on the island was chaotic. It was catastrophic. 717 00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,560 He thought about it for a while and said, 718 00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,800 "Okay, fine. I realize it's total chaos out there." 719 00:42:27,880 --> 00:42:29,240 "I heard it on the news." 720 00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:31,240 He'd been out of jail for two weeks, 721 00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:34,760 and he'd seen on the news what was happening. 722 00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:37,920 "I'll show you the location." 723 00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,560 We later learned 724 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:47,840 that he was supposed to have 705 kilos of cocaine onboard. 725 00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,680 The Spanish authorities were monitoring the traffickers. 726 00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:52,680 It was a large network 727 00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:57,560 that imported 22 to 25 tons of cocaine a year into Spain. 728 00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:59,320 Into Bilbao and Barcelona. 729 00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,800 I don't think that's true. 730 00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,000 Besides the boat's cargo capacity, 731 00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:09,640 when you transport this type of cargo, you bring much larger quantities. 732 00:43:09,720 --> 00:43:13,120 The 47-foot Sun Kiss is a boat 733 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:18,080 with a cargo capacity of 3,500 to 4,000 kilos. 734 00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:22,480 There was a lot of talk at the time that what the police found 735 00:43:22,560 --> 00:43:25,640 was probably a fraction of the amount… 736 00:43:25,720 --> 00:43:26,800 CLINICAL DIRECTOR 737 00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:29,160 …that had washed ashore. 738 00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:32,480 The actual amount would have been much higher 739 00:43:32,560 --> 00:43:34,840 than the amount officially reported. 740 00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,400 I did the math and reckoned it was 420 kilos. 741 00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:41,160 They loaded it into a car and took it away. 742 00:43:41,240 --> 00:43:45,800 But in court, the judge said it was 210 kilos. 743 00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:47,480 He repeated it three times. 744 00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,320 I told him that was wrong, that it was 420. 745 00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,280 He was getting irritated, 746 00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,400 kept fiddling with his calculator, 747 00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:57,640 and it was always 210 kilos. 748 00:43:57,720 --> 00:44:00,280 If he wanted it to be 210, fine. So be it. 749 00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,880 THE AUTHORITIES ANNOUNCED THE SEIZURE OF 750 KG. 750 00:44:02,960 --> 00:44:05,240 REPORTS SAY OVER 3,000 KG WASHED ASHORE. 751 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,600 I've never seen so many drugs. It was like a movie. 752 00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,560 Everyone had it. We all abused it. 753 00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:23,440 There was globalization and democratization. Fishermen, farmers… 754 00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:25,920 Democratization seems to be a fact. 755 00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,800 We used to say it was a drug for the rich. 756 00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:31,520 The client wore a tie. He might be a lawyer or a doctor, 757 00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:35,560 a soccer player, a business owner. 758 00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:37,160 Those are the best clients. 759 00:44:37,240 --> 00:44:39,880 It was no longer just for the elite. 760 00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,200 It became widespread. 761 00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:43,960 I'd go to a nightclub, 762 00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:46,720 and every five minutes I'd want to go outside. 763 00:44:46,800 --> 00:44:49,080 You'd do a line and then go back in. 764 00:44:49,160 --> 00:44:51,320 Everyone was doing blow. 765 00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,040 One night here, we got through 300 grams. 766 00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,160 The table was just covered with rocks. 767 00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:02,680 Everyone had it. 768 00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:04,560 It was in the nightclubs, 769 00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:06,560 the strip clubs, the whorehouses. 770 00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:09,000 The poor had it, and the rich wanted it. 771 00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:13,040 It was seen almost as a social upgrade. 772 00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,080 Having access to what used to be 773 00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,280 only for people who studied or had financial status. 774 00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:22,760 I showed up at ten, eleven o'clock in the morning, 775 00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,880 and everyone was snorting. 776 00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:28,680 "Hey, Sandro!" 777 00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:32,440 "What's up? You want a line? Here, it's pure." 778 00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:36,440 With heroin, you either throw up or go very pale. 779 00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:38,960 But not with cocaine. 780 00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:42,600 You get that drunk-like effect, 781 00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:45,680 then you do a line, and you're fine. 782 00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:49,120 You sober up and talk a lot, and you're speeding. 783 00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:54,200 Dealing was done on the street. 784 00:45:54,280 --> 00:45:55,720 Like this, hand to hand. 785 00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,600 A lot of fishermen, workers, honest people, 786 00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:01,480 would come up to us and say, 787 00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:03,440 "Hey, that's not nice, you know?" 788 00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,480 Because people were going to church, passing by. 789 00:46:07,080 --> 00:46:10,840 So we had a meeting, and we decided 790 00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:14,280 that my colleagues and I 791 00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:18,200 would no longer sell drugs on Sundays, 792 00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:20,120 a holy day. 793 00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:21,680 It wasn't nice. 794 00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:26,240 We start with a story that's worrying the community in Ponta Delgada, 795 00:46:26,320 --> 00:46:29,720 and which is as absurd as it is alarming. 796 00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:34,160 The whole of the island of São Miguel is awash with cocaine. 797 00:46:36,200 --> 00:46:37,680 JUNE 18, 2001 FIRST DEATH 798 00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,160 The first death by overdose. 799 00:46:41,240 --> 00:46:43,080 COCAINE KILLS IN SÃO MIGUEL 800 00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,200 That death changed the tone 801 00:46:45,280 --> 00:46:48,320 of the ongoing investigation 802 00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:51,960 and changed the way the story was reported. 803 00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,240 It's just after 3:00 p.m. 804 00:46:55,320 --> 00:47:00,360 The ER at Ponta Delgada hospital in the Azores is alerted to an emergency. 805 00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:02,440 I went to the hospital 806 00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,720 and got lucky, so to speak. 807 00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:11,840 I had the sad misfortune to come across 808 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:17,200 a lady being taken out of the ambulance 809 00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,680 in a terrible state of… 810 00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:26,240 Anyway. 811 00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,880 A woman took too much cocaine. 812 00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:33,040 Her life is at risk, and time is of the essence. 813 00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:36,520 They passed by me in the corridors of the hospital. 814 00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:39,200 "It's yet another case," 815 00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,320 said the person who was with us. 816 00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,000 "Another overdose." 817 00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,480 In this case, she was in danger, 818 00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,080 but she arrived at the right time 819 00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,520 for us to be able to take measures 820 00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:57,520 to immediately secure her airways and her cardiac system. 821 00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:02,560 We started seeing an influx of people who were using cocaine, 822 00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:04,560 many of them for the first time, 823 00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:08,040 in very serious medical condition. 824 00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,200 This gave the department a new dynamic. 825 00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:15,240 We weren't prepared to deal with this type of patient. 826 00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:17,800 The hospital was overwhelmed. 827 00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,760 There were dozens of people, a tremendous influx of people, 828 00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,680 who had overdosed on cocaine. 829 00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,440 Two, three, four, five overdoses in a row. 830 00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:30,160 Overdoses one after another. People were dying. 831 00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:32,600 People were dying every day. 832 00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,680 There are records of 20 to 30 deaths. 833 00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:38,000 I don't believe it. I think there were far more. 834 00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,560 It was a dramatic situation, one that was bound to leave a mark. 835 00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:45,320 The problem grew, and in the following years, 836 00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:49,160 there were many more fatalities 837 00:48:49,240 --> 00:48:51,120 due to this problem. 838 00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:53,520 Two friends of mine died as well. 839 00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:55,760 They overdosed. 840 00:48:55,840 --> 00:48:59,720 That drug killed a lot of people. A lot of young people. 841 00:48:59,800 --> 00:49:01,920 It was a very serious problem, 842 00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,560 and it should have received far more attention. 843 00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:09,840 Even if only behind the scenes, it should have received more attention. 844 00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:11,880 We felt abandoned. 845 00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,960 If they were aware of the danger they're in, 846 00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:19,640 and knew that their life could suddenly come to an end, 847 00:49:19,720 --> 00:49:22,960 senselessly, at such a young age… 848 00:49:23,920 --> 00:49:26,920 If that was something 849 00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,440 that would turn them away from drugs, 850 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:34,960 the message I would give them would be, "Just stop." 851 00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,320 It was a wake-up call. 852 00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:41,720 "Stop doing it. Just stop." 853 00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:43,400 There were alarming situations. 854 00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:46,320 We knew of very young kids, 855 00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:48,840 aged only 12 or 13, 856 00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:52,880 who were injecting cocaine directly into their bloodstream. 857 00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:56,320 It was unheard of and very serious. 858 00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,880 I managed to go a week without eating. 859 00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:02,400 Nights and days in here. 860 00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,440 He told us he'd done 861 00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:07,680 nearly half a kilo of cocaine. 862 00:50:07,760 --> 00:50:10,880 He jabbed this vein 863 00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:15,440 and inserted the needle of a 200 milliliter syringe. 864 00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,400 Those syringes they use to inject cows. 865 00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:20,840 He stopped the initial bleeding, 866 00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:23,880 fastened the syringe like a splint, 867 00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:28,080 and spent four or five days using. 868 00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,160 In his head, he had to use it all up 869 00:50:30,240 --> 00:50:34,560 before someone came along and took away his "treat," 870 00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:36,560 his "perk." 871 00:50:36,640 --> 00:50:38,600 So he had to consume all the cocaine. 872 00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:41,880 There came a time when people couldn't snort anymore. 873 00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,040 It was like having a cold. 874 00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:48,160 You couldn't snort anymore. Your nose was all blocked up. 875 00:50:48,240 --> 00:50:50,800 People started smoking crack. 876 00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:54,920 That's why one of my songs is called Crack in the Kitchen. 877 00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,240 Crack and coke are different. 878 00:50:58,120 --> 00:51:01,800 You get more paranoid. More crazy. 879 00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:06,200 It all started at around 8:30 a.m. 880 00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:10,440 when a 24-year-old man fled from what he believed was the police 881 00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:14,160 and entered the garage of house number two on Rua Cidade de San Leandro. 882 00:51:14,240 --> 00:51:17,720 "What are you doing here?" "I'm running from the cops because of…" 883 00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:19,960 Then he starts telling me a story 884 00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,400 about the drugs that washed up in Rabo de Peixe. 885 00:51:23,480 --> 00:51:24,960 For more than two hours, 886 00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,280 efforts were made to persuade the young man to come down. 887 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:31,240 Syringe in hand, he kept making threats, 888 00:51:31,320 --> 00:51:34,240 until an acquaintance of the would-be suicide victim 889 00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:36,240 put an end to the situation. 890 00:52:01,280 --> 00:52:03,560 JULY 1, 2001 891 00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:05,600 My friend Tony, from Lomba da Maia, 892 00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:10,520 was spending his weekends in jail because of his driving license. 893 00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:18,720 I lost my license. So many times. 894 00:52:18,800 --> 00:52:22,760 The judge would say, "You again, Mr. António?" So many times. 895 00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,000 I had to do weekends. 896 00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:27,960 And although I was doing weekends, I still drove. 897 00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:33,000 The judge was like, "You again? I don't know what to with you do anymore." 898 00:52:33,080 --> 00:52:35,560 "You'll have to retake your driving test." 899 00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:38,200 She really helped me, that judge. 900 00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:42,520 So I get there and go in. 901 00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:45,640 I'm taken to a cell on the first floor. 902 00:52:45,720 --> 00:52:49,840 A lot of repatriates there. A lot of people I know. Friends. 903 00:52:49,920 --> 00:52:54,360 "Hey, Tony! Go to the second cell on the second floor!" 904 00:52:54,440 --> 00:52:55,440 Wonderful! 905 00:52:55,520 --> 00:52:57,120 The food was good. 906 00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:00,040 A lot of people came here from the mainland 907 00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:02,760 and said it was like a hotel. The food was the best. 908 00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:04,920 And for me, it was. 909 00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,960 The portions are generous. You eat really well here. 910 00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:11,200 It's just big pots of fish and rice. 911 00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,240 I met the Italian when I was doing weekends. 912 00:53:16,320 --> 00:53:19,680 When the Italian was taken there, 913 00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,600 it was clear he'd been in jail before. 914 00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,360 One of those high-security prisons. 915 00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:29,440 And when he saw how low the prison walls were, he said, 916 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:31,400 "This isn't a jail. It's a school." 917 00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,320 The Italian didn't say much, 918 00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,040 and the only person he really talked to was Tony. 919 00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:44,600 He didn't want to be locked up, but as far as I could tell, 920 00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:48,680 he'd escaped from other jails and been caught many times. 921 00:53:48,760 --> 00:53:50,960 Tony went to jail on Fridays 922 00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:53,160 and left on the Sunday afternoon. 923 00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:54,680 He did time on the weekend. 924 00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:58,640 He spoke a bit of English, a bit of Portuguese and Spanish. 925 00:53:58,720 --> 00:54:00,640 That's how I got to know him. 926 00:54:00,720 --> 00:54:03,240 He spoke to people, but no one understood him. 927 00:54:03,320 --> 00:54:06,680 So they got together. And one day… 928 00:54:07,720 --> 00:54:09,480 During the yard break, 929 00:54:09,560 --> 00:54:15,080 he didn't take part in the ball game that was going on. 930 00:54:15,160 --> 00:54:19,680 He moved towards the back of the yard, 931 00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:22,320 towards the coast road. 932 00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:24,000 The walls were really low. 933 00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:27,520 There were some cement benches in the courtyard. 934 00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:30,120 Whenever the ball went over the wall into the street, 935 00:54:30,200 --> 00:54:32,560 they'd stand on the benches 936 00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:35,120 and wait for someone to pass by. 937 00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,640 Then they'd get up and shout, "Throw us the ball!" 938 00:54:38,720 --> 00:54:40,480 And they'd throw it back in. 939 00:54:40,560 --> 00:54:43,600 When I was in jail, the wall was three feet high. 940 00:54:43,680 --> 00:54:47,320 I'd stand on a bench and ask passersby to get the ball. 941 00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,120 There was no ball. I'd send them left and right, 942 00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:51,760 looking for nothing. 943 00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:55,520 The guard banged on the door with his key. 944 00:54:57,480 --> 00:54:59,640 Time for one last walk around the yard, 945 00:54:59,720 --> 00:55:01,640 which is what some did. 946 00:55:01,720 --> 00:55:04,680 And the Italian did. He walked round the yard. 947 00:55:04,760 --> 00:55:07,520 And then I saw him jump. 948 00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:14,520 He jumped over that tiny wall with its flimsy netting onto the road. 949 00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:18,240 There was a guard in the tower with a shotgun. 950 00:55:20,440 --> 00:55:23,440 The Italian shouts, "Don't kill me!" 951 00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:25,160 He said, "Ciao" 952 00:55:26,160 --> 00:55:27,600 and just ran off. 953 00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,200 Tony was waiting with his bike. 954 00:55:30,280 --> 00:55:31,560 I was waiting for him. 955 00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:35,400 He was pretty courageous, and so was I. We were both very brave. 956 00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:39,800 The guards said it was a big bike, because he disappeared so quickly. 957 00:55:39,880 --> 00:55:41,840 With a big bike, you get away faster. 958 00:55:42,800 --> 00:55:44,760 But no. It was a scooter. 959 00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,920 He jumped on the bike, and I took off. 960 00:55:48,000 --> 00:55:52,120 And with all the motorbikes in the city, all those busy streets, 961 00:55:52,200 --> 00:55:55,760 a guy wearing a helmet, who could tell it was the Italian? 962 00:55:55,840 --> 00:56:00,280 I drove along dirt paths and gravel roads. 963 00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,080 At Ribeira Seca, I started going uphill, 964 00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:07,160 along the old farm tracks, all the way to the viewpoint. 965 00:56:07,240 --> 00:56:10,360 I heard that he'd escaped. 966 00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:13,880 Surreal. 967 00:56:13,960 --> 00:56:17,280 It was close to midday, and the yard break was coming to an end. 968 00:56:17,360 --> 00:56:21,720 Antonino Quinci jumped over that barbed wire fence. 969 00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:24,560 A guard fired a few warning shots, 970 00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:26,720 but he fled along the coast road. 971 00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:28,920 If you look at the prison wall today, 972 00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:33,600 you can clearly see how high it used to be. 973 00:56:34,480 --> 00:56:36,560 It was nowhere near its current height. 974 00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:39,480 The prison director thanked me. 975 00:56:39,560 --> 00:56:43,040 "Thanks to you and your news report, 976 00:56:43,120 --> 00:56:47,440 the national prison service 977 00:56:47,520 --> 00:56:52,400 has decided to authorize the funds needed to raise the wall." 978 00:56:57,240 --> 00:56:59,400 I was both surprised and not surprised. 979 00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:01,400 I remember being at home, 980 00:57:01,480 --> 00:57:04,440 hearing the news, and telling my family, "That's my client." 981 00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:08,800 It was a bit of a shock that he escaped. 982 00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:12,960 Especially for me, since he was my client. 983 00:57:15,960 --> 00:57:18,840 Everything was connected to him. It was the Italian's yacht, 984 00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:20,760 the Italian's coke, 985 00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:22,400 the Italian's accident. 986 00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:26,520 But he vanished without a trace. Nobody knew anything about him. 987 00:57:26,600 --> 00:57:29,320 On the day he escaped, 988 00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:33,040 me, Rui Couto, and another friend 989 00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:37,440 had gone into town to pick up a few grams of heroin. 990 00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,240 We got 20 or 30 grams. I don't recall exactly how much. 991 00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:43,400 And when we got to Lomba da Maia, 992 00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:46,080 where there's a road that leads off to Furnas, 993 00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:51,560 we saw the police had set up a checkpoint. 994 00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,920 And we had 20 or 30 grams in the car. 995 00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:58,320 We were terrified. I said, "Now we've done it." 996 00:57:58,960 --> 00:58:01,120 One of the police came over to the car 997 00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:02,960 and told us to open the trunk. 998 00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:08,160 He looked in the trunk and said, "Okay, you have a good night." 999 00:58:09,040 --> 00:58:11,800 We couldn't understand it. 1000 00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,240 "What's up? What kind of a search is this?" 1001 00:58:14,880 --> 00:58:17,240 They were searching the whole island. 1002 00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:21,560 There was a checkpoint in Ribeira Grande, another in Rabo de Peixe, 1003 00:58:21,640 --> 00:58:23,120 and another in the city. 1004 00:58:23,200 --> 00:58:24,960 We didn't know what was going on. 1005 00:58:25,040 --> 00:58:26,560 It was only the next day, 1006 00:58:27,440 --> 00:58:29,720 when we saw it on the news and in the paper, 1007 00:58:30,400 --> 00:58:32,240 that we realized what was going on. 1008 00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:35,200 ESCAPED PRISONER STILL AT LARGE 1009 00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:37,760 POLICE CONTINUE RAIDS IN RABO DE PEIXE 1010 00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:40,560 I asked a guy at the viewpoint if I could take his car 1011 00:58:40,640 --> 00:58:42,160 as I didn't have a helmet. 1012 00:58:42,240 --> 00:58:45,120 I remembered I had a friend in Achadinha, Rui. 1013 00:58:50,720 --> 00:58:54,960 He picked up the Italian on his bike and took him to Rui Couto's house. 1014 00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:00,760 Tony came round and asked if I wanted to buy a few kilos of coke. 1015 00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,440 I said I didn't as I already had enough. 1016 00:59:03,520 --> 00:59:06,840 "I have the owner outside." "What do you mean?" 1017 00:59:06,920 --> 00:59:11,160 "The Italian's out of jail. He escaped." 1018 00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:13,640 "And you left him on my doorstep? Bring him in." 1019 00:59:13,720 --> 00:59:16,400 Little did I know that days later, 1020 00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,800 I'd have the guy who owned the coke in my house. What the hell? 1021 00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:23,560 So Rui started thinking how he could help the guy. 1022 00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:26,640 He found him a place to sleep. 1023 00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:28,520 I got him a beer 1024 00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,160 and octopus to eat. 1025 00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,640 He asked for my phone. I gave it to him, 1026 00:59:33,720 --> 00:59:36,280 and then he asked for some antiseptic for his leg. 1027 00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:39,280 He had pants on and a tracksuit underneath. 1028 00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:43,720 When he'd jumped the barbed wire, he'd cut his leg. 1029 00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:47,240 He asked me for antiseptic, so I went and got him some. 1030 00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:49,080 Then he called his friend, 1031 00:59:49,160 --> 00:59:52,720 and I heard him say he was with a good family, you know? 1032 00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:55,360 When he hung up the phone, 1033 00:59:55,440 --> 01:00:00,440 he told me he didn't want to cause any trouble for my family. 1034 01:00:00,520 --> 01:00:02,040 He didn't know I sold drugs. 1035 01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:07,040 There were only a few of us. 1036 01:00:07,120 --> 01:00:11,400 The narcotics unit had a small team of six or seven officers. 1037 01:00:11,480 --> 01:00:14,640 We had a lot of things to deal with and were understaffed. 1038 01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:18,560 We patrolled the coast, searched all along it, 1039 01:00:18,640 --> 01:00:21,200 looking for more packages. 1040 01:00:21,280 --> 01:00:25,360 We'd see the police in cafés, and out on the street. 1041 01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:27,240 They were using unmarked cars. 1042 01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,760 People didn't know they had them. 1043 01:00:30,840 --> 01:00:34,880 They caught a lot of people thanks to those unmarked cars. 1044 01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:38,800 There were police everywhere, especially in Rabo de Peixe. 1045 01:00:39,320 --> 01:00:41,280 They spent months 1046 01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:44,400 just constantly searching. 1047 01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:48,680 Sometimes we were at a door about to search someone's house, 1048 01:00:48,760 --> 01:00:52,920 and instead of shouting, "Police!" they'd shout, "It's Lopes!" 1049 01:00:53,000 --> 01:00:54,520 That was their warning cry. 1050 01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:57,080 When they looked for it, it was already hidden. 1051 01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:01,720 People hid it inside walls, in fields. 1052 01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:04,680 Never at home. Always outside. 1053 01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:07,000 They stole drugs from each other. 1054 01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,120 Sometimes they'd leave them in the same spot for a long time, 1055 01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:13,200 and someone they knew might know where they'd hidden it. 1056 01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:15,360 That's where the story of the rats comes in. 1057 01:01:15,440 --> 01:01:18,240 They'd hide it, come back six months later, 1058 01:01:18,320 --> 01:01:19,800 and only have a little left. 1059 01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:24,480 Ten kilos, and only a little bit's left. The rats threw a party. 1060 01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:27,880 Rock and roll all night. Even the rats enjoyed the blow. 1061 01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:31,160 A colleague of ours from the police 1062 01:01:31,680 --> 01:01:34,680 had also traded some of the drugs. 1063 01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:38,480 He'd kept a few kilos of cocaine for himself. 1064 01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:40,760 He was arrested and expelled from the force. 1065 01:01:40,840 --> 01:01:43,520 I had to run from the police sometimes. 1066 01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:45,040 I was afraid of them. 1067 01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:47,680 The police were everywhere. 1068 01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,960 A lot of people made money. A lot became rich. 1069 01:01:51,040 --> 01:01:52,720 And that led to robberies. 1070 01:01:53,640 --> 01:01:55,000 Theft. 1071 01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:58,760 A lot of gold and diamonds went missing. 1072 01:01:58,840 --> 01:02:03,440 Then they started using. They didn't know what they were using. 1073 01:02:03,520 --> 01:02:05,560 There was no money left, 1074 01:02:05,640 --> 01:02:10,600 and that cocaine sent a lot of people to their graves. 1075 01:02:12,920 --> 01:02:13,960 In misery. 1076 01:02:18,480 --> 01:02:20,920 In addition to the worrying situation 1077 01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:25,160 of trying to contain and remove the cocaine from the market, 1078 01:02:25,240 --> 01:02:30,000 there was now the added issue of recapturing Quinci. 1079 01:02:30,080 --> 01:02:33,640 Weirdly, we'd heard no more of the Italian. 1080 01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:37,840 And that made us a bit curious. Not a bit, very. 1081 01:02:37,920 --> 01:02:40,680 But only a few people knew he was here. 1082 01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:43,400 My friend on the boat knew. 1083 01:02:43,480 --> 01:02:46,720 António, my good friend, also knew. 1084 01:02:46,800 --> 01:02:50,280 And… Pacheco didn't know, and he was my best friend. 1085 01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:52,160 Rui was trying… 1086 01:02:53,720 --> 01:02:55,520 You know what I mean? 1087 01:02:56,760 --> 01:03:00,160 He never told me the Italian with the coke was there. 1088 01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:03,880 He didn't want to. I've no idea why. 1089 01:03:03,960 --> 01:03:08,040 He was here for three weeks, and no one ever knew, you know? 1090 01:03:08,120 --> 01:03:09,920 I just went about my normal routine. 1091 01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:11,640 He stayed in the middle house. 1092 01:03:11,720 --> 01:03:14,400 I had about 400 bales of weed there. 1093 01:03:14,480 --> 01:03:18,800 I gave him a rechargeable fluorescent lamp, 1094 01:03:18,880 --> 01:03:23,320 and he had whiskey and cigarettes. I always got him what he wanted. 1095 01:03:23,400 --> 01:03:27,520 And he told me he didn't eat for two weeks. 1096 01:03:27,600 --> 01:03:31,840 He mixed coke with bran and made a cigarette to calm his hunger. 1097 01:03:31,920 --> 01:03:34,760 António bought phone cards. 1098 01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,280 Twenty cards or something like that. 1099 01:03:38,360 --> 01:03:40,120 Who were they all for? 1100 01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:43,080 Each card only had a few seconds on it, 1101 01:03:43,160 --> 01:03:45,040 so they couldn't start recording. 1102 01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:49,320 In case the police were listening in on him, I guess. 1103 01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:51,880 And then we start talking, and he says to me, 1104 01:03:51,960 --> 01:03:55,800 "Rui, I'm leaving tomorrow." 1105 01:03:55,880 --> 01:03:58,080 "I have transportation lined up next week." 1106 01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:00,320 "This is my life." 1107 01:04:00,400 --> 01:04:02,920 His cousin came over, and they started planning 1108 01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:06,720 how they'd get him out of here without anyone seeing. 1109 01:04:06,800 --> 01:04:09,240 The port wasn't an option. 1110 01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:12,480 I met his nephew. His niece and nephew. 1111 01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:14,320 They hugged me in tears, 1112 01:04:14,400 --> 01:04:17,400 and thanked me for what I'd done for their uncle. 1113 01:04:17,480 --> 01:04:20,920 A trawler was coming here from Madeira 1114 01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:23,640 and would pass here on the north side. 1115 01:04:23,720 --> 01:04:27,240 It would pick him up here, and they'd escape. 1116 01:04:27,320 --> 01:04:31,480 His plan was that a boat would pick him up here, 1117 01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:35,240 and a friend of mine would drop him off at the Formigas. 1118 01:04:35,320 --> 01:04:39,720 My opinion at the time, as I told Chief Inspector João Soares, 1119 01:04:39,800 --> 01:04:41,760 was that we had to be patient. 1120 01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:45,280 He was probably in hiding somewhere, 1121 01:04:45,360 --> 01:04:47,440 and he'd only come out of hiding… 1122 01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:51,280 I gave him a month to come out of hiding. 1123 01:04:53,320 --> 01:04:56,280 JULY 16, 2001 RAID 1124 01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:00,240 We had a search warrant for António Pacheco, 1125 01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:02,440 and I think we had two for Rui Couto. 1126 01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:05,480 The last day to carry out the searches, the 30-day deadline, 1127 01:05:05,560 --> 01:05:07,800 was Monday, July 16. 1128 01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:11,080 That was because of the two kilos of cocaine from Venezuela. 1129 01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:14,640 "On Monday at 6:15 a.m., we'll meet here, 1130 01:05:14,720 --> 01:05:18,480 get the team together, and we'll carry out the searches." 1131 01:05:19,600 --> 01:05:23,800 When they came to my house, I opened the door and said, "Police?" 1132 01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,680 I opened the door and said, "The police again?" 1133 01:05:26,760 --> 01:05:30,400 "What do you want now?" I let them in because I had nothing. 1134 01:05:30,480 --> 01:05:33,000 When I open the door, they're all… 1135 01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:37,160 And I say, "What's with all the guns? Put them down." 1136 01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:39,640 "My baby and my wife are here." 1137 01:05:39,720 --> 01:05:42,520 And they tell me to get dressed. I was in boxers. 1138 01:05:42,600 --> 01:05:45,680 So I get dressed and say, "Is this about drugs?" 1139 01:05:45,760 --> 01:05:47,280 "There are no drugs here." 1140 01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:50,480 "I don't have any drugs. There's nothing like that here." 1141 01:05:51,280 --> 01:05:55,120 But I'd forgotten that in the living room there was a container with heroin 1142 01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:58,080 and another one with coke. 1143 01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:00,760 I stashed the coke under a toilet brush. 1144 01:06:00,840 --> 01:06:04,440 The cops saw me walk past the window. 1145 01:06:04,520 --> 01:06:06,200 I said I was gonna tie up the dog. 1146 01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:10,320 He says, "Good, because otherwise the dog would get shot." 1147 01:06:10,400 --> 01:06:14,320 The police were at my house and at Rui's house at the same time. 1148 01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:16,040 I picked up my cell phone. 1149 01:06:16,120 --> 01:06:19,120 He saw my phone and the keys, and he said, 1150 01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:22,760 "Whose phone is that?" "It's mine." "Lopes, grab his phone." 1151 01:06:22,840 --> 01:06:27,720 I took the phone and threw it at the wall so hard I hurt my feet. 1152 01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:42,520 Look at the state of this place. 1153 01:06:44,480 --> 01:06:46,600 The house was lived in. 1154 01:06:47,720 --> 01:06:50,880 It was nice and clean when we came here. 1155 01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:52,960 It's completely different now. 1156 01:06:53,040 --> 01:06:54,120 It's a mess. 1157 01:06:58,200 --> 01:06:59,880 Rui was here in this room. 1158 01:06:59,960 --> 01:07:02,040 He was angry at the fact 1159 01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:05,720 that he was being subjected to another police search. 1160 01:07:05,800 --> 01:07:09,360 He was surprised, irritated. "You're here again?" 1161 01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:13,320 We often get that kind of reaction from people. 1162 01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:18,640 This was the Rui Couto we knew when he arrived here. 1163 01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,120 Totally different to how he is today. 1164 01:07:22,240 --> 01:07:25,680 I don't think we found anything of significance in his house, 1165 01:07:25,760 --> 01:07:29,760 except for 250,000 pesetas in cash 1166 01:07:29,840 --> 01:07:31,320 he had at home. 1167 01:07:31,400 --> 01:07:33,720 We're 2,000 kilometers from Spain. 1168 01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:37,920 What's he doing with the equivalent of 1,250 euros in a house in the Azores? 1169 01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:41,360 We searched the whole of this area. 1170 01:07:41,440 --> 01:07:44,640 It didn't look like this, of course. The house was cared for. 1171 01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:53,280 It's normal for them to sometimes hide drugs, 1172 01:07:53,360 --> 01:07:55,200 money, scales, 1173 01:07:55,280 --> 01:07:57,960 and other incriminating items outside the house, 1174 01:07:58,040 --> 01:08:01,080 away from the area that's usually searched. 1175 01:08:01,160 --> 01:08:03,120 We looked for disturbed soil, 1176 01:08:03,200 --> 01:08:05,840 any holes that might have something in them. 1177 01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:07,840 We went all over the grounds 1178 01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:12,240 and approached that dip down there, 1179 01:08:12,320 --> 01:08:14,840 which leads to a plot of land 1180 01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:16,640 about six feet below. 1181 01:08:16,720 --> 01:08:19,600 There's a natural barrier there, 1182 01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:21,880 and there's an outbuilding. 1183 01:08:22,480 --> 01:08:26,240 We went there just to take a look around, 1184 01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:30,880 and it was in that area that we heard a noise from below. 1185 01:08:30,960 --> 01:08:35,400 We went around and down the side of the property, 1186 01:08:35,960 --> 01:08:39,760 and I noticed there was a door there. 1187 01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:42,720 And when I came in here, 1188 01:08:42,800 --> 01:08:44,840 I could see that there was a platform. 1189 01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:49,200 Some sort of platform about six feet up, 1190 01:08:49,280 --> 01:08:50,880 maybe six and a half. 1191 01:08:51,680 --> 01:08:54,320 It had straw on it. I couldn't see the other side. 1192 01:08:54,400 --> 01:08:58,840 There was loose straw going up towards that corner. 1193 01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:01,480 You could see a trail through the straw. 1194 01:09:01,560 --> 01:09:05,440 It had been trampled by someone passing there several times. 1195 01:09:05,520 --> 01:09:08,840 At that point, not knowing who was there, 1196 01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:10,880 I took out my gun 1197 01:09:11,400 --> 01:09:14,960 and walked towards the wall. 1198 01:09:15,480 --> 01:09:19,360 And as I'm walking further in, I hear… 1199 01:09:22,480 --> 01:09:24,040 Quinci's voice. 1200 01:09:25,840 --> 01:09:30,520 And he says in Italian, "Stop. Don't shoot. It's me, Quinci." 1201 01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:32,360 I couldn't believe it. 1202 01:09:32,440 --> 01:09:36,760 Then he stands up, looks at me and says, "Ma, ma…" 1203 01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:38,360 He said something in Italian. 1204 01:09:38,440 --> 01:09:41,680 "You again, Lopes. You're my demon." 1205 01:09:42,560 --> 01:09:43,920 "You're my demon." 1206 01:09:44,000 --> 01:09:46,760 I said, "You were in the wrong place at the wrong time." 1207 01:09:46,840 --> 01:09:48,280 Something like that. 1208 01:09:48,360 --> 01:09:51,880 So we ended up arresting Quinci 1209 01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:55,560 out of sheer luck, but you make your own luck. 1210 01:09:55,640 --> 01:09:58,400 You have to. It doesn't knock on your door. 1211 01:09:58,480 --> 01:10:01,680 The officers at Rui's house 1212 01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,200 called the officers in the car with me. 1213 01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:07,360 "Hey, we found the fugitive." 1214 01:10:07,440 --> 01:10:10,640 I was like, "Who's the fugitive?" "The fugitive!" 1215 01:10:10,720 --> 01:10:13,200 "What fugitive?" "The Italian fugitive!" 1216 01:10:13,280 --> 01:10:16,440 "Oh boy, you guys got lucky!" 1217 01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:18,600 ITALIAN CAPTURED! 1218 01:10:18,680 --> 01:10:21,760 I went downstairs, got in the car. It was in the morning paper. 1219 01:10:21,840 --> 01:10:24,840 "Wanted man found in Achada do Nordeste." 1220 01:10:24,920 --> 01:10:26,960 We get to the police station, 1221 01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:31,040 and Pacheco's in the same jeep as the Italian. 1222 01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:35,320 They arrive, and the Italian says, "Water, please." 1223 01:10:35,400 --> 01:10:37,880 And Pacheco's like, "It's the Italian." 1224 01:10:37,960 --> 01:10:41,360 And the officer says, "You didn't know who he was?" 1225 01:10:41,440 --> 01:10:43,480 And Pacheco really didn't know. 1226 01:10:43,560 --> 01:10:45,600 They thought he was joking. 1227 01:10:45,680 --> 01:10:48,840 And Pacheco says, "Shit, he was at your house?" 1228 01:10:50,640 --> 01:10:51,680 Damn. 1229 01:10:51,760 --> 01:10:55,800 They take the Italian inside, and I'm left outside in the car, alone. 1230 01:10:56,440 --> 01:10:58,520 The car's parked in the middle of the road. 1231 01:10:58,600 --> 01:11:01,880 The cab drivers are staring at me, so I get out like I'm a cop. 1232 01:11:01,960 --> 01:11:03,400 I get out of the car, 1233 01:11:03,480 --> 01:11:05,320 close the door. 1234 01:11:05,400 --> 01:11:08,320 I walk to the entrance and ring the bell. 1235 01:11:08,400 --> 01:11:10,920 The doorman appears. "Are you leaving me out here?" 1236 01:11:11,600 --> 01:11:14,280 He opens the door, and I go inside. 1237 01:11:14,360 --> 01:11:17,360 I never saw him again. 1238 01:11:17,440 --> 01:11:21,560 Eleven years in jail was the sentence handed down to Antonino Quinci, 1239 01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:23,600 an Italian who, six months ago, 1240 01:11:23,680 --> 01:11:26,400 flooded the island of São Miguel with cocaine. 1241 01:11:26,480 --> 01:11:28,720 The court in Ponta Delgada found 1242 01:11:28,800 --> 01:11:33,800 that the 500-plus kilos of drugs seized in June arrived on Quinci's yacht, 1243 01:11:33,880 --> 01:11:37,720 and caused dozens of young people to overdose. Three of them died. 1244 01:11:40,600 --> 01:11:42,960 DECEMBER 14, 2001 TRIAL 1245 01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:45,320 I received a nine-year jail sentence. 1246 01:11:46,280 --> 01:11:48,120 Six years and eight months, man. 1247 01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:50,360 It went up to 11. 1248 01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:53,440 Drugs aren't worth it. 1249 01:11:53,520 --> 01:11:55,120 At one point I asked the judge, 1250 01:11:55,200 --> 01:12:00,360 "Are you giving me seven, eight, nine years in prison 1251 01:12:00,440 --> 01:12:02,080 for trafficking?" 1252 01:12:02,160 --> 01:12:05,160 He asked me if I had anything to say, and I said I did. 1253 01:12:05,240 --> 01:12:07,840 I asked if he was sentencing me as a drug dealer. 1254 01:12:07,920 --> 01:12:11,400 For me, a drug dealer is someone who has assets 1255 01:12:11,480 --> 01:12:13,120 and makes money from it. 1256 01:12:13,800 --> 01:12:16,000 I just spent my father's money. 1257 01:12:17,160 --> 01:12:20,640 We need to distinguish between those with a criminal mindset, 1258 01:12:20,720 --> 01:12:23,840 those who are involved in drugs solely for profit, 1259 01:12:23,920 --> 01:12:27,480 and those who sell drugs to get money to feed their habit. 1260 01:12:27,560 --> 01:12:29,120 We need this distinction. 1261 01:12:29,200 --> 01:12:33,840 Some are addicts who commit crimes because of their illness. 1262 01:12:33,920 --> 01:12:36,920 The others are criminals who are out to make a profit. 1263 01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:40,600 Sentences should be heavy in those cases, 1264 01:12:40,680 --> 01:12:45,880 because drug trafficking and drug use cause so many deaths. 1265 01:12:45,960 --> 01:12:48,280 So traffickers should face harsh sentences. 1266 01:12:49,840 --> 01:12:51,840 When I went to jail, 1267 01:12:51,920 --> 01:12:55,040 the skin on my hands was peeling 1268 01:12:55,600 --> 01:12:59,320 from handling coke, breaking rocks, and bagging it up. 1269 01:12:59,400 --> 01:13:02,480 I went to the prison infirmary, and the nurse said, 1270 01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:06,760 "Mr. Rui, you've been handling chemicals, and you shouldn't do that." 1271 01:13:06,840 --> 01:13:11,000 I said, "My hands were like this before I came here. It's the coke." 1272 01:13:11,080 --> 01:13:14,440 At 7:00 p.m., we're all locked in, and the drugs show up. 1273 01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:15,800 A knock on the door. 1274 01:13:15,880 --> 01:13:19,200 "Rui, Pacheco, get some foil ready to try some of this." 1275 01:13:19,280 --> 01:13:21,480 Who's giving the drugs away? The guard. 1276 01:13:22,000 --> 01:13:26,680 A friend of mine came to the prison to get hash. He couldn't get it outside. 1277 01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:31,040 I got him seven bars from the cell to give him during his visit, 1278 01:13:31,120 --> 01:13:34,440 and the guard said, "That's a lot of running up and down, Mr. Rui." 1279 01:13:34,520 --> 01:13:37,400 I pretended I had to get some papers for the lawyer. 1280 01:13:38,040 --> 01:13:40,320 I had seven bars rolled up in sheets of paper. 1281 01:13:40,840 --> 01:13:43,920 There was no hash on the outside, but the jail was full of it. 1282 01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:45,520 What the hell? 1283 01:13:45,600 --> 01:13:47,960 He had to go inside to get it. 1284 01:13:49,120 --> 01:13:51,840 The police didn't find the cocaine at Rui's house, 1285 01:13:52,760 --> 01:13:56,080 because when the police knocked on Rui's door, 1286 01:13:56,160 --> 01:14:00,840 he took this small plastic container he had 1287 01:14:01,840 --> 01:14:04,080 and stashed it in the bathroom. 1288 01:14:04,880 --> 01:14:07,960 He had a brush to scrub the toilet, 1289 01:14:08,040 --> 01:14:12,360 and he put the box underneath 1290 01:14:12,440 --> 01:14:14,240 with the brush on top of it. 1291 01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:18,640 The police didn't want to touch it, so they didn't see it. 1292 01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:22,120 But his brother ended up finding the container. 1293 01:14:22,200 --> 01:14:26,280 My brother Luís visited me once in jail, and I never saw him again. 1294 01:14:26,360 --> 01:14:29,040 He took Rui's car, which was parked there. 1295 01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:32,120 He snorted or injected some drugs. 1296 01:14:32,200 --> 01:14:34,840 He left there and headed towards Nordeste, 1297 01:14:35,560 --> 01:14:37,320 and missed a bend in the road. 1298 01:14:38,160 --> 01:14:42,120 He went off the road into a ravine and was killed. 1299 01:14:43,400 --> 01:14:45,200 And he died. It's fucked up. 1300 01:14:47,080 --> 01:14:49,680 A few weeks later, I was in jail, 1301 01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:53,280 and my dad felt bad that he hadn't raised his kids right. 1302 01:14:53,360 --> 01:14:54,920 At my brother's funeral, 1303 01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:57,520 my cousins found my dad in his room 1304 01:14:57,600 --> 01:14:59,920 with a knife, trying to kill himself. 1305 01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:02,800 He was depressed. My dad was a good man. 1306 01:15:04,040 --> 01:15:05,160 A good man. 1307 01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:09,640 There was a guy from the mainland 1308 01:15:10,560 --> 01:15:12,600 who was transferred to the jail here. 1309 01:15:13,960 --> 01:15:16,520 He came up to me 1310 01:15:17,120 --> 01:15:18,640 and said someone had told him 1311 01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:21,440 that the Italian had ordered my brother's murder. 1312 01:15:21,520 --> 01:15:26,120 Can you believe he made that up? I punched him in the jaw. 1313 01:15:26,200 --> 01:15:28,760 That was for talking about my brother. 1314 01:15:28,840 --> 01:15:32,680 And then I punched him again for being a liar, right? 1315 01:15:40,560 --> 01:15:45,240 We were missing something. We felt that we'd left something out. 1316 01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:46,680 And that was Quinci. 1317 01:15:46,760 --> 01:15:49,800 He seemed a bit of a victim too, 1318 01:15:49,880 --> 01:15:53,880 especially when we realized that he probably hadn't acted alone. 1319 01:15:53,960 --> 01:15:58,720 Why did he take all the blame in this story, all the responsibility? 1320 01:15:58,800 --> 01:16:01,200 He backtracked when he was questioned. 1321 01:16:01,280 --> 01:16:03,880 He said he hadn't shown us the locations. 1322 01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:07,040 He had a right to his defense. He played that role. 1323 01:16:07,120 --> 01:16:09,600 His lawyer may have advised him 1324 01:16:09,680 --> 01:16:13,200 to try to shirk the responsibility, 1325 01:16:13,280 --> 01:16:17,440 this heavy burden that was the destruction and devastation 1326 01:16:17,520 --> 01:16:19,600 he caused on São Miguel. 1327 01:16:19,680 --> 01:16:22,640 We realized a piece of the puzzle was missing. 1328 01:16:22,720 --> 01:16:24,120 Where's Quinci? 1329 01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:31,120 Antonino Quinci was taken to Coimbra, 1330 01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:34,560 to Coimbra prison. He did some time in Coimbra prison, 1331 01:16:34,640 --> 01:16:37,480 where he tried to sell treasure maps. 1332 01:16:37,560 --> 01:16:41,600 Quinci made maps of the island, with an X marking where the treasure was. 1333 01:16:41,680 --> 01:16:45,280 And people bought the map and came here to the Azores 1334 01:16:45,360 --> 01:16:48,720 in search of the treasure, 1335 01:16:48,800 --> 01:16:50,720 the place where the X was marked 1336 01:16:50,800 --> 01:16:55,240 on a very rudimentary sketch of the island. 1337 01:16:55,320 --> 01:16:58,400 That X on a tiny bit of the map 1338 01:16:58,480 --> 01:17:01,000 might cover maybe six miles of coastline 1339 01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:04,080 that were impossible to find. 1340 01:17:04,160 --> 01:17:06,600 I spoke to him about the maps, and he laughed. 1341 01:17:08,040 --> 01:17:10,960 And with that cheerful look of his, he said, 1342 01:17:11,040 --> 01:17:15,000 "This is how I pay for my cigarettes." Something like that. 1343 01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:20,840 He moved on, living out his story related to drug trafficking and drugs. 1344 01:17:20,920 --> 01:17:24,880 And in Rabo de Peixe, people continued to be victims of drugs. 1345 01:17:24,960 --> 01:17:29,280 Life is a continuous, permanent, and unfair cycle. 1346 01:17:32,000 --> 01:17:35,560 You can't overlook the fact 1347 01:17:35,640 --> 01:17:37,960 that the operation 1348 01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:41,640 to recover that cocaine 1349 01:17:41,720 --> 01:17:43,960 marked a historic turning point 1350 01:17:44,040 --> 01:17:46,280 in drug consumption on São Miguel. 1351 01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:47,920 It lasted for years. 1352 01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:52,240 A party that went on for four, five, six years, always rocking. 1353 01:17:52,320 --> 01:17:53,800 The clubs were rocking, 1354 01:17:53,880 --> 01:17:57,120 everyone was doing it in the bathrooms… 1355 01:17:57,200 --> 01:17:59,680 It was happening everywhere you went. 1356 01:17:59,760 --> 01:18:01,800 It was rock and roll all night. 1357 01:18:03,480 --> 01:18:06,600 That blow went all around the world. 1358 01:18:12,120 --> 01:18:15,400 The drugs were sent out by plane, and by boat. 1359 01:18:16,360 --> 01:18:19,800 There were two ways out. Just like for a person. 1360 01:18:19,880 --> 01:18:23,600 How do you get to Portugal from America? 1361 01:18:23,680 --> 01:18:26,920 The dogs in the Azores that sniff for drugs, 1362 01:18:28,640 --> 01:18:32,120 I guess they're looking for cheese. They don't know snow. 1363 01:18:34,240 --> 01:18:38,720 The smart ones made their money and fled to Canada and America. 1364 01:18:38,800 --> 01:18:42,440 People invested in cafés, bars, 1365 01:18:42,520 --> 01:18:44,280 apartments, and so on. 1366 01:18:44,360 --> 01:18:47,160 And I know of some people 1367 01:18:47,240 --> 01:18:49,760 who buried bags of money and lost them. 1368 01:18:49,840 --> 01:18:53,880 There were a lot of people who'd never had money in their lives. 1369 01:18:54,400 --> 01:18:56,480 They were the most successful. 1370 01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:00,320 They saved their money. They'd never seen money like that. 1371 01:19:00,400 --> 01:19:02,640 To them, they were millionaires, rich. 1372 01:19:05,760 --> 01:19:08,360 Even today, 20 or so years later, 1373 01:19:08,440 --> 01:19:12,480 they say there's some of that blow still hidden out there. 1374 01:19:20,520 --> 01:19:21,800 This here. 1375 01:19:23,520 --> 01:19:25,760 I did all of this, this whole street. 1376 01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:28,800 These sidewalks, this cement. 1377 01:19:29,440 --> 01:19:31,280 In 2009, 1378 01:19:32,840 --> 01:19:34,920 I left the Azores and came here. 1379 01:19:35,000 --> 01:19:37,200 I had a son here, Lesandro. 1380 01:19:37,280 --> 01:19:39,600 Lesandro Prince. G3. 1381 01:19:39,680 --> 01:19:41,520 He weighed two pounds at birth. 1382 01:19:42,960 --> 01:19:45,320 When he was born, he was hooked up to machines, 1383 01:19:45,400 --> 01:19:48,480 and we didn't know if he was going to live or die. 1384 01:19:48,560 --> 01:19:50,920 My father spoke to me and said, 1385 01:19:51,000 --> 01:19:55,000 "You have more children now. You have to wise up." Blah, blah. 1386 01:19:56,840 --> 01:19:59,680 So I promised him 1387 01:20:00,400 --> 01:20:02,360 that I'd stop selling drugs, 1388 01:20:02,440 --> 01:20:04,800 stop getting involved in those things, 1389 01:20:05,520 --> 01:20:07,120 and turn my life around. 1390 01:20:07,200 --> 01:20:10,560 Everything I did, good or bad, I pass on to my children 1391 01:20:10,640 --> 01:20:12,680 so they can try to do better than me. 1392 01:20:12,760 --> 01:20:16,000 My father used to say, "One day, this will all close down." 1393 01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:18,640 My father didn't take me to the bank, 1394 01:20:18,720 --> 01:20:21,720 or to the fish market meetings. 1395 01:20:21,800 --> 01:20:22,960 Understand? 1396 01:20:23,040 --> 01:20:26,400 Not that kind of thing. I pass that on to my children. 1397 01:20:26,480 --> 01:20:30,840 So they know. So they're aware of what they have to do for their future. 1398 01:20:30,920 --> 01:20:33,480 I feel a very special connection, 1399 01:20:33,560 --> 01:20:37,680 not only with the story, but also with Rabo de Peixe. 1400 01:20:37,760 --> 01:20:41,040 It has its problems, but that's true of everywhere. 1401 01:20:41,640 --> 01:20:44,760 You can leave Rabo de Peixe, but Rabo de Peixe never leaves you. 1402 01:20:45,360 --> 01:20:48,760 Something magical remains. 1403 01:20:49,320 --> 01:20:50,640 If you go to jail, 1404 01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:53,240 your life gets all… 1405 01:20:54,600 --> 01:20:57,480 Everything gets turned upside down. 1406 01:20:58,000 --> 01:21:01,560 When I left prison after all those years inside, 1407 01:21:01,640 --> 01:21:04,880 I was more withdrawn, more closed off. 1408 01:21:04,960 --> 01:21:08,080 I didn't open up much with the girls or the guys. 1409 01:21:09,040 --> 01:21:11,800 I was like that for a while. Three or four years. 1410 01:21:12,960 --> 01:21:16,680 Then I started thinking I had to go back to who I used to be. 1411 01:21:18,160 --> 01:21:22,640 That playful person, always joking around. 1412 01:21:22,720 --> 01:21:24,040 So that was it. 1413 01:21:24,880 --> 01:21:26,040 It was bad. 1414 01:21:26,720 --> 01:21:29,560 Addiction is like a sleeping dragon. 1415 01:21:29,640 --> 01:21:32,000 You put it to sleep when you get treated 1416 01:21:32,080 --> 01:21:35,040 and manage to stay clean for a while. 1417 01:21:35,120 --> 01:21:37,040 But that beast wakes up. 1418 01:21:37,120 --> 01:21:39,960 That evil beast that is drug addiction. 1419 01:21:40,040 --> 01:21:42,920 It can wake up at any moment if there's instability 1420 01:21:43,000 --> 01:21:45,800 or an unexpected situation in a person's life. 1421 01:21:45,880 --> 01:21:48,720 A breakup, the death of a loved one, 1422 01:21:48,800 --> 01:21:52,400 or something else, like getting fired or whatever. 1423 01:21:52,480 --> 01:21:54,400 That little beast is asleep, 1424 01:21:54,480 --> 01:21:57,400 but it can wake up at any time. 1425 01:21:57,480 --> 01:22:00,480 I got hooked on that synthetic stuff, 1426 01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:02,800 and it took away everything I love. 1427 01:22:03,600 --> 01:22:07,760 It took away my family. It took everything, man. 1428 01:22:07,840 --> 01:22:09,200 Everything. 1429 01:22:09,840 --> 01:22:12,200 I did things that weren't me. 1430 01:22:12,280 --> 01:22:14,920 That stuff changes a person, man. 1431 01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:17,040 I want to go back, man. I don't… 1432 01:22:17,880 --> 01:22:20,240 I lost my wife, my kids. 1433 01:22:21,280 --> 01:22:22,920 My dear wife. 1434 01:22:23,520 --> 01:22:28,280 Easy money also disappears. 1435 01:22:28,360 --> 01:22:32,040 That's not a good thing either. 1436 01:22:32,120 --> 01:22:34,760 What's fucked up is being left out of your family. 1437 01:22:45,680 --> 01:22:46,680 Yeah. 1438 01:22:47,640 --> 01:22:50,600 And then, with my son in the hospital, 1439 01:22:51,480 --> 01:22:52,760 I prayed a lot. 1440 01:22:53,560 --> 01:22:56,240 I said, "Lord, please. Do me a favor." 1441 01:22:57,360 --> 01:22:59,880 "If my son pulls through 1442 01:23:00,520 --> 01:23:02,000 and survives, 1443 01:23:02,760 --> 01:23:04,960 I'll stop all this." 1444 01:23:05,040 --> 01:23:07,080 "This business of hurting people, 1445 01:23:07,760 --> 01:23:10,640 of bringing this poison into their lives." 1446 01:23:11,640 --> 01:23:16,000 And that was it. It was a promise I've kept to this day, thank God. 1447 01:23:16,880 --> 01:23:21,160 It's something I don't want to know about. I want no part of it. 1448 01:23:21,240 --> 01:23:23,640 To me, it's crap. It's junk. 1449 01:23:24,360 --> 01:23:27,520 It's shit that destroys families. 1450 01:23:28,200 --> 01:23:30,120 It's a life of lies, 1451 01:23:30,200 --> 01:23:33,880 a life of rats and snitches. 1452 01:23:34,840 --> 01:23:36,680 A life of, you know… 1453 01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:39,640 Your best friend could put a bullet in your head 1454 01:23:39,720 --> 01:23:41,400 if you have too much. 1455 01:23:42,480 --> 01:23:45,360 In a life of drugs, there are no friends. 1456 01:23:46,960 --> 01:23:48,960 There are no friends in a life of drugs. 1457 01:23:53,880 --> 01:23:55,320 After serving his sentence, 1458 01:23:55,400 --> 01:23:58,240 Rui Couto became depressed due to the death of his son. 1459 01:23:58,320 --> 01:24:00,880 He got lost in synthetic drug use and was arrested. 1460 01:24:00,960 --> 01:24:04,880 He's currently waiting for a place to undergo treatment for drug addiction. 1461 01:24:12,880 --> 01:24:14,680 António Pacheco rebuilt his life 1462 01:24:14,760 --> 01:24:16,920 and continues to live in the same village. 1463 01:24:17,000 --> 01:24:20,120 He has not been arrested again. 1464 01:24:20,200 --> 01:24:24,680 It takes time to make these engines, all these little parts. 1465 01:24:25,520 --> 01:24:29,560 Tony was deported from the US 25 years ago and never managed to return. 1466 01:24:29,640 --> 01:24:32,880 He dreams of going back one day to see his family. 1467 01:24:38,960 --> 01:24:42,800 Telmo started a successful fish distribution business. 1468 01:24:42,880 --> 01:24:46,080 He still lives in Rabo de Peixe. 1469 01:24:46,160 --> 01:24:48,160 That side, those corners. 1470 01:24:49,120 --> 01:24:50,640 All this. 1471 01:24:50,720 --> 01:24:54,480 Sandro G. continues to live in the US with his wife and three children. 1472 01:24:54,560 --> 01:24:59,240 He has built a successful construction company with over 40 employees. 1473 01:24:59,320 --> 01:25:04,200 By court order, he cannot leave the USA. 1474 01:25:04,280 --> 01:25:06,880 He hasn't been back to the Azores since 2013. 1475 01:25:10,880 --> 01:25:13,400 In 2021, Antonino Quinci was detained in Brazil 1476 01:25:13,480 --> 01:25:16,960 on a boat carrying 630 kilos of hashish. He dumped it overboard. 1477 01:25:17,040 --> 01:25:20,160 He was caught red-handed by police, who recovered the packages. 1478 01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:22,040 He was given a nine-year sentence. 1479 01:25:22,120 --> 01:25:25,440 He escaped again and is currently wanted by the Brazilian police. 1480 01:25:31,160 --> 01:25:34,720 Despite ongoing poverty, Rabo de Peixe is now a tourist attraction. 1481 01:25:34,800 --> 01:25:37,440 Thousands of curious tourists visit the village. 1482 01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:39,840 The story of Rabo de Peixe 1483 01:25:39,920 --> 01:25:44,600 inspired one of the most watched fictional series ever. 1484 01:25:44,680 --> 01:25:49,960 Rabo de Peixe has never been the same. 1485 01:26:00,240 --> 01:26:03,560 I miss my homeland 1486 01:26:05,040 --> 01:26:07,520 This ain't gonna stop 1487 01:26:09,440 --> 01:26:12,360 Everybody talking 1488 01:26:12,440 --> 01:26:13,840 That's right 1489 01:26:13,920 --> 01:26:16,720 And the thugs smoking 1490 01:26:18,320 --> 01:26:21,400 The sunshine's waiting for me 1491 01:26:22,760 --> 01:26:25,560 Down by the sea 1492 01:26:27,200 --> 01:26:30,160 You'll see that everybody's talking 1493 01:26:31,640 --> 01:26:33,960 About the Azores and Portugal 1494 01:26:34,040 --> 01:26:35,960 We're Rapexinhos, the best 1495 01:26:36,040 --> 01:26:39,040 Everybody dancing at the party 1496 01:26:40,440 --> 01:26:43,440 I'm always at the party 1497 01:26:43,520 --> 01:26:44,840 What about tomorrow? 1498 01:26:44,920 --> 01:26:47,880 Tomorrow I'll be at the party 1499 01:26:49,280 --> 01:26:52,240 I'm always at the party 1500 01:28:47,800 --> 01:28:51,800 Subtitle translation by: Rodrigo Vaz