When 21-year -old Benjamin Feys got arrested with 14 kg coke at El Alto airport (La Paz, Bolivia) on Christmas Eve 2011, he felt nothing short of relief. “I had known for a long time I was in a dead end”, he says in his autobiography 'More than Coke'. “The huge amounts of money, the models, the private jets: it couldn't fill the hole in my heart. I had become this cold, calculating stranger: I didn't even like myself”. We often imagine coke dealers being born criminals, but Benjamin Feys grew up an only child in a secure and loving middle class family in a remote part of Flanders. Talented and driven, but unable to fit in at school, feeling isolated and misunderstood, he started dealing cannabis as a way of gaining money and respect. After a fall-out with his mates, he travelled to Antwerp where he got introduced into the world of coke dealing. In less than a few years, he became one of the youngest and most successful coke dealers in the world, getting nicknamed ‘Flex’ because of his flexibility in the drug industry. Untroubled by scruples or remorse, he led a jet setting life till his arrest. The ten year sentence in Bolivian San Pedro jail – a dangerous place where an average ten inmates get killed each week- acted as a wake-up call for Benjamin. Locked up in isolation after a botched attempt to escape, he finally did some soul – searching, acknowledged the damage he had done and started relating to others. When he left after three years – thanks to a new law he, together with his comrades of 'The Order of Che', got through the Bolivian Parliament- he decided it was time to make amends and help others. “I wanted to reach out to other troubled youngsters, and tell them they are not alone. And I wanted to show them that, even when you are a convicted criminal, it is possible to grab a second chance”. 'More than Coke' is an honest attempt to describe the troubled pathway of a talented but flawed young man. A story about shoot-outs, drugs, money and women, but also about remorse, self-loathing and reinventing yourself.
Benjamin Feys (1989) was born in Wevelgem, Belgium, crashed a Lamborghini in a hotel lobby in Marseille when he was 19, partied with Vogue models and delivered coke by private plane before his arrest in 2011. According to authority analysers he made a drug revenue of approximately € 2.000.000 in the 3 years he was active as a dealer, making him one of the most short - term daring coke dealers ever. During his stint in prison he was followed by a camera crew for a series on Belgian national television which attracted a record number of viewers. After his release he contacted journalist Hilde Sabbe (1956) and asked her to write his biography. When Sabbe, a respected journalist, got asked why she, mother of a 26 year old son, chose to write the story of a drug dealer, she answered: “Because I am the mother of a 26 year old son. I wanted to know how it works, how an ordinary boy becomes a dealer. I wanted to look in Benjamin’s head”.
