Just a Gigolo? A "Kuta Cowboy" with a female tourist.
(Photo courtesy of cowboysinparadise.com)
The stars of “Cowboys in Paradise,” a documentary on Kuta Cowboys, or gigolos in Bali, were questioned as witnesses on Thursday after being rounded by Kuta beach guards and picked up by police.
The film by Singaporean Amit Virmani, which focuses on Bali’s alleged beach gigolos, triggered not only the wrath of the police, who are preparing charges of working permit violations against him, but also Argo, Arnold and Vendi — beach boys who became the documentary’s subjects and are looking for ways to sue Virmani for allegedly tricking them.
I Gusti Ngurah Tresna, who heads the Kuta Beach task force responsible for safety and security there, said that if police questioning of the three found them to be gigolos as the film alleged, they would not be allowed to remain in Kuta.
“If they are proved to be [gigolos], we will never allow them to stick around in Kuta. We would consider them as those who tarnished the good name of Kuta,” Tresna said.
“The world is watching us, so we have to be very, very careful with the steps we take.”
But Bali Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Gede Sugianyar Dwi Putra said they were questioned so they could serve as witnesses in the case being prepared against Virmani.
“All three admitted to knowing Amit. This [questioning] has only to do with their identities and the fact that their faces are similar to those featured on the film clip on YouTube,” Sugianyar said.
He said that even though no official report had been lodged with police, they had taken the initiative to form a team of detectives from the cybercrimes unit to track down other witnesses linked to the case.
“We will soon summon a number of people identified as potential witnesses,” Sugianyar said, adding that during questioning, all three boys said they only worked as surfing instructors or selling surfboards to tourists.
Virmani, Sugianyar said, did not have the proper filming permits and could face up to one year in jail and fines reaching Rp 40 million ($4,440) for violating the country’s 1992 Law on Films.
Arnold, a surfing instructor, said Virmani appeared at Kuta Beach with a big camera in 2007.
“I thought that with that big camera, the quality of the footage taken would be good. When I asked him what the footage was for, he said it was for personal documentation,” said the boy, who real name is Suwarno and is from Banyuwangi, East Java.
He has been married to a foreigner for two years, he told police.
Vendi, another of the beach boys, said: “We are actually the victims. We plan to file an official complaint against the director over defamation.”
