Howard Marks
Howard Marks | |
---|---|
Narco Polo, [1] Dennis Howard Marks (D. H. Marks), Hooward Marks, Albi, Mr Tetley, Not, Mr McCarhy and 41526-004 all | |
Occupation | Writer |
Spouse(s) | Ilze Kadegis (1967–??) Judy Lane (m. 1980–2005) |
Children | 4, including Amber |
Conviction(s) | Racketeering (drug trafficking) |
Criminal penalty | Imprisoned for 7 years |
Dennis Howard Marks (13 August 1945 – 10 April 2016) was a Welsh
Early life and education
Marks was born in Kenfig Hill, near Bridgend, Wales, the son of Dennis Marks, a captain in the Merchant Navy, and Edna, a teacher.[4] Brought up as a Baptist, he later turned to Buddhism, though he did not become a devout follower.[5] He attended Garw Grammar School in Pontycymer. He was a fluent Welsh speaker.[6]
He gained a place at
In 1967 he began teacher training, and married Ilze Kadegis, a Latvian student at
Marks's daughter, Amber Marks, is a barrister and pharmacology expert.[13]
Drug empire
Though involved with drugs at university, he sold cannabis only to his friends or acquaintances until 1970, when he was persuaded to assist Graham Plinston, who had been arrested in Germany on drug trafficking charges.[14] Through Plinston he met Mohammed Durrani, a Pakistani hashish exporter who was a descendant of the Durranis who had run Afghanistan in the 19th century.[15] With Plinston behind bars, Durrani offered Marks the opportunity to sell the drug on a large scale in London, and he agreed to the proposition.[16] He formed a four-way partnership with Charlie Radcliffe, Charlie Weatherly and a dealer named Jarvis. Durrani never contacted them, and so the group acquired smaller quantities of hashish from various sources and began selling the drug in Oxford, Brighton and London.[17] After six months he returned to Germany to help bail Plinston out of jail. Marks was a useful means of transferring money as he did not have a criminal record.[18]
Now a free man, Plinston gave Marks a job transporting hashish in Frankfurt; Marks in turn hired a New Zealand smuggler named Lang as his driver.[19] After paying Marks £5,000 for his work in Frankfurt, Plinston then sold hashish to Marks and his three friends (Radcliffe, Weatherly and Jarvis) in London; in selling 650 kg (1,430 lb) within a week, the four men made a profit of £20,000.[20] Durrani then arranged for hashish to be smuggled in the furniture of Pakistani diplomats who were moving to London; Marks would then intercept the furniture to find the drugs – this arrangement netted him a profit of £7,500.[21] Marks expanded his enterprise, employing two friends from Wales, Mike Bell and David Thomas, to stash the drugs and help with transportation.[22] The gang became dissatisfied with the way the profits were being split (80% of the money they made went to Durrani) and contacted James McCann, a gunrunner for the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).[23] Marks and Plinston persuaded McCann to smuggle hashish into Ireland from Kabul, which the pair would then ferry over to Wales and into England;[24] McCann would get the drugs into Ireland through the freeport at Shannon Airport using his IRA connections.[25] Marks avoided the attention of HM Revenue and Customs by creating a paper trail that indicated he made his money from selling stamps and dresses.[26]
By 1972, he was making £50,000 with each shipment.
Marks then connected Ernie Combs, member of The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, with John Denbigh, a man with connections in the hashish-producing nation of Nepal.[35] With the help of the yakuza, large quantities of the drug would be exported to John F. Kennedy International Airport in the guise of air conditioning equipment, where Don Brown's mob (headed by Carmine Galante) would then take possession of the drugs.[36] A 500 kg (1,100 lb) deal was set up and executed on 4 July 1975, leaving Marks a wealthy man.[37] Other deals up to 750 kg (1,650 lb) followed, and Marks continued to live under assumed names in the United Kingdom.[37] In 1976 he travelled to America, and set up a 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) deal between Combs and 'Lebanese Sam' – making himself £300,000 in the process;[38] he continued to regularly set up deals between his various American and Far East connections. In need of a new identity after his alias of Anthony Tunnicliffe was compromised in a police sting, in 1978 he bought Donald Nice's passport.[39]
Between 1975 and 1978, twenty-four loads totalling 25 tonnes (55,000 pounds) of marijuana and hashish had been successfully imported through John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. They had involved the Mafia, the yakuza, the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, the Thai army, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Pakistani Armed Forces, Nepalese monks, and other individuals from all walks of life. The total profit made by all concerned was $48,000,000. They'd had a good run.
— Marks concluding the JFK episode of drug trafficking in his Mr Nice autobiography; the run had ended after the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) began intercepting the drugs and arresting Mafia associates in New York.[40]
In the late 1970s, the
Released in May 1982, though with most of his employees still in prison for the crime of which Marks had been acquitted, he spent the next year running a legitimate wine importing business but he continued to spend more money than he was making and the savings he made from drug smuggling in the 1970s began to dwindle.[48] In 1983, McCann was still at large and his smuggling enterprise was flourishing; he offered Marks the chance to sell 250 kg (550 lb) of cannabis and Marks accepted.[49] Dutch police confiscated the full shipment and arrested Mickey Williams, a member of the London underworld who had agreed to help Marks on the deal.[50] Marks then travelled to the Far East to set up cannabis deals with Salim Malik, a Pakistani hashish exporter who he had met through Durrani (Durrani had since suffered a fatal heart attack) and Phil Sparrowhawk, an exporter from Bangkok; they would smuggle their product over to Ernie Combs in America.[51] He also arranged a 500 kg (1,100 lb) deal with Mickey Williams, who had travelled to Bangkok after his release from prison in Amsterdam.[52] Marks laundered his money through various fronts: a travel agency, a paper mill, a wine importers, a bulk water transportation company and a secretarial service.[53]
In 1984, he was approached to sell $300,000 worth of cannabis to a
A Philippine-brothel-owning member of the
Palma.[61]
When friends of his were busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Marks decided to retire from drug smuggling to concentrate on his legitimate businesses; citing the fate of his friends and contacts, who were either in jail, informing the DEA, or smuggling heavier drugs.[62] In 1988, DEA agent Craig Lovato arrested both Howard and Judy Marks and extradited the couple to the United States.[63] Arrests of those involved in Marks's various criminal activities were made in Britain, Spain, the Philippines, Thailand, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Switzerland, the United States and Canada.[64] This was the work of 'Operation Eclectic', set up in 1986 by both the DEA and Scotland Yard and aided by numerous other law enforcement organisations around the world.[65]
Trial and imprisonment
Marks was taken from Palma to
In Florida, Judy pleaded guilty to her small part in the racket and was released, having already served some months in prison in Spain.[76] The money Marks made from his smuggling operations was spent on legal fees.[77] He refused to plea-bargain or to inform on his associates, gambling that he could again convince a jury that the authorities had got the wrong man.[78] As the trial began in July 1990, Patrick Lane, his brother-in-law and fellow smuggler, wrote to Marks to inform him that he was going to testify against Marks in court to get a more lenient sentence himself.[79] Marks still was confident of beating the DEA in court, but Ernie Combs also agreed to testify for the prosecution so as to secure the release of his wife, and Marks had little choice but to change his plea to guilty to racketeering charges.[80] He was sentenced to 25 years in jail and given a $50,000 fine; though he had originally been sentenced to 15 years he was taken back into court after the judge realised he had misspoken and said that his 10 and 15-year sentences were to run consecutively and not, as he had originally stated, concurrently.[81]
He spent seven years imprisoned in the
Owing to his status as an
Life after release
Acting
He acted in gangster film Killer Bitch (2010),[90] starred in the film I Know You Know (2009),[91] appeared as Satan in the 2006 movie adaptation of the Dirty Sanchez television series,[92] and had a cameo appearance in the film Human Traffic (1999).[93] He appeared as himself in AmStarDam (aka "Stoner Express") (2016).
Advocacy and politics
Marks stood for election to the UK Parliament in 1997, on the single issue of the legalisation of cannabis.[94] He contested four seats at once—Norwich South (against future Home Secretary Charles Clarke), Norwich North, Neath and Southampton Test—and picked up around 1% of the vote.[94] This led to the formation of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) by Alun Buffry in 1999; the party reformed as Cannabis Law Reform in 2011.[95]
He also argued for the legalisation of cannabis in numerous television programmes in the United Kingdom. On 1 October 2010, he was interviewed on Ireland's The Late Late Show.[96] The Dutch Cannabis Seedbank Sensi Seeds dedicated their strain Mr Nice G13 x Hash Plant to Marks for his advocacy work.
His close links to the likes of Gruff Rhys led to Marks being associated with the radical changes of the Cool Cymru movement and the changing face of modern Wales.
Books
Following his release from prison, Marks published an autobiography, Mr Nice (1996), which has been translated into several languages.[97][98] He also compiled an anthology called The Howard Marks Book of Dope Stories (2001)[99] and a follow-on from his autobiography: Señor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America (2006).[100] Señor Nice differs from his previous book as drugs are not central to the story and, while autobiographical, the book is more Marks's own exploration of his claimed ancestor, the pirate Sir Henry Morgan.[101] In 2011, he penned the thriller Sympathy for the Devil. His final book "Mr Smiley, My Last Pill and Testament"
Marks held a series of book-readings into 2014. In these live events he regaled his audiences with tales of his smuggling days and his time in prison, as well as offered insight into drug production and the arguments for legalisation of cannabis.
Comics and videogame
Marks and comic writer
Music
In the music world, he appeared as a guest on the BBC music quiz show
Works about Marks
Marks was the subject of the biography High Time (1984) written by David Leigh.
Marks was also the subject of the film
In 2013, Marks recounted his story in an episode of the television series Banged Up Abroad.
Death
On 25 January 2015, it was announced that Marks had inoperable colorectal cancer.[115] He died of the disease on 10 April 2016, at the age of 70.[116]
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-436-20305-7
- Howard Marks' Book of Dope Stories. Vintage. 2001. ISBN 0-09-942855-5.
- Señor Nice: Straight Life from Wales to South America. ISBN 0-436-21015-0.
- Two Dragons. ISBN 978-1847712905.
- Sympathy for the Devil. ISBN 978-0-09-953273-6.
- Mr Smiley my last pill and testament. ISBN 978-1-5098-0968-4.
References
Specific
- ^ Duncan Campbell (11 April 2016) Howard Marks obituary,
- which is because of: Marco Polo"the prison guards spoke of him affectionately as “Narco Polo”, one of the many nicknames he had acquired."
- ^ McGrath, Nick (11 April 2016). "Howard Marks: 'My royalty cheques are lifesavers'". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 22 June 2016.
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 2
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 22
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 23
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 24
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 31
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 38
- ^ a b Marks 1997, p. 39
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 50
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 54
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 63
- ^ My dad, Mr Nice: life as the daughter of Britain’s best-known cannabis smuggler Published by The Guardian on 21 August, 2021
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 64
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 65
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 67
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 68
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 71
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 72
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 74
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 75
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 76
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 78
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 80
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 86
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 85
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 103
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 109
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 111
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 116
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 122–24
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 128–31
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 133–34
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 136
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 137
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 139–41
- ^ a b Marks 1997, p. 143
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 155
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 159
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 166
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 173
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 174
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 180
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 184
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 185–90
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 191
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 193
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 194–206
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 208
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 209
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 215–22
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 244
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 272
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 262–63
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 269
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 275
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 304
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 315
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 315–7
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 326
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 330
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 331
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 351
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 360
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 373
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 368
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 371
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 382
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 383
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 384
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 404
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 408
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 412
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 426
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 417
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 424
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 425
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 427
- ^ Marks 1997, pp. 427–29
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 430
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 436
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 437
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 439
- ^ a b c Marks 1997, p. 442
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 5
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 12
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 19
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 464
- ^ Marks 1997, p. 16
- ^ "the most True Crime legends ever caught on film, including Roy Shaw, Cass Pennant, Howard Marks, Jason Marriner, Carlton Leach, Dave Courtney and many more". killerbitch.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Press Notes" (PDF). iknowyouknowmovie.com. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Dirty Sanchez's movie premiere". BBC News. 22 September 2006. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ Brooks, Xan. "Human Traffic". BFI. Archived from the original on 7 March 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ a b "Electoral history and profile". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ISBN 1-84340-310-2.
- ^ "Football manager set for Late Late". rte.ie. 1 October 2010. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 31 January 2012.
- ^ "Howard Marks". Glee. Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2012.
- ^ Marks, Howard (1996). Mr. Nice. Secker and Warburg.
- ^ Marks, Howard (2001). The Howard Marks Book of Dope Stories. Vintage.
- ^ Marks, Howard. Señor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America.
- ^ Elmer, Kailas (2 November 2010). "Howard Marks: First there was the Welsh ..." Trebuchet. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
- ^ Hugh Armitage (28 June 2011). "Howard Marks, Pat Mills write 'inFamous 2' strips". Digital Spy.
- ^ Tarley, Rachel (28 October 2010). "Catherine Tate grated on Never Mind The Buzzcocks". Metro. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Pet Sounds – Super Furry Animals & Howard Marks interview". Pet Sounds. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- My Space. Archived from the originalon 5 September 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "'Mr Nice' Howard Marks gets his own song to accompany new movie". NME. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Spirit of 71 Cafe". glastonburyfestivals.co.uk. Archived from the original on 14 May 2012. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "more acts for 'Flower Powered' Beautiful Days". efestivals.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Howard Marks takes on landlord duties at RockNess". entertainment.stv.tv. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Performers". campbestival.net. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Howard Marks". kendalcalling.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Howard Marks, and Sean Hughes for Sonisphere". efestivals.co.uk. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ Defore, John (14 October 2010). "Mr. Nice – Film Review". hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ BRadshaw, Peter (7 October 2010). "Mr Nice – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 February 2012.
- ^ "Ex-drug smuggler Howard Marks has inoperable cancer". BBC News. 25 January 2015.
- ^ "'Mr Nice' Howard Marks dies aged 70". The Guardian. 10 April 2016.
General
- Eddy, Paul; Walden, Sara (1991). Hunting Marco Polo. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-21056-0.
- Marks, Howard (1997), Mr Nice, ISBN 0-7493-9569-9
External links
- Howard Marks – official site
- Howard Marks discography at Discogs
- Howard Marks at IMDb
- Howard Marks Archived 6 November 2009 at the Wayback Machine page at Conville and Walsh literary agents
- The Hunt for Howard Marks full transcript, PBS documentary October 1990, where both Howard Marks and Craig Lovato are interviewed