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UK: 'Pretty wild' life of a drug baron
Roland Hughes Holyhead Mail
Wednesday 06 Apr 2005 HOWARD Marks refers to his 20 years as an international drug smuggler as "a pretty wild time". At one time living with 43 aliases, with 89 phone lines and working for the CIA, FBI, MI6, IRA and Mafia, "wild" might be seen as an understatement. These days, the only thing wild about the older, wiser Marks is his hair. The cigarettes consumed during our chat before his talk at Bangor's Railway Institute last Thursday are of the packet variety, and he is writing a book on travel, of all things. His outspoken views on cannabis consumption are not to everyone's taste. And there can be no doubt there is an element of smugness to Marks' ribald tales of how he evaded prison for so long - only to get caught and sent to one of the world's toughest jails. But you can't fail to be charmed by Marks, whose face is permanently fixed in a grin and who speaks with a South Wales drawl delivered as though he was half-asleep. His work transporting up to 30 tonnes of marijuana a time has been replaced by public talks on his past, and books on his life as Mr Big. He fell into smuggling after obtaining a nuclear physics and philosophy degree at Oxford's prestigious Balliol College in the late 60s and he was christened "the most sophisticated drug baron of all time" by the Daily Mirror. In Bangor to raise funds for Anglesey's Legalise Cannabis Alliance candidate for the upcoming election, puppeteer Tim Evans, Marks spoke to the Mail about his experiences as the US Drug Enforcement Administration's most-wanted man. Marks, 59, said: "I did fall into it all by accident, as far as the business side of drugs is concerned. I stumbled into it through being a heavy consumer myself. "In those days, cannabis consumption was largely a leisure activity of the upper middle class so there was a lot of it around in Oxford when I got there. Nowadays, it is much more of a working-class activity. "I felt a bit like a fish out of water going there as a kid from South Wales, people couldn't understand my accent and there was a lot of snobbery there, so it did make me a little bit more rebellious and outrageous. "It started with me just going and buying for my friends and dividing it up and it went on from there. It was very, very gradual. It was only when I started selling to people who were selling themselves that it became a business really and I was full-time by the age of 25." From there, Marks would be involved in deals from the beginning to the end, often travelling to countries such as Afghanistan to purchase several tons of marijuana a time and meeting it on its arrival. He said the transportation was "not a matter of finding obscure ways of hiding it, but of knowing how to manipulate the paperwork to make yourself look less suspicious." He went on to set up 25 different companies which he would deal through, with millions of dollars exchanging hands on a typical deal. He added: "It was an exciting, interesting time with more than a fair dose of surrealism thrown in. It was like being swept along. MI6 came to me through someone I knew in Oxford. I got involved with the Mafia because wherever you go with that kind of work, the Mafia permeate it everywhere. "The most ridiculous moment I suppose was bringing in 15 tons of Colombian marijuana into Scotland, being completely guilty and getting acquitted by saying I was a spy for MI6. That was a real high. The best moment was probably the few seconds just before I got busted." A DEA investigation caught up with Marks, and he was sentenced to 25 years in the notorious Terre Haute prison in Indiana, where he spent seven years. He was released in April, 1995, on the same day as another well-known Terre Haute prisoner, Mike Tyson. Now living in Leeds with his partner Caroline, Marks says prison taught him to stop taking himself so seriously: "I suppose it has made me a more caring person. It is the same as if I spent a few years in a monastery." Speaking about Tim Evans' chances in the election, Marks said: "Anglesey is an agricultural area where a lot of these drugs are grown so maybe it is ready for pro-legalisation candidate. There is a lot of trade and a lot of home-growing going on. And after all, we have the green green grass of home!"
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