Howard Marks

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Howard Marks (2000)

Dennis Howard Marks (born August 13, 1945 in Kenfig Hill , Wales , † April 10, 2016 ) was a British drug smuggler who was active in the 1970s and 1980s.

Life

Marks studied Philosophy and Physics at Balliol College , Oxford , graduating with a 2nd degree in Physics, then began a career as a drug dealer in cannabis-only products. He had set up a boutique in Oxford called Annabelinda , which he used to launder the money he made from hashish and marijuana .

According to estimates by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), it was responsible for at least ten percent of all world trade in hashish and marijuana in the 1970s and 1980s . By his own admission, Marks never used force in his dealings and never dealt in "hard drugs".

Initially, Marks brought cannabis from Pakistan to the British Isles via Ireland . For this he used the contacts of James Joseph McCann, an alleged member and arms supplier of the IRA . In 1973 he was charged with international drug trafficking in the Netherlands , but his friend Hamilton McMillan, whom he knew from his college days at Oxford and who worked for the British secret service MI6 , helped him in exchange for access to his underworld contacts. McMillan told the Dutch authorities that Marks worked for the secret service and was supposed to spy on the IRA on their behalf. Marks was then extradited to Great Britain . According to his own account, Marks had 43 false names, including Mr. Nice , under which he conducted his illegal business after he was released from prison on bail after being deported from the Netherlands. He was arrested in the UK in 1980 and charged in 1981 with importing marijuana to the UK, but then acquitted by a jury on his allegation of working for MI6 against the IRA. However , he was sentenced to three years in prison for the previous offenses of bringing drugs into the United States and using forged identification. He had already been imprisoned for these three years, since he had been arrested in early 1980 - he was released from prison on May 6, 1982.

Marks eventually moved to Palma . In the course of a large-scale manhunt coordinated by DEA agent Craig Lovato, Marks was arrested by the same in Spain in 1988 , extradited to the United States and sentenced there to 25 years in prison. He spent seven years in the Terre Haute Federal Prison. In 1995 he was deported to England prematurely.

In 1996, Marks published his autobiography Mr. Nice , which sold more than 1 million copies and has been translated into many languages. In addition, a documentary was released in German. In 2006 he published other books with Señor Nice and Dope Stories . The German DVD edition of Grasgeflüster included the documentary under the name of Mr. Nice Guy . In 2011 he published the crime story Sympathy for the Devil and in 2013 the crime story The Score .

The film adaptation of Marks' autobiography premiered in 2010 under the same name, Mr. Nice . His role was played by the Welsh actor Rhys Ifans , and the woman at Marks' side is played by Chloë Sevigny .

Marks was a legalization proponents of cannabis , lived in Leeds , West Yorkshire , England , and traveled with his one-man show the whole world. In the Netherlands there is a cannabis seed bank with his name in which he was a partner. A hemp variety from Sensi Seeds bears the name G13 x Hashplant alias Mr. Nice .

Marks was married twice and had two daughters and a son from his second marriage and a daughter from another relationship.

On January 25, 2015, it was announced that he had developed unresectable colon cancer . Howard Marks succumbed to this on April 10, 2016.

Works

Filmography

music

literature

  • Howard Marks - Mr Nice , autobiography; homegrow publishing
  • Howard Marks: Mr. Nice. Autobiography, translated by Carola Giese. Heyne Taschenbuch, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-453-67591-9 .
  • Señor Nice. 1995–2006 From Wales to South America; Edition Steffan , ISBN 978-3923838-547
  • Dope stories. A literary trip - Edition Steffan, ISBN 978-3923838-554
  • Nice in Germany. In: Werner Pieper: Maximum respect. (= Green branch. Volume 200). Pieper and the green force, Löhrbach 1999, ISBN 3-925817-00-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kevin Rawlinson: 'Mr Nice' Howard Marks dies aged 70. In: The Guardian . April 10, 2016, accessed April 11, 2016
  2. ^ A b c Duncan Campbell Howard Marks obituary: 'Britain's most charming drug smuggler'. In: The Guardian . April 11, 2016, accessed April 11, 2016
  3. ↑ BBC.com: "Ex-drug smuggler Howard Marks has inoperable cancer". January 25, 2015, accessed April 18, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Mr Nice Howard Marks dies aged 70 , theguardian.com, accessed May 24, 2020
  5. ↑ imdb.com
  6. ↑ Directors of God Smoked ( Memento from May 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Marks, Howard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marks, Dennis Howard (full name); Mr. Nice (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British drug dealer and author
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Kenfig Hill , Wales , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 2016