1. Dennis Howard Marks was a Welsh drug smuggler and author who achieved notoriety as an international cannabis smuggler through high-profile court cases.
40 Facts About Howard Marks
1. 2.
Howard Marks was eventually charged by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, convicted and given a 25-year prison sentence; he was released in April 1995 after serving seven years.
3.
Howard Marks gained a place at Balliol College, Oxford, after he impressed Russell Meiggs in his interview, and read physics there from 1964 to 1967.
4.
Howard Marks's daughter, Amber Howard Marks, is a barrister and pharmacology expert.
5.
Howard Marks formed a four-way partnership with Charlie Radcliffe, Charlie Weatherly and a dealer named Jarvis.
6.
Howard Marks was a useful means of transferring money as he did not have a criminal record.
7.
Howard Marks expanded his enterprise, employing two friends from Wales, Mike Bell and David Thomas, to stash the drugs and help with transportation.
8.
Howard 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.
9.
The next year, Howard Marks began exporting cannabis to the United States to The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, hiding the drugs in the music equipment of fictional British pop groups that were supposed to be touring the country; he further expanded his operations with other smugglers and other methods of trafficking, often using his Oxford connections.
10.
Howard Marks was arrested by Dutch police in 1973, but skipped bail in April 1974; the British press then made him a nationally known figure, reporting that he was feared abducted by the IRA for his connections with MI6.
11.
Howard Marks had previously been in a five-year relationship with Rosie Lewis, with whom he had a daughter.
12.
Howard 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.
13.
The jury found him not guilty of drug smuggling but guilty of using false passports, and Howard Marks was sentenced to two years imprisonment, but was released after five days having already served most of this time before sentence was passed.
14.
Howard 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 and Phil Sparrowhawk, an exporter from Bangkok; they would smuggle their product over to Ernie Combs in America.
15.
Howard 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.
16.
When friends of his were busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Howard 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.
17.
Howard Marks was taken from Palma to Modelo Prison in Barcelona, and then to Alcala Meco Prison in Madrid.
18.
Howard Marks again cultivated the myth that he was a spy for MI6, and claimed that he was set up by the CIA because he had discovered that CIA agents were smuggling drugs into Australia.
19.
The money Howard Marks made from his smuggling operations was spent on legal fees.
20.
Howard Marks 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.
21.
Howard Marks still was confident of beating the DEA in court, but Ernie Combs agreed to testify for the prosecution so as to secure the release of his wife, and Howard Marks had little choice but to change his plea to guilty to racketeering charges.
22.
Howard Marks 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.
23.
Howard Marks spent seven years imprisoned in the Federal Correctional Complex, Terre Haute, Indiana, a rough prison.
24.
Howard Marks had originally been sentenced to Butner, but agent Lovato insisted that he instead serve time at Terre Haute.
25.
Howard Marks gave up cigarettes for the last three years of his sentence.
26.
In January 1995, Howard Marks was granted parole after a prison officer testified that he was a model prisoner who spent much of his time helping his fellow prisoners pass their GED exams.
27.
Howard Marks acted in gangster film Killer Bitch, starred in the film I Know You Know, appeared as Satan in the 2006 movie adaptation of the Dirty Sanchez television series, and had a cameo appearance in the film Human Traffic.
28.
Howard Marks stood for election to the UK Parliament in 1997, on the single issue of the legalisation of cannabis.
29.
Howard Marks argued for the legalisation of cannabis in numerous television programmes in the United Kingdom.
30.
Howard Marks compiled an anthology called The Howard Marks Book of Dope Stories and a follow-on from his autobiography: Senor Nice: Straight Life From Wales to South America.
31.
Howard Marks was booked to perform at the Welsh Comedy Festival in July 2007.
32.
Howard Marks collaborated with Welsh group Super Furry Animals on their album Fuzzy Logic, which features a track entitled "Hangin' With Howard Marks".
33.
Howard Marks featured on the album Angel Headed Hip Hop with Lee Harris and River Styx.
34.
Howard Marks worked with former Happy Mondays guitarist Kav Sandhu, and appeared at numerous British music festivals, including:, Beautiful Days, RockNess, Camp Bestival, Kendal Calling, and the Sonisphere Festival.
35.
Howard Marks was the subject of the biography High Time written by David Leigh.
36.
Howard Marks was the subject of the film Mr Nice, named after his 1997 autobiography.
37.
In 2013, Howard Marks recounted his story in an episode of the television series Banged Up Abroad.
38.
In November 2024, the BBC released a two part two hour documentary about Howard Marks titled Hunting Mr Nice: The Cannabis Kingpin.
39.
On 25 January 2015, it was announced that Howard Marks had inoperable colorectal cancer.
40.
Howard Marks died of the disease on 10 April 2016, at the age of 70.