The scoop was surprisingly easy to get because the international drug dealer thought I was someone else. That was his mistake. |
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But I pressed the wrong button on the tape recorder, which meant the witty, worldly and wicked remarks of Howard Marks disappeared into thin air. That was my mistake. |
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I was working at The Sunday Times in London for a short stint. I thought I would be a valuable addition to Fleet Street. They thought I was an overly ambitious interloper with an annoying accent – the waiter who fluked a seat at the dining table. |
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When I asked to go to their weekly news conference headed by the editor Andrew Neil the reaction was as if I had tried to look up the Queen’s skirt. Absolutely no was the answer. I then went to the editor’s secretary who asked Neil. No problem, he said. He was charming. |
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He put me on a chair next to him. His section editors who sat before the great man looked at me as if I were a Zulu at Rorke’s Drift. |
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I had arrived with more than a blank notebook, more than an ace up my sleeve. It was a scoop in a bag. I had smuggled into the country a massive file of secret documents generated by UK, US and Australian law enforcement authorities investigating an international drug cartel known as The Enterprise. |
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The Enterprise ran for years and had connections in 14 countries with 113 known associates. It had been brought down by a rogue, bongo-playing British aristocrat, Lord Anthony Moynihan, who had become an informer for the US Drug Enforcement Administration. |
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The head of The Enterprise was former M16 spy Howard Marks, pictured above, an Oxford graduate and the son of a Welsh sea captain. |
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Marks made millions as a cannabis smuggler moving tons in the most imaginative ways. |
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He bought a 30-metre fishing boat, the Axel-D, for $665,000 as his flagship to move up to 30 tonnes of cannabis around the world. A police tracking device had been planted on the ship when it was off the Australian coast. |
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He used US military propeller planes to bring in hashish from Pakistan, and formed a fake rock band as a cover, using giant outdoor speakers to import cannabis. The four-man group was called “Laughing Grass”. |
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He had 43 aliases, driving licences under the names of Elvis Presley and Waylon Jennings and a passport under the name Donald Nice. |
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Marks had 89 phone lines and 25 worldwide companies controlling boutiques, bars, recording studios and travel agencies to launder the millions made from drug deals. |
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Howard was a likeable rogue, more ageing hippy than an angry gangster. Even the cops who investigated The Enterprise liked him. “He is an engaging character,” one agent from America’s Drug Enforcement Administration told me. |
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I have written stories on gangsters called Mr Death, Rentakill, Mad Dog and Badness. Marks was known as Mr Nice. |
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