Mr. Nice
THE BOOK: During the mid 1980's Howard Marks had forty three aliases, eighty nine phone lines and owned twenty five companies throughout the world. Whether bars, recording studios or offshore banks, all were money laundering vehicles serving the core activity: dope dealingMarks began to deal small amounts of hashish while doing a postgraduate philosopy course at Oxford and soon he was moving much larger quantities into Europe and into America the equipment of touring British rock bands. The academic life began to lose its allure. At the height of his career he was smuggling consignments of up to fifty tons from Pakistan and Thailand to America and Canada and had contact with organisations as diverse as MI6, the CIA, the IRA and the Mafia. Numerous newspaper profiles, books and television documentaries have been devoted to Howard Mark's life. Touched with humour charm and candour, Mr Nice is his own extraordinary story.
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What Hacker News says
- Mr Nice by Howard Marks
Yes, he was a criminal, with great entrepreneur spirit.
- You could try reading Mr Nice https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Nice-Howard-Marks/dp/0749395699
- Well they've been arguing over that in various court for over ten years. They didn't just charge him with copyright infringement which itself would probably not be extraditable:
>..charged in 2012 with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, conspiring to commit money laundering and two counts of criminal copyright infringement.
Often with US law enforcement where there's a will there's a way even if it doesn't strictly stick to normal legal practices. See also Assange, and if you read Howard Marks book Mr Nice there's another example of where they got him in an unconventional way. Plus of course a variety of drone assassinations.
- These tactics are as old as international drug smuggling itself. Howard Marks(Mr Nice)[0] says in his book that he stationed one of his associates in Amsterdam to operate as a communications node, he finds out later that the Dutch police had tapped the phone lines within weeks.
- Or Howard Marks in the book Mr Nice tells a bit about his thinking the US had no power over him and then, oops.
- Good reply, agree with it all. The only nitpick I would have is that America don't really have a left when compared to the European type.
Story time - I have been to Glastonbury Festival 13 times, it's my favourite place on earth. Michael Eavis who runs it is very left and has a bit of the festival that is dedicated to left politics, and the theme pretty much runs through the whole thing. I don't mind, it's his gig.
Every year until he died, Tony Benn (a very left Labour politician) would be there Sunday morning doing a discussion. This was actually a proper discussion. I'd always go along as he was there either before or after my favourite drug smuggler ever Howard Marks who wrote the book Mr Nice. Now, Tony would always engage - pretty much each time I went he'd sit with a group of people with views orthogonal to his own and discuss them. We'd not often agree but we'd shake hands and hopefully everybody learned something.
I put Tony Benn along with John Smith, and even Margaret Thatcher as people that believe in what they campaign for. Their politics were not mine, but I respect them. You do not see politicians of their type any more. They say what they feel and if they get in power they try to make it happen.
Trump will not do half of what he said, Clinton would have been the same. there is the same smell from the pair of them. If this drama and Brexit should have taught these people anything it's to keep the hell away from politics. I doubt it'll happen however.
