The extraordinary tale of a strange life Howard Marks controlled twenty-five businesses around the world, had 83 phone lines, and 43 identities in the middle of the 1980s. He had contacts with groups as varied as MI6, the CIA, the IRA, and the Mafia at the height of his career, when he was smuggling up to thirty tonnes of marijuana. He was apprehended following a global operation by the Drug Enforcement Agency and given a 25-year prison term at the Terre Haute Penitentiary in Indiana. He completed his seven-year term in April 1995 and was then freed. His own incredible story, Mr. Nice, is told with humour, elegance, and candour.