Howard Marks is Britain's most famous drug smuggler, having served seven years in an US penitentiary before going on to become the bestselling author of Mr Nice and Mr Smiley. A former Oxford physics graduate, he was released from prison in 1995. He had previously been connected with groups as diverse as the CIA, IRA, MI6 and the Mafia. In 2014 he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Howard Marks died in April 2016.