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The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's Transnational Crime and the Developing World report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652 billion in 2014 alone. With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally and it remains very difficult for local authorities to thwart its popularity.
Dennis Howard Marks was a Welsh drug smuggler and author who achieved notoriety as an international cannabis smuggler through high-profile court cases. At his peak he claimed to have been smuggling consignments of the drug as large as 30 tons, and was connected with groups as diverse as the CIA, the IRA, MI6, and the Mafia. He was eventually convicted by the American Drug Enforcement Administration and given a 25-year prison sentence; he was released in April 1995 after serving seven years. Though he had up to 43 aliases, he became known as "Mr. Nice" after he bought a passport from convicted murderer Donald Nice. After his release from prison, he published a best-selling autobiography, Mr. Nice, and campaigned publicly for changes in drugs legislation.
The Winter Hill Gang is a loose confederation of Irish Mob organized crime figures in the Boston, Massachusetts, area. The gang members and leadership are predominantly Irish-American, and it is often referred to as an Irish Mob organization, though many prominent and influential Winter Hill Gang members have also been of Italian descent. The organization derives its name from the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, north of Boston. Among its members have been the notorious Boston gangsters Buddy McLean, Whitey Bulger, Howie Winter, Joseph McDonald, Johnny Martorano, Patrick Nee and Stephen Flemmi. They were most influential from 1965, under the rule of McLean and Winter, to the 1979 takeover led by Bulger.
Curtis Francis Warren is an English gangster and drugs trafficker who was formerly Interpol's Target One and was once listed on The Sunday Times Rich List.
Fenethylline is a codrug of amphetamine and theophylline that behaves as a prodrug to both of the aforementioned drugs. It is also spelled phenethylline and fenetylline (INN); other names for it are amphetamin
Walter Douglas is an alleged Scottish drug trafficker and organised crime figure, dubbed the Tartan Pimpernel by the press, who is reportedly one of the richest in the United Kingdom with an estimated worth of £20 million. He was allegedly wanted in at least three countries on drug trafficking and gun running charges as of 2003, and Douglas was reported to have had ties to numerous international criminal organisations in Europe and North America as the head of the Delta crime syndicate. But in fact nothing has ever been proved against Douglas. In October 2013 there were no longer any warrants out against him and he staunchly maintained his innocence to a British journalist
Michael Tyrrell was an Antigua-born drug trafficker who headed a drug ring along with his Common law wife Julie Paterson, known as the "Cocaine Queen". In 1999, he and his "wife" were caught by authorities attempting to smuggle nearly half a ton of cocaine from Bequia into Great Britain, one of the largest ever to be smuggled into the country.
Brian Charrington is an English drug trafficker and owner of a car dealership in Middlesbrough who, along with Curtis "Cocky" Warren, operated in North East England during the late-1980s and eventually built a criminal empire with links to Germany, France, Spain and Austria as well as connections in South America and the United States.
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada, sometimes through Cuba. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing the vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsican criminals Paul Carbone and Antoine Guérini, and also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco. Most of the operation's starting capital came from assets that Ricord had stolen during World War II when he worked for Henri Lafont, one of the heads of the Carlingue during the German occupation in World War II.
Banged Up Abroad is a British documentary/docudrama television series created by Bart Layton that was produced for Channel 5 and that premiered in March 2006. Most episodes feature stories of people who have been arrested while travelling abroad, usually for trying to smuggle illegal drugs, although some episodes feature people who were either kidnapped or captured while they were either travelling or living in other countries. Some episodes have featured real-life stories that first became well known when they were made the subject of a film: films that have been 're-made' in this way include Midnight Express, Goodfellas, The Devil's Double, Argo, Mr Nice and, to a lesser extent, Casino.
Hüseyin Baybaşin is a Kurdish drug trafficker. He is currently serving life sentence in the Netherlands convicted of murder, drug smuggling and other charges.
A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin or narcotrafficker is a high ranking crime boss who controls a sizable network of people involved in the illegal drug trade. Such figures are often difficult to bring to justice, as they are normally not directly in possession of something illegal, but are insulated from the actual trade in drugs by several layers of staff. The prosecution of drug lords is therefore usually the result of carefully planned infiltration into their networks, often using informants from within the organizations.
Border Force (BF) is a law-enforcement command within the Home Office, responsible for frontline border control operations at air, sea and rail ports in the United Kingdom. The force was part of the now defunct UK Border Agency from its establishment in 2008 until Home Secretary Theresa May demerged it in March 2012 after severe criticism of the senior management.
The illicit cigarette trade is defined as “the production, import, export, purchase, sale, or possession of tobacco goods which fail to comply with legislation”. Illicit cigarette trade activities fall under 3 categories:
- Contraband: cigarettes smuggled from abroad without domestic duty paid;
- Counterfeit: cigarettes manufactured without authorization of the rightful owners, with intent to deceive consumers and to avoid paying duty;
- Illicit whites: brands manufactured legitimately in one country, but smuggled and sold in another without duties being paid.
Christopher Vincent Kinahan, Sr. better known as Christy 'the Dapper Don' Kinahan; is an Irish drug dealer with convictions for ecstasy and heroin smuggling.
Operation Kruz Control was a twelve-month, multi-agency investigation of a drug trafficking organization in southern Arizona, between December 2012 and December 2013.
On 23 October 2019, the bodies of 39 Vietnamese people — 31 men and 8 women — were found in the trailer of an articulated refrigerator lorry in Grays, Essex, United Kingdom. The trailer had been shipped from the port of Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Purfleet, Essex, UK, and the lorry cab and its driver are believed to have originated from Northern Ireland. Investigations are being led by Essex Police, and involve the national authorities of the UK, Belgium, Ireland and Vietnam.
The City bonds robbery of 1990 was a heist in which £291.9 million was stolen in London, England. The carefully planned operation made it seem at first as if a courier had been mugged on 2 May, yet City of London police soon realised that it was a sophisticated global venture which ended up involving participants such as the New York mafia, the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), and Colombian drug barons. The robbery was one of the largest in world history.
EncroChat was a Europe-based communications network and service provider used primarily by organized crime members to plan criminal activities. Police infiltrated the network between at least March and June 2020 during a Europe-wide investigation. An unidentified source associated with EncroChat announced on the night of 12–13 June 2020 that the company would cease operations because of the police operation.
Liam Byrne is an Irish criminal and member of the gang founded by Christy Kinahan.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Osborne, Samuel (13 June 2018). "One of Britain's biggest drug dealers convicted of running £68m into UK". The Independent . Retrieved 19 June 2020.
- 1 2 3 4 Ellis, James (18 June 2018). "Police search for €7.5m of 'missing' drug money linked to jailed Kinahan associate". Irish Independent . Retrieved 19 June 2020.