Book Price £17.99
The Gentleman Drug Trafficker Who Turned Britain On
Scion of a wealthy family, Francis Morland was one of Britainís most talented young artists, a contemporary of David Hockney and Peter Blake and a leading figure in the 1960s New Generation movement. At the same time he lived a remarkable secret life, as the biggest dope trafficker in the UK. He stuffed his abstract sculptures full of cannabis to ship to the American market, moved yachtloads of hashish to Europe and, years before Howard Marks, became the countryís first major drug baron.
Morland was heir to a Quaker dynasty and lived a gilded youth: his father was a renowned physician and his mother was a key figure in modern art, friend of George Orwell and Henry Moore. At 6ft 3in tall, good-looking and well-connected, he skied for England, had a beautiful wife and children, a London des-res, a farmhouse in Malta and the world at his feet.
But Scotland Yard were after him, and he was busted while awaiting a big importation. He skipped bail and fled abroad, loaded a ketch with over a ton of Moroccan resin, and crossed the Atlantic using a sextant and dead reckoning. He eventually offloaded to a New York distributor, only to be caught in a chase through Manhattan; he was sentenced to six years in a penitentiary.
Morland came out to find his profits had gone. Old friends shunned him and the family firm went bust. So for the next thirty years he became a professional smuggler, plying his trade across the Mediterranean, shifting tons of hash from Berber tribesmen to gangland heavies and alternating between periods of sudden wealth and bleak incarceration. In 1980, 1990 and again in 2000 he was caught and jailed for long terms. Now he lives in ‘pretty good poverty’ teaching pottery classes. This is his amazing story.
“Every good sport is pioneered by an amateur gent. Francis Morland was that person in the world of cannabis smuggling, before the pros arrived”
HOWARD MARKS, AUTHOR OF MR NICE
“The Art of Smuggling relives the days when cannabis smugglers were gentlemen and the game was built on honour, trust and a sense of adventure. No mobile phones, no emails, no text messages; just a phone call and you accepted everyone’s word”
PHIL SPARROWHAWK, AUTHOR OF GRASS
“A great story. Francis Morland’s evocative account makes you pine for the good old hippy days of ‘puff’ smuggling”
MAURICE O’CONNOR, AUTHOR OF THE DEALER