Mr Nice: an autobiography (59 page)

At the end of our conversation, another prisoner just terminating his legal visit came up to me.

‘Are you the Marco Polo?’

‘I’m rapidly becoming so, yes. But my real name is Howard.’

‘I know. My name is Jacques Canavaggio. I am from Corsica. We have not met, but everybody now thinks we are old partners. A week ago they arrested me in the Costa Brava with fifteen tons of hashish. The newspapers said it was yours. I am sorry if I make your problems worse.’

We shook hands.

‘Jacques, it’s hardly your fault. For my part I’m very pleased and honoured to meet you.’

‘The honour is mine.’

The prisoners were still gathered around Roger when I was returned to the exercise yard. He was continuing his loud enquiries into escape possibilities and extolling the virtues of South Africa as a headquarters for marijuana farming. The weekend’s Barcelona and Mallorca newspapers were given to us to read. One of them, quoting a report in
The Times
, stated that I had been moved from Palma prison because of fears that I might be released by a Mallorquian magistrate. Most accounts explained our secret transfer as being due to Roger’s attempt to bribe his way to freedom. All reported we were going to end up in Alcala-Meco prison just outside Madrid. A prisoner explained to us that this was bad news.

There are two men’s prisons in Madrid. The main one is Carabanchel, run, apparently, along the same lines as Modelo. You can get whatever you want. It houses a few thousand Spanish and foreign prisoners, including extradition cases. The other prison is called Alcala-Meco and is situated just outside the ancient university settlement of Alcala de Henares. It was recently built, with help from the Germans, to house ETA terrorists. The regime was Spartan.

The crowd thickened around both of us, and we were again inundated with small gifts of coffee, cigarettes, and food. Several
funcionarios
then broke through the crowd and frog-marched Roger and me to a double cell on the third
floor and locked us up. Roger became irate and tore the wash-basin and fittings from the wall. Water gushed into the cell.

It took a good half-hour for the
funcionarios
to unlock us, by which time there was a waterfall down several landings. With our possessions, we were taken to another cell block and locked up there until the next morning. I had stamps and writing materials. I took the opportunity to write to my parents, sister, and eldest daughter. They were heartbreaking letters to write. I imagined my parents’ deep unhappiness and distress on hearing the news of the arrest of Judy and myself. They really thought I had straightened out completely. The current allegations would flatten them. My sister, at the age of thirty-seven and against medical advice, had become pregnant for the first time. She didn’t need this mess. Myfanwy was meant to have stayed with me in Palma from tomorrow until her sixteenth birthday later in August. She’d seen so little of her father. Now she would see me less, maybe much less.

Then we were moved to another cell. Then another. I lost count. We weren’t allowed to make telephone calls or speak to other prisoners. We didn’t even get our legally mandated daily outdoor exercise period.

On Tuesday, August 2nd, we were hastily unlocked, handcuffed, and firmly marched to a waiting prison van that resembled a tank. Parked in front of the vehicle was a Policía Nacional saloon car, stuffed full with uniformed cops and guns. Another was parked behind, and at least four police motorbikes were noisily revving up. Two police helicopters hovered above. Roger looked pessimistic.

Inside the van Jacques Canavaggio and two of his gang were waiting. A crew of three armed police van drivers were checking their handcuffs.

‘We meet again, Marco Polo. I think we are travelling together to Madrid. One day we are drinking champagne; the next day we wear the handcuffs. It is the nature of our business. We will drink champagne again. That is sure.’

When the drivers were satisfied we were all safely handcuffed, the procession left Barcelona and began the nine-hour journey to Madrid. By noon, the five of us were feeling as if we were trapped in a sardine can on fire. We yelled and screamed for a break, some cool, fresh air, something to eat, and some cold water. The prison van and escorts pulled into a service station. The doors were opened, and we felt a welcome breeze. Roger looked everywhere. There was nowhere sensible for him to run.

‘
Podemos comer? Tenemos hambre
.’

We were hungry all right. The drivers bought us a selection of
bocadillos
.

‘God, I could murder a beer,’ said Roger.

‘We could ask,’ suggested Jacques Canavaggio.

We pleaded with the police to get us some cans of beer. To our surprise they relented and purchased a case. The eight of us, five top-profile prisoners and three armed police drivers, opened cans of beers and had an amiable conversation on a number of topics while a veritable commando force of hovering helicopter pilots and other armed escorts patiently waited. Things like that happen in Spain. They could never happen in England or America.

Somewhere near Madrid, we turned off the
autopista
. We drove on hilly roads through a few exquisite Spanish villages. Then the landscape suddenly changed. It was eerie, bare, and exposed. We saw a sign for Torrejón, a huge American airbase, before turning off on to a road leading to the ugliest prison I had ever seen, surrounded by gun towers, high-rise barbed wire, and elevated perimeter walkways. After stopping at innumerable check-points, we piled out of the van to have our handcuffs removed by a reception
funcionario
. He was very cordial.

‘
Ah! El Marco Polo de las drogas. Bienvenido a Alcala-Meco. Conoces a Jorge Ochoa? Es mi amigo
.’

‘I know Jorge Ochoa,’ said Roger, before I was given a chance to answer the
funcionario
. ‘The son of a bitch still
owes me ten million dollars. He was in this prison? I thought they only kept terrorists here.’

Jorge Ochoa was the son of Fabio Ochoa, a Colombian cattle-breeder, who began exporting cocaine to the United States during the mid-1970s. Jorge transformed his father’s family business into a multi-million-dollar cocaine corporation but did not come to the DEA’s attention until 1977, when sixty pounds of cocaine, allegedly his, were busted at Miami airport.

In November 1981, the Colombia guerrilla movement M-19 (Movimiento 19 de Abril) kidnapped Jorge’s sister Marta. In response, Jorge, his father, and others formed MAS (Muerte a Secuestradores), a vigilante organisation devoted to killing kidnappers. MAS were very successful and killed dozens of M-19 members. Marta Ochoa was released.

MAS had unintentionally brought together and united under a common purpose cocaine exporters who until then had competed with each other for chunks of the world markets. Jorge Ochoa, Carlos Lehder, and Pablo Escobar formed an alliance that became known as the Medellín Cartel. Shortly afterwards, Roger began working for Ochoa as a pilot. Roger felt he’d been badly cheated by Ochoa on their last deal.

During 1984, following the murder of Colombia’s pro-American Minister of Justice and under intense pressure from the United States Government, Colombian President Betancur tried to rid his country of cocaine exporters by threatening them with extradition to America. Jorge Ochoa and other Medellín Cartel leaders were given refuge in Panama by President Manuel Noriega. Together with Gilberto ‘The Chess Player’ Rodriguez, who was then the leader of the all-powerful Cali Cartel, Ochoa travelled from Panama to Madrid. On the basis of a US extradition request, Spanish authorities arrested both of them in November 1984.

Ochoa avoided extradition by persuading the relevant authorities in Colombia to charge him and seek his
extradition from Spain. The US had charged him with importing cocaine. Colombia charged him with exporting the same cocaine. The charges were essentially identical. If two countries request a person’s extradition for similar offences and one of the countries is that person’s country of citizenship, that country’s request will be given preference. Spain had little choice but to deny the US’s extradition request and, in 1986, extradited Ochoa to Colombia, where he walked out of prison and remains free.

The reception
funcionario
explained to me and Roger that although Alcala-Meco housed plenty of Basque separatists, it was by no means a prison exclusively for terrorists. The prison had housed not only Ochoa and Rodriguez but also Gaetano ‘Don Tanino’ Badalamenti, the Sicilian Mafia boss, who was extradited from Spain to America on the basis of running the Pizza Connection, a nation-wide heroin distribution ring. (The
funcionario
seemed most pleased that his prison, having already extradited Ochoa and Badalamenti, the world’s biggest cocaine and heroin smugglers, was now going to extradite Marco Polo, the world’s biggest cannabis smuggler.) Many high-profile, physically dangerous, and escape-prone criminals were currently here, as well as prisoners who had proved uncontrollable in other institutions. There were three different regimes operating within the prison: normal, restricted, and Artículo 10, the most severe form of incarceration imposed in Spain. For reasons unknown to the
funcionario
Roger, Jacques Canavaggio, and Jacques’s two gang members had been assigned to normal regime; I had been assigned to restricted regime. I felt sick. We shook hands and parted company.

The single cell was certainly Spartan. The only moveable objects were a small plastic stool and a foam-rubber mattress. The wash-basin and toilet were plastic. Everything else was concrete or steel. A window looked out on to a towering white wall. I had no possessions. They were being scrutinised by prison security personnel. I was assured that
in due course I would get all I was allowed. Every two hours, to the sound of a
funcionario
yelling ‘
Recuento
’, I had to stand up to be counted through a pinhole in the steel door.

After a day and two nights’ total isolation, a normal procedure in most countries’ high-security prisons, I was permitted to have a few hours in the
patio
(exercise yard) with the other restricted-regime prisoners. Virtually all were Spanish, but there were a few Nigerians and a couple of armed robbers from Marseilles. The Frenchmen and a Spaniard named Zacarias, who looked like Frank Zappa, introduced themselves to me. They gave me the usual prison care packages of food and cigarettes, as well as some very welcome Moroccan hash.

I cabled my whereabouts to Masha in Palma. I filled in visiting application forms for all my family, Masha, Bob Edwardes, and David Embley. I smoked a joint and went to sleep.

Michael Katz came to see me early the next morning. The visit was through glass. From top to bottom, he was wearing my clothes. He was carrying my briefcase. I didn’t really mind, but it was odd behaviour. He had visited Judy in Palma prison. She had just been seen by the children and had been completely torn up by their visit. Katz had the impression Judy didn’t think much of him. He was right. Geoffrey Kenion was also still in Palma prison. Katz had been too tied up with matters in Barcelona and Palma to do any research into RICO. The Americans had still not informed him of the precise nature of the charges against us. There had been loads of media coverage. He was going to leave the newspapers with me, as well as some money to credit my prison account. I asked him to please find Madrid’s best extradition lawyer and send him to see me as soon as possible. I completed a power-of-attorney form for him to access my funds in Zurich.

Lying on the bare foam mattress back in the cell, I went through the newspapers. Both the
Observer
, where David
Leigh still worked, and the
Sunday Times
offered the beginnings of a cogent explanation for my high-profile arrest. It went something like this.

In early 1986, Craig Lovato was one of several DEA agents working in Spain with the Spanish drug police. The Spanish drug police were tapping my phone in Palma. Lovato listened to my conversations and figured I was dope-dealing. The Spanish didn’t believe I was breaking Spanish law. Overcoming the resistance of his superiors, Lovato investigated my background and read all that had been written about me.

Lovato’s wife, Wendy, also worked for the DEA. At the time she was in Florida assisting Scotland Yard in their investigation of the whereabouts of the proceeds from the Brinks-Mat gold bullion robbery. She had her nose buried in David Leigh’s
High Time
, Lovato’s book-of-the-month. The British police were intrigued to learn that I was her husband’s current target. They offered to help. As a result, the DEA and Scotland Yard launched a combined operation against me called Operation Eclectic. In no time, law enforcement agencies from Canada, Holland, Pakistan, Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Portugal, and Australia joined the operation in a massive orgy of international cooperation.

Although I found it hard to understand why the Spanish police were tapping my phone in the first place, the rest of the account made sense.

There was also a mention in the press of RICO: it stood for Racketeering-Influenced Corrupt Organisations. There was no further explanation.

A full-page article in
Newsweek
mentioned that I kept the loyalty of others by not killing people. The
People
stated that there was a £1,000,000 contract out on the life of Lord Moynihan, who was living under the protection of the United States authorities. Another report stated that Detective Superintendent Tony Lundy, Scotland Yard’s
most controversial detective and soon to be forced into retirement, had been responsible for turning Moynihan against me. This was completely at odds with my previous understanding of overtures made to Moynihan by Art Scalzo of the DEA.