'I thought I was the biggest dope smuggler. I wasn't. He was' Howard MarksOn 29 June 1988 Michael Forwell (aka The Fox) had it all - fast cars and speedboats, a nightclub in Bangkok, homes around the world. And a ship heading towards California carrying 72 tons of high-grade Thai marijuana, his last deal before going straight. On 30 June the DEA seized the ship in the biggest dope bust in history . . . and very soon Michael had nothing at all.A mild-mannere...

In 1979, Brett Douglas was a twenty-eight-year-old US Marine Corps veteran working as a commercial tuna fisherman in California. That year, a young man named Bruce Perlowin came looking for professional seamen and found a few, including the author. The fishermen he recruited became a crew that played an integral part in smuggling more than 250 tons of marijuana that FBI agents credited to the Perlowin Conspiracy.The Golden Gate Smuggling Company provides a true, behind-the...

Cocaine, the Gulf Connection is notabout cocaine gangs and shootouts in Mexican border towns,but rather it details the complex workingsof a sophisticated smuggling operation thathas gone unknown to the Mexican and U.S.governments for thirteen years. The success ofthe smuggling operation comes from a highdegree of compartmentalization, which allowsno chance for any one piece of the Companyto betr...

Leslie “Ike” Atkinson is one of U.S. history’s most original gangsters. According to law enforcement sources, he and his gang smuggled, by conservative estimates, 1,000 pounds of heroin annually from Bangkok, Thailand, to U.S. military bases during their period of operation from 1968 to 1975.The Bangkok Connection: Trafficking Heroin from Asia to the USAchronicles the story of Atkinson, a charismatic former U.S. army master sergeant, career smuggler, card shark and doting family ma...

Written from his cell and smuggled out page by page, Colin Martin’s autobiography chronicles an innocent man’s struggle to survive inside one of the world’s most dangerous prisons. After being swindled out of a fortune, Colin was let down by the hopelessly corrupt Thai police. Forced to rely upon his own resources, he tracked down the man who conned him and, drawn into a fight, he accidentally killed that man’s bodyguard. Colin was arrested, denied a fair trial, convicted of murder and thr...

Miss Bangkok is a vivid, powerful and moving memoir of a life spent in prostitution in Thailand. Poor and uneducated, Bua Boonmee escaped an abusive marriage only to end up in the go-go bars of Patpong. There, in the notorious red-light district of Bangkok, she succumbed to prostitution in an effort to support her family.Bua’s story is one of resilience and courage in the face of abuse and poverty. Her confessions will make you laugh and cry, cringe and applaud. She will change you...

This is the cocaine trade.This is how it's done: with hard work and a good system. With coca made into cubes, dissolved in liquid, hidden in marble blocks or inside electric cable. With willing mules swallowing drugs in ovules (they'll be arrested - this is part of the system). With shipments measured in tons. With money in cash, always. And these are the risks: police dogs, scanners, customs, infiltrators ...And if you do it right, it will make you rich. And if yo...

Bang Kwang Prison is one of the most notorious penal institutions in the world. Located seven miles north of Bangkok city in the Nonthaburi Province, the prison is home to over 8,000 inmates, among them ruthless killers, rapists, drug traffickers, conmen and thieves.The Bangkok Hilton is understaffed, overcrowded, and filled with inmates who struggle with insanity as they spend the first months of their sentences chained in leg irons. Prisoners outnumber guards by 50 to 1. Until no...

Hell in Barbados is the powerful true story of a drug-addicted smuggler who found his salvation in the unlikeliest of places. Told with disarming honesty, the book propels the reader into the mind of an addict and shows us the depths of degradation one man sunk to before finding the inner strength to save himself.Terry Donaldson met with success early in life but his struggle with addiction soon became an all-out war. His Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle – TV presenter by day, whilst he s...

Having lost everything after a reckless night out, I leave memories of a London police cell behind me and head for Spain with its promise of adventure and fun. Little do I know that I'm about to be thrust into the most terrifying time of my life. Wrong Place Wrong Time is a gripping true-life story of an unimaginable nightmare and how my ticket to a new life turns out to be a one way ticket to hell.  

The Carandiru House of Detention, in the teeming city of São Paulo, was the largest and most crowded prison in Latin America. Known as the 'Old House', it was also highly unusual in the way it was governed. Closed to the outside world, and even largely to the wardens, it was run almost entirely by the inmates themselves, who created a unique society complete with politics, hierarchies and a system of justice.In 1989, at the height of the AIDS epidemic in Brazil, with only a handful...

Six gripping stories of drugs, crime and cover ups by Andrew Fraser, Australia's most notorious criminal lawyer.Andrew Fraser has made mistakes in his life. Big mistakes. And he has paid a hefty penalty for them. A flash, arrogant and highly successful criminal lawyer, he made a great deal of money defending a huge range of clients before a spectacular fall from grace in the late 1990s through his cocaine addiction.This chapter ebook is an extract from In Any Case,...