Woodbridge man recalls a career investigating the Mafia and drugs gangs in new book

A customs officer who tackled the world’s biggest criminal organisations and drug smugglers has looked back on his career in a new book.

Jim Jarvie charts his 40-year career, including investigations into Mafia operations, in My Life in UK Customs.

He now leads the quiet life in Pettistree, near Woodbridge, worlds away from his previous life and he was approached by biographer Michael Sellers with the offer after giving a talk on his work.

“I wanted a record of what I did for my kids, my grandkids and my great grandkids,” he said.

Jim was born and grew up in Stamford, and went to Exeter Secondary Modern School until he left at 15.

He worked on tunnel projects during the creation of Rutland Water before answering a newspaper ad to join HM Customs and Excise in 1973.

Before long he was assigned to the front-line operational team helping to investigate and prosecute major drug trafficking crime groups.

"It was a steep learning curve, but I loved every single moment of it," he said.

"We had some really interesting operations.

"For a boy from Exeter Secondary Modern it was a culture shock, but I found a niche in life that I was good at."

Assignments included trips to Kenya to gather evidence against the Mafia, and to Thailand to track heroin sources.

High-profile targets included British cannabis smuggler Howard Marks, and Francesco Di Carlo, a key figure in the Italian Mafia ‘family’.

“A lot of the surveillance work was fairly mundane, but when you arrested someone or stopped a car on a motorway it was incredibly exciting," he said.

"You never knew what you were going to be doing the next day. We always had a bag packed in case we had to go somewhere suddenly.

“It could get hairy, but every police officer and law enforcement officer faces those dangers every day.”

Other career highlights saw Jim receive the Queen's Commendation for Bravery.

He earned the award for pinning down and arresting an armed drug smuggler who had just shot and killed his colleague, Peter Bennett, as they tracked a large shipment of cannabis.

“It was a watershed moment in my career,” he said.

“It hit home to me that the people we were dealing with were not nice people at all.

“Peter was 33, married and had a one-year-old son. It was a terrible tragedy and affected me quite badly afterwards.”

A secondment to Scotland Yard was followed by drugs liaison officer roles in Portugal and Brazil, tracking, intercepting and seizing drug shipments.

After three years in Brussels, Jim was rewarded with a senior role as Head of Operations for the UK Border Force (Central England).

There he led teams investigating and prosecuting serious crime, including major drug and firearms imports, money laundering, and immigration offences.

In 2012, a year before his retirement, Jim was awarded an OBE for his investigative work.

"You got great satisfaction," he said.

"When you found the drugs and made an arrest it was a tremendous buzz because these people were pedalling death."

Jim's book is available at Amazon.