James McCann (drugs trafficker)
James Joseph McCann (born 25 March 1939) is a figure who has been linked with Irish republicanism, drug trafficking and the smuggling of arms to the Provisional IRA in the 1970s. Background McCann has dual British and Irish citizenship, and uses an Irish passport. In 1971 he escaped from Belfast's Crumlin Road Prison, where he was awaiting trial for a petrol-bombing at Queen's University. Prominent drugs trafficker Howard Marks was involved with McCann for several years in smuggling hashish from Afghanistan through Irish ports, specifically Shannon Airport, to the UK via Milford Haven in Wales. He was imprisoned at various times in Germany, France, Canada, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on drug- or political violence-related matters. He was described as "possibly the most effective arms supplier" for the IRA in the 1970s. He was arrested in the Republic of Ireland in 1979 on a drugs trafficking charge and held in Portlaoise Prison, but was not convicted. On 2 March 1991, McCann was arrested in a hotel in Düsseldorf, Germany, under the name of Robert Gustave Baehr. Identified by his fingerprints as James McCann, he was charged with being a member of a criminal gang, with smuggling 1,528 kilograms