This story is about gold, though. For Maik’s living was earned by trading small pieces of the soft superfluous metal against German women’s magazines and smuggling them across the world in plastic containers. Plastic containers were a mainstay in the mid-eighties, a staple of the long-haul journey, and Maik found his trademark in unscrewing tape cassettes and placing the fine slivers in the cavities. These could be transported by the rucksack-load without twitching an official eyebrow.

And with this subterfuge, Maik made a dishonest pound go a long way, feeding an illegitimate family in Hessen, a drug-habit in Berlin, and a mastiff in the suburbs of Bombay. There were other illegitimate offspring, for Maik danced and wailed and cried his way through many a harbour town, and found a mother in every port to soothe his igneous features.

But what did British Customs do, when they caught wind of this nefarious German?