The Moultrie News

Greed, lust, pride, arrogance and envy are a sampling of character flaws on public display in Jason Ryan's "Jackpot: High Times, High Seas, and the Sting That Launched the War on Drugs" (Lyons Press, 2011). If you have not read this new work of nonfiction, put the newspaper down now and go find a copy. You'll have as many "Now I get it," and "You've got to be kidding," moments as I've had in the day or two it's taken me to devour this book. This is one hot read for cool October nights. Ryan spins his story of modern-day drug buccaneering in such a compelling way that it's hard to put the book down. Operation Jackpot, the code name for the special task force designed to cripple marijuana smuggling on the Carolina coast was a story that dominated the headlines of The News and Courier in the 1980s. Stories of mega-yachts running marijuana into our inlets invoked images of our rum running days.

Don't be surprised at the names you read in this narrative of the "Mother of All Drug Busts." The good guys are all there - Judge Falcon Hawkins, U.S. Attorneys Henry D. McMaster, Bart Daniel, Lionel Lofton, to name a few, and the bad guys, too - disgraced sons of some of South Carolina's prominent families - are all chronicled.

For the lawmen, Jackpot was the making of their careers. The innovative strategies in apprehending drug traffickers and running down their assets quickly became methods adopted around the country. Who says that the "good ol' boys can't get it right every now and again?

Anyone familiar with former Philadelphia Enquirer investigative reporter turned best-selling author, Mark Bowden, author of inside accounts such as "Black Hawk Down," "Killing Pablo," and "Guests of the Ayatollah," will immediately note the similarity in the fast-moving prose style that Jason Ryan utilizes to tell this saga of thrill-seeking, risk-taking dope smugglers.

Most of the Carolina smugglers reveled in the "kingpin" label that U.S. Attorney for South Carolina, Charles D. McMaster, used to differentiate between the little fish and the king fish of the marijuana cartels. No one will ever know how much of the estimated $100 million in profit the convicted felons stashed in off-shore banks and hitherto undiscovered lockboxes. What we do know is that hundreds of thousands of pounds of Colombian pot entered the country through tidal inlets from Daufuskie Island near Hilton Head to the tributaries of the ACE Basin to Cape Romain and Little River. The smugglers were youthful fellows, many from well-to-do families in our state, and they seldom bothered to pack a gun. Their strategy was to use fast boats, the cover of moonless nights and local contacts to cover their highly illegal million dollar adventures.

Living on the lam in luxury yachts and million dollar condos that overlook the world's most scenic vistas sounds like the stuff of Hollywood's silver screen, not something concocted by U.S.C. frat-row drop-outs. Make no mistake, Jason Ryan does not glorify the deeds of drug lords, nor does he mitigate the dangers associated with even the occasional usage of illegal substances such as marijuana or hashish. Most of these fellows had serious cocaine addictions when apprehended.

There were folks aplenty here who knew Barry Foy, Les Riley and Tom Rhoad - men who were prosecuted under the then Federal "kingpin" statue during the Reagan era "War on Drugs."

From Greenville to McClellanville, from Spartanburg to Hilton Head, the nefarious weed known on college campuses as Mary Jane, street slang for marijuana, made its way in bales and bundles, into the hands of middle and upper-class Carolinians.

College campuses were the prime destination for much of the leafy product. The amazing and sometime wacky story of how that marijuana got here and was off-loaded and trucked by convoy to every corner of the state and beyond is the subject of Ryan's work.

Sometimes our own politicians and law-enforcement types seemed to be real life "Boss Hoggs." And a few of their girlfriends resembled Daisy Duke, except Daisy Duke never had a Lady Rolex on her wrist, nor did she spin around in a Porsche 911 with a $100,000 in cash stuffed under the passenger's seat.

In reality, they were young, arrogant punks who were willing to risk 25 years in the Federal pen for a chance to make four or five million dollars on a clandestine drug run into some tidal creek.

From page one of "Jackpot" you'll laugh out loud, scratch your head in disbelief and bite your nails through the 250 page account. There's the story of a 90-year-old grandmother, heiress to a grand fortune in real estate, who peers out the window of her Edisto Island plantation home to discover her grandson being arrested by dozens of law enforcement officers as a helicopter and an airplane circle overhead in the night sky. Charlestonians are still reminiscing about that one.

Jason Ryan gives new details on the direct descendant of the Carolina signer of the Declaration whose private airplane crash landed at a remote Georgia airfield because it was overloaded with Colombian pot. Then, there's the sad saga of the Branchville son of a state legislator who used his influence as a lawyer to aid and assist drug kingpins. So keen was this young attorney to provide legal cover that the bosses brought him into their inner circle, and he became one of the most wanted men in America. When he was arrested in La Jolla, Calif., after a decade of being on the run and frequenting the world's ritziest places, this drug dandy's dad had former state speaker of the House Sol Blatt make an impassioned plea for leniency, saying that the boy had found religion while on the run.

Judge Hawkins gave him 15 years in the Federal lock-up and promised that he'd find him help for his cocaine problem.

One thing is certain after reading Jason Ryan's book, "Jackpot," crime does often pay, but the long arm of the law always, always makes the final deal.

(Dr. Thomas B. Horton is a history teacher at Porter-Gaud School. He lives in the Old Village of Mount Pleasant. See more columns online at www.moultrienews.com. Visit www.historyslostmoments.com).