Smuggling in the Florida Keys in the 70's
My family relocated from Long Island to Cape Coral in 1970. I was only 5 years old but I’m one of those odd people who have clear memories back to around age 3. I remember details of things that happened in our home on Arbell Drive in Bayshore, NY. Loose crabs in the basement when my dad was a crabber in Long Island Sound, how I got a stitch in my upper lip, and how I’d run to the brick wall in our front yard when I heard sirens because my dad may have been hanging off the back of a fire truck, are all memories prior to age 5.
In 1970 we rented a house on Delido Court near the Cape Coral Yacht Club where my mom would let me fish all night long. My dad was one of 7 cops in the city while the past Chief, Jay Murphy, was a volunteer officer at the time. I’m still in touch with some of the people I knew back then.
When smuggling in S. Florida was shifting from marijuana to cocaine, Florida’s Governor asked President Carter for funding to recruit 50 officers who didn’t follow the rules. The badged outcasts were offered jobs in the Keys with the “Florida State Marine Patrol.” An officer was stationed every 2 miles from Key Largo to Key West with one task; put pressure on smugglers. This was perfect for my dad, and I got to grow up in the Keys.
I was about 14 and worked at the boat rentals at Pennekamp at the time. Dad often came across Largo Sound to Pennekamp by boat for coffee in the mornings. One morning an officer raced into the park, jumped into his patrol boat, and left the marina on a full plane with sirens blasting and lights flashing.
A couple hours later I found out that while my dad was crossing the bay on his way to Pennekamp for morning coffee he noticed a shrimp boat grounded in the flats. He approached to assist and could smell the marijuana. As he escorted three guys onto his boat, he got shoved into the water and they proceeded to use his boat to try & run him over. He unloaded a 6-shooter 357 in their direction, and they were gone.
A lady having breakfast on her porch saw the whole thing and called the police. Later that day the boat was towed into Pennekamp’s docks and US Customs started unloading black bags of “Florida Hoochie” to the tune of over 400 hay-sized bails.
For evidence, each bail had to be cut open for a sample which went into a smaller bag, then both the bail and sample get assigned a number for proof each bail was contraband. It was windy and each bail cut open had a bit blow into the water. This caused a weed-line to form on the water which collected in the corner of the marina, and somehow disappeared by the next morning…..
Those bails were delivered to the incinerator plant on Card Sound Road where a local kid who I went to school with worked on weekends. Customs watched the bails get put into the incinerators, and left. Apparently nobody stayed to see if the incinerators were lit. Soon after, the guys running the plant showed up at school with new matching Pontiac Trans Ams.
It was quite an exciting time to be in the Florida Keys.
A local smuggler started a rumor that my dad was “skimming” and had bags of money hidden in the walls of the trailer we lived in. A couple of thugs came to tear the walls apart not knowing I was skipping school that day. I ended up hog-tied with a gun in my neck being asked where the money was. They tore apart the trailer, but there was no money.
When they left I was able to knock the phone off the wall and dial with my nose, I dialed the number to my job at Pennekamp and my dad’s sergeant was there when the call came in. Minutes later there were a dozen cops in my yard.
When my dad got home and saw all the cops in the yard he first wondered what I did this time? I described to the police what I could remember of the guys who paid the visit, and a deputy found one of them a few blocks away. They brought him to the trailer for a visual ID, and 12 cops turned their backs while my dad did what a cop would go to jail for these days.
He left the Marine Patrol to work for the Florida City PD, the last city south of Homestead as you’re headed to the Keys. Knowing what to look for on the roads from experience in the Keys, he often sat on the side of US-1 with his drug-sniffing dog watching vehicles come north out of the Keys.
An RV only a cop would think was suspicious went by, and he followed to pull them over. He let the dog out who proceeded to tear the spare tire off the RV as 2 guys ran into the woods. When he opened the door to the RV he found 40 large green military duffle bags all full of pure cocaine. It was the largest cocaine bust in the nation at that time which earned him a 30-second spot on the documentary “Cocaine Cowboys.”
I was a runaway and a drop-out, and luckily I had great mentors, usually a boss at a job, who looked after me. I ran into one in Islamorada last year and thanked him. If not for the mentorship, I could have ended up stoned working at a marina in the Keys and living in a trailer on the ocean. Hey, wait a minute!
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Jim Griffiths
Publisher, Nautical Mile Magazine
