In the late 1970s and early \'80s, a cadre of freewheeling, Southern pot smugglers lived at the crossroads of Miami Vice and a Jimmy Buffett song. --Publishers W.
Ryan recreates the era with a vivid, sun-drenched intensity. --New York Journal of Books A] thoroughly researched account of Operation Jackpot, the drug investigation That ended the reign of South Carolina\'s \'gentlemen smugglers, \'.... chock-a-block with hilarious and hair-raising anecdotes of fast times. . . . --Kirkus Reviews Reads like an international thriller.
A well-told tale of true crime That provides a few good arguments for why it should not be a crime at all. --Charleston City Paper High Times on the High seas: Investigative reporter Ryan recounts the glory days of dope smuggling and their terrible denouement....
Jackpot is a rip-roaring good read. --GQ A] rollicking story, Ryan manages to pack in one amusing tale after another....
The result is adventuresome, lavish, informative fun. . . .
Part New Yorker feature-part Jimmy Buffet song.
The adventures, the long-gone economy, and the Sting That ultimately brought them down and changed US drug policy are meticulously documented and lucidly spun....
Based on years of research and interviews with imprisoned and recently released smugglers and the law enforcement agents who tracked them down, Jackpot is sure to become a classic story from America\'s controversial Drug Wars.
In a cat-and-mouse game played out in exotic locations across the globe, the smugglers sailed through hurricanes, broke out of jail and survived encounters with armed militants in Colombia, Grenada and Lebanon.
Les Riley, Barry Foy, and their comrades eschewed violence as much as they loved pleasure, and it was greed, lust, and disaster at sea That ultimately caught up with them, along with the law.
During this golden age of marijuana trafficking, the country\'s most prominent kingpins were a group of wayward and fun-loving Southern gentlemen who forsook college educations to sail drug-laden luxury sailboats across the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean.
In Jackpot, author Jason Ryan takes us back to the heady days before drug smuggling was synonymous with deadly gunplay.
Then came their undoing: Operation Jackpot, one of the largest drug investigations ever and an opening volley in Ronald Reagan\'s War on Drugs.
These irrepressible adventurers unloaded nearly a billion dollars worth of marijuana and hashish through the eastern seaboard\'s marshes.
In the late 1970s and early \'80s, a cadre of freewheeling, Southern pot smugglers lived at the crossroads of Miami Vice and a Jimmy Buffett song
