Tom Storrar, Collier County Sheriff’s Office Captain (Retired)
Many have heard of Collier County’s storied drug smuggling past but someone who lived and breathed it is Tom Storrar, Collier County Sheriff’s Office Captain (Retired), and key member of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) “Operation Everglades” task force, which reached its pinnacle with the largest drug bust in county history.
Captain Tom Storrar has a remarkable nearly 50-year legacy in the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, with a roster of fascinating stories to accompany his time serving in various county law enforcement roles. Storrar served active duty in the US Airforce during Vietnam from 1965-1969, later moving into the reserves from 1969-1971. In 1970 Storrar joined the Highway Patrol Auxiliary and eventually the Collier County Sheriff’s Office in 1972. Holding almost every position aside from Corrections Officer, Storrar worked in Crime Investigation, the Canine Unit, Narcotics, General Crime, Homicides, eventually circling back to Narcotics. He served under Sheriff Doug Hendry, Sheriff Aubrey Rogers, Sheriff Don Hunter (as Undersheriff), and Sheriff Kevin Rambosk. He shared with us some of the most incredible crime investigation stories (and more!) to emerge from our county.
It's hard to believe that at one time you could count the number of law enforcement out on patrol on one hand. Back in the 1970s, when sleepy Collier County did not have Sheriff’s Office sub stations and instead operated out of headquarters in 3 districts (North Naples, Golden Gate, and East Naples), a maximum of 4 deputies would be out on nighttime patrol for the entire county. The Marco and Immokalee district offices closed down entirely by 11pm.
Captain Storrar had been in the Criminal Investigations division at this time, however when he transferred to Narcotics in 1975, major marijuana imports from Colombia into Collier County were already starting to take place. In fact, by the late 70s, some reports state that approximately 87% of all marijuana seizures in the US were made in South Florida.
The tactics taken by the traffickers took one of two methods: air or marine drops. The term “Square Grouper” became the nickname for the square bales of marijuana thrown out of airplanes or overboard from boats in Southwest Florida. In the beginning, mid-size planes would fly in loaded with drugs. Eventually larger military transport aircraft like DC6s and DC10s were utilized, flown by recruited ex-military pilots, flying the bales in low and slow over the Everglades, South of I75, with traffickers kicking the bales out in a straight line. Drug runners would go out in 4-wheelers and swamp buggies, pick up the deliveries and drive them to coordinators in Miami or Ft. Lauderdale. The large military aircraft were equipped to hold thousands of pounds of marijuana. A DC3 maxed out at 5-7,000 pounds of freight while a DC6 with 4 enormous engines could import 15,000 pounds.
In 1972, a smuggling aircraft landed at both the north end of the City of Naples Airport and at Wing South Air Park, off Rattlesnake Hammock Road, to offload bales to awaiting transporters. Another locale for drop-offs was Everglades Boulevard, where the planes would land to offload drugs, sometimes crash landing and simply left at the site. Other times they would take off again.
By the late 70s and early 80s, Captain Storrar and his handful of colleagues were struggling to keep up, completely overpowered by the drug running in the county. In 1981, Storrar and Sheriff Aubrey Rogers appealed to the Miami DEA office and met with the special agent in charge. They had gathered intel and laid out in great detail how bad the situation in Naples was becoming. The DEA agreed to come over from Miami and begin a 90-day intelligence gathering effort. The 90 days came and went and to this day, there is still a DEA task force permanently stationed in Ft. Myers.
In 1981, the Drug Enforcement Administration began “Operation Everglades” to try to stem the large-scale drug smuggling operations from Cartagena, Colombia. First based in Collier County, officials from the DEA, US Customs, Florida Marine Control, the IRS (who were particularly helpful in tracking the money), the State Attorney’s Office, Collier County Sheriff’s Office and even US military all worked together.
While air drops were still the primary form of smuggling, Storrar and his colleagues intercepted DEA and US Customs to track the violators coming out of the Caribbean Islands. The smugglers did not know he had a Customs radio and he would be able to follow them, talking to the aircraft when they were coming in, posing as off loaders and directing them to DeSoto Boulevard and Golden Gate Boulevard, off Oil Well Road. Agents would collect the drugs once they hit the ground, taking a Huey helicopter (Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, or “Hueys” for short) which could pick up several hundred pounds of drugs. Often agents slept in the Hueys and they became an important tool for logistics, support, fuel cargo and transport. Agents became very effective with the help of equipment like radios and mobile light strips which could be used to set up clandestine temporary airstrips to land aircraft. Most of the drug running activities at this time tended to be south of the Alley and off Everglades Boulevard.
For 2 years the operation was run offsite out of Marco Island since, at this time, the second trafficking method of marine drops became more popular. The Everglades were designated “Everglades National Park” in 1947, and as the years went by, commercial fishing was permitted less and less in the park. With their livelihoods diminishing and locals falling on tough times, knowledgeable Everglades City fisherman turned to other methods to feed their families. With a long history of smuggling whiskey, weapons, sugar and more, Everglades City fishermen were no stranger to adapting to other ways to make money. A typical fisherman earning $15-19,000 a year would be offered $50,000 for a night of pickups by smugglers from Miami. $50,000 for 24 hours of work in the late 70s was a lot of money by anyone’s standards. And no one knew the local waters better than the fisherman, who could navigate the thick mangroves in the pitch dark at dangerously high speeds.
However, the local smugglers were often victims of bait and switch, being offered a down payment of $10,000 up front by the traffickers, with the balance upon delivery of the drugs. But many times the traffickers would claim that a few bales were missing so they would not pay the full promised amount. At the time of arrest, many fishermen claimed to be owed hundreds of thousands by traffickers.
Agents were able to infiltrate the close-knit Everglades City community posing as buyers, sellers, and boat handlers. They recruited confidential informants and the DEA provided undercover operations allowing agents to act as drug transporters. Agents would request $50-100,000 from the traffickers up front and would use the money to rent shrimp boats from Tampa or Key West. DEA and government employees who knew local marine navigation (or by using informants) would meet the Colombian freighters coming in, collect the drugs and take the boats to Miami through the thick mangroves. The Everglades City fishermen were experts at navigating the 10,000 Islands.
Other times a load would come in and be put on trucks or vans in Everglades City and driven to Miami. The vans were always unmarked and unregistered and could be stopped with the help of highway patrol. The average load was approximately 10-20,000 pounds, with the largest ever 52 tons (104,000 pounds) and 1,700 bales through marine smuggling. Interestingly, most busts occurred during the holidays as violators were under the incorrect assumption that law enforcement would not be working at that time.
Conditions in the Everglades were difficult at best. Agents would spend 2-4 days in the woods battling heat and mosquitos while performing surveillance waiting for incoming shipments to intercept. When the bales came in there would be 2 packages of drugs in a bale which were wrapped in brown paper, then burlap. Surprisingly, the bales were not damaged if they fell off boats and became known as “floaters” which were frequently found.
When the bales were confiscated, they were destined for a burn operation by court order. Bales would need to be tested as cannabis and when criminal cases were over, they would be destroyed. In the beginning they were incinerated in Ft. Myers or St. Petersburg, but for Federal cases (over 5,000 pounds) they would be prosecuted as a Federal case in Miami. Storrar speaks about how sometimes they could not get it all the product incinerated so they would have to dig a hole to burn the marijuana in the ground, layered with diesel fuel. Once in a while a citizen would try to salvage the marijuana and dig it up from the ground and it would be called “Diesel Pot”.
July 7, 1983, was a fateful day for the Operation when over 200 officers representing the DEA, FBI and the IRS, along with the US Coast Guard and Collier County Sheriff’s Office deputies, cast a net across the county in what would become at the time one of the country’s biggest marijuana smuggling busts. At 5am, Route 29, the only road into Everglades City, was sealed off, agents patrolled the mangroves by boat, and task force airplanes and helicopters observed from above.
Operation Everglades was a huge success. According to the US District Court (Middle District of Florida) website, over the course of 3 years, the joint Federal, State, and County investigation resulted in arrests or indictments of 256 people (100 of whom were Everglade City fishermen Captain Storrar arrested himself). More than 580,000 pounds of marijuana, with an estimated value of more than $252 million, were seized, along with cash, cars, boats, and property worth more than $5 million. Nearly 80 percent of the adult male population of Everglades City were arrested by Federal agents.
As a law enforcement official but also as a community member, Captain Storrar explained the dynamic when arresting local fishermen. He says, “I always tried to treat them like gentleman, and most acted as gentlemen. I tried to show everyone respect. There was a mutual understanding, ‘you have a job, and I have a job’.”
Later, in the 1980s, the product shifted to cocaine. Cocaine weighed less, was easier to get into the country, and carried a higher value. Storrar speaks of when he posed as the owner of Immokalee Airport and met with Colombians at a motel in Immokalee, where the drugs would be transported to Miami for wholesalers to pick up. Captain Storrar and his colleagues would follow the smugglers and eventually place them under arrest. Eventually drug traffickers relocated the activity to Texas, the Mexico border, and ports in New Orleans.
Aside from his close involvement in Operation Everglades, Captain Storrar has an amazing array of tales and anecdotes from his time in CCSO as a touch point for the Secret Service when high-profile individuals came into the county, a role in which he performed for over 20 years. In the 1970s, he was assigned to Betty Ford’s local detail when her husband Gerald Ford was Vice President. The Fords were debating whether to move to Palm Springs or Naples when Gerald was due to leave office, so the Fords came to visit Naples, staying at the Marco Island Marriott for 2 weeks.
Captain Storrar protected George H. W. Bush when he was our 41st president and visiting Naples, as well as working on the detail of George W. Bush in 2008 while serving as our 43rd president during a visit to the Donahue compound in Naples. Storrar was on the local detail for many other politicians and VIPs when in the area including Rosalyn Carter, Ronald Regan, Al Gore and Tony Blair, who kept his Gulfstream aircraft at Naples Airport after he retired.
Storrar states, “One of the most interesting details I was assigned to was for Princess Margriet of the Netherlands. In 1988, she and her Royal Family came to Naples on vacation for 2 weeks and since they wanted to be very low profile had no secret service, so I worked with the Royal Family security team. At the end of the 2 weeks, she and the family invited me to the Netherlands, so I was granted security and assigned to a Dutch palace guard whom I stayed with. I was lucky enough to be there on May 8th, which is the day they celebrate World War II liberation day, a terrific day for Americans to be in the Netherlands, and a memory I will hold for a long time.”
Storrar sums up his exceptional time at the Collier County Sheriff’s Office with this, “I’ve had a wonderful career and experience at CCSO. We are incredibly lucky to be living in this town with its extremely low crime rate and its wonderful way of life. We – and I – have a lot to be thankful for.”
Raymond James is not affiliated with Tom Storrar
