For a brief, wild stretch in the 1970s, South Carolina became one of the most important drug smuggling corridors in the United States — and in Part 2 of this series, the federal government finally strikes back.

This episode dives deep into Operation Jackpot, one of the largest and most consequential drug investigations in American history. As marijuana and hashish pour into the Lowcountry in staggering quantities, law enforcement stops chasing boats and starts following the money — triggering a multi-agency crackdown that reaches far beyond the Carolina coast.

We pick up with the pivotal Georgia airstrip bust, trace the smugglers’ pivot into high-profit hashish trafficking (including a notorious run tied to Lebanon), and follow the unraveling of the Gentleman Smugglers network as indictments, arrests, and international manhunts unfold.

From Hilton Head, McClellanville, and Edisto Island to Costa Rica, Australia, and extradition courts overseas, this episode details how figures like Barry Foy, Les Riley, Lee Harvey, Barry Toombs, and others were caught — who fled, who surrendered, who disappeared for years, and who ultimately faced justice.

We also examine how a young U.S. Attorney named Henry McMaster helped turn Operation Jackpot into a blueprint for modern federal prosecutions, using financial investigations, civil forfeiture, and enterprise-level cases to dismantle an entire smuggling ecosystem rather than just individual traffickers.

This is the end of an outlaw era — the collapse of a coastal drug empire and the moment South Carolina became ground zero for a landmark federal case that reshaped how drug conspiracies are prosecuted in the United States.

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Get the book- Operation Jackpot: by Jason Ryan