Image
Klian 07 Jan 2013 01:24
This image is clearly a picture of a drug capture, probably by the ATF, but the first thing that comes to mind when I see an image like this one from now on will be Jack Gantos. When I found this picture, I envisioned Gantos and Hamilton in the hotel room, while the FBI plundered their ship full of two thousand pounds of hashish. I have a feeling that it was such a legendary bust at the time that a picture like this one was taken in order to be set as an example in the newspaper. At the time, a large amount of drugs being carried in at one time was unheard of, but Gantos was caught in the middle of it. After spending several months at sea with Hamilton, one of his associates in the transport, Gantos kept a journal of all their experiences at sea, which was later used against him in court. Gantos needed an outlet to write into in order to keep his sanity in check and in order for him to stay occupied. Later upon their arrival in New York, Gantos and Hamilton along with an associate,who created the plan and ratted Hamilton and Gantos out at the beginning, started selling the hashish in large quantities. After figuring out that they were being followed , Gantos became more paranoid, until he ran into the FBI looking for them. On a separate note, the FBI at the time was extremely aggressive in intelligence and captures under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover. Well, while Gantos was running away from the FBI, he noticed that their ship was on the cover of the newspaper. When I read this, I immediately went to Google to look for the newspaper from that day to actually see a record of history. To my disappointment, there was no such image, so the closest thing I imagined was an image like the one in this forum post, a group of agents standing behind their trophy, at the same time sending a message of humiliation to all the drug kingpins and dealers on the streets, especially Gantos. Overall, I believe that this image would have been a great cover for the autobiography, but Gantos's mugshot has it beat.