Just before sunrise on Sept. 9, 1975, state agent Larry Campbell and another officer made an unannounced visit to the home of Monroe County Sheriff Bobby Brown. They picked him up and, only then, filled him in on the secret operation about to unfold across Key West. Brown tried not to appear blindsided. By most accounts, he was.
Later that morning, school principal William Oosterhoudt glanced out his window and noticed something strange happening across the street at the Farto residence on United Street. Key West Fire Chief Joseph “Bum” Farto, dressed in his customary red and wearing his trademark rose-tinted sunglasses, was loading two short-barreled shotguns into the trunk of his Key lime yellow Ford Galaxie 500. He climbed behind the wheel and pulled away, but he didn’t get far.
An unmarked car cut him off from the front, while another boxed him in from behind. Plainclothes agents pulled the fire chief from the driver’s seat and handcuffed him. Oosterhoudt figured they had to be from out of town because they wore formal neckties in the brutal September heat. As a tow truck arrived to haul away one of the flashiest cars on the island, a puzzled Oosterhoudt called the Key West Police Department to find out what was going on. They didn’t know either.
Farto was the first arrest of Operation Conch. He would also become the ultimate trophy for Special Agent Larry Dollar, a fresh recruit eager to make his mark.
Fifty-one years later, much of the story has evolved into comedy. Bum is remembered as the cigar-chomping eccentric in rose-colored glasses, dripping in jewelry, driving flashy cars and selling cocaine from his own firehouse. But that caricature hides the larger truth. Operation Conch was not a joke for the people who lived through it. People died. The sting destroyed families. Innocent people suffered, and on that day, the island lost an innocence that it will never get back.
Today, Bum Farto the character has eclipsed Bum Farto the human. News articles and social media posts largely ignore the darker and chaotic world that surrounded him — corrupt politicians, Bubba networks, violent Cuban exiles, organized crime, secret agents, government informants and a drug trade so massive that its consequences reached all the way to Washington.
Bum Farto was tricked into making a drug deal, then convicted on federal drug charges that would likely be dismissed today on grounds of entrapment. Before he could be sentenced, he disappeared, and the fire chief in the rose-colored glasses became the Jimmy Hoffa of Key West.
For more than 50 years we have been asking, “Where is Bum Farto?” But if we ever hope to understand where he went, we have to get beyond the cigars, the sunglasses and the funny name, and take a look at the complicated man beneath it all. A man loved by some, hated by many and caught in a tangled web he couldn’t escape. Or could he?
Bum Farto’s disappearance remains officially unsolved, while the mark left on Key West seems permanent.
David Sloan is the author of a new 255-page book, “Who Is Bum Farto?,“ featuring rare photographs, correspondence and newly released government files that tell the story of the man behind one of Key West’s most enduring mysteries.
The book is available now at local bookstores and the Alex Vega Key West Firehouse Museum, 1024 Grinnell St. A book-release party will take place Saturday, Oct. 17, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Alex Vega Key West Firehouse Museum.
