Steve Lamb and the Steinhatchee Seven Marijuana Bust

Steve Lamb and the Steinhatchee Seven marijuana bust refers to the March 5, 1973 arrest of seven young Floridians caught offloading roughly nine tons of Jamaican marijuana near Steinhatchee on Florida’s Gulf Coast, then reported as the largest marijuana seizure in United States history. Lamb, a 20-year-old surfer from St. Pete Beach, was the youngest of the group. He spent much of the next three decades as a fugitive or a prisoner, and he died on February 28, 2024, at age 71, shortly before a documentary about his life premiered in St. Petersburg.

What Happened at Steinhatchee in 1973

The group used a shrimp boat owned by member Floyd “Bubba” Capo to move the load from Jamaica to a remote stretch of Dixie County near the mouth of Rocky Creek. They were transferring the marijuana onto a smaller scow when the tide dropped out from under them, grounding the vessel in mud on a salt flat.¹

An unidentified man found a sample of the marijuana in a burlap sack near the Rocky Creek River and called the Dixie County Sheriff’s Office. U.S. Customs agents and county deputies made the arrests. Three of the seven were caught after fleeing by vehicle and being chased for three miles; the other four were taken while approaching the island by boat.²

Authorities seized approximately nine tons of marijuana packed in more than 450 burlap sacks. The New York Times valued the haul at $4.6 million.² An additional six tons had already been distributed near Clearwater before the bust, putting the full operation at roughly 15 tons.¹ A retired U.S. Customs agent who worked the case later claimed the “mother ship” involved actually carried 100 tons.³ All seven were jailed under $2,500 bond each and charged with possession and conspiracy.

Who the Steinhatchee Seven Were

Most of the seven were under 25. The known members were Lamb, the youngest at 20; Mike Knight, considered the leader; Capo, who owned the shrimp boat; and Tommy Powell, a childhood friend of Lamb who scouted unloading locations. Available sources do not clearly document the identities of the other three.

The initial sentences were 20 years in prison. All were ultimately reduced to less than two years.¹

Who Steve Lamb Was

Lamb grew up on St. Pete Beach and surfed for life. He started trafficking marijuana as a teenager in the late 1960s, at first to pay for surfing, sunbathing, and partying. The scale escalated fast. By his early twenties he was buying boatloads in the Caribbean and Latin America and moving them into Florida for distribution across the country. One account puts his earnings in the millions by age 20.⁴

Fugitive Years and Recapture

Lamb did not stay out of trouble after the Steinhatchee case wound down. In 1977 he was charged with sharing cocaine and marijuana with an undercover officer, but the evidence vanished from the police evidence room and the case collapsed.⁵ When further drug charges came, he skipped his 1978 trial and left the country on a fake passport.⁶

He lived primarily in Venezuela for roughly 11 years, expanding his smuggling business and building what one source called a small fortune. Additional fake passports carried him to Bolivia and Peru and back into the United States, where he reportedly bought a multi-million-dollar home near Tampa. He married Yildred Tortosa during this period.⁶ He also kept smuggling on a smaller scale, mailing hundreds of pounds of marijuana through commercial shipping services.¹

The DEA caught up with him in California in 1988. He had been negotiating the sale of 1,000 pounds of marijuana to undercover agents. The sting itself did not produce enough evidence to hold him on new charges, but a fingerprint check identified him as a fugitive. He was arrested and extradited to Florida, where he was sentenced to 34 years for parole violation. The other pending charges, including the 1977 case, were dismissed.⁶

Later Arrests and Prison Time

Lamb was released in 2003 and remained on probation until 2009.⁴ Between his fugitive years and his final release, he picked up more charges. In 1997 he was charged with selling marijuana and heroin to undercover Pinellas County deputies and sentenced to five years of probation. In July 1999 the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office arrested him again after he picked up three mailed packages containing 82 pounds of marijuana in St. Petersburg. Drug-sniffing dogs working with commercial mail carriers had flagged the packages. He was 46, working as a manager at a Domino’s Pizza, living on St. Pete Beach, and held on $50,000 bail.⁵

By 2017, one local outlet reported Lamb had spent at least 35 years of his life in and out of prison.⁷

What Happened to the Other Key Members

Mike Knight

Knight, the group’s leader, was found floating in the water off Indian Rocks Beach in the summer of 1978. His girlfriend, Rose Skillen, said he had slipped in, suffered intense seizures and spasms, and drowned despite her efforts to save him. Powell considered the death suspicious, pointing out that Knight was an expert swimmer. Lamb suggested Knight may have overdosed, possibly on cocaine, and said Knight had been “trying to rob us” around that time. Charlie Fuss, a federal agent who later worked on maritime drug interdiction, believed Knight had been “taking some stuff” and drowned after falling into the water.¹ The group also faced threats from a rival named Gene Coats, who had robbed Lamb and another smuggler at gunpoint and was linked to an unexploded bomb found in Lamb’s car.

Tommy Powell

Powell became one of the most prolific smugglers in the network. He estimated he personally imported more than 500,000 pounds of marijuana and helped move an additional 2.5 million pounds.⁸ After the Steinhatchee bust, he fled to Colombia and lived for six years in the marijuana-producing city of Santa Marta. He later moved to Sweden after marrying a Swedish woman and spent time at the Harvard Law Library under a fake identity, studying extradition treaties to determine whether he could avoid being sent back to the United States.

The strategy failed. In 1984, after an amendment to extradition laws, Powell was taken into custody in Sweden on the day his second son was born. He was charged with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to 10 years, serving six. He became a prolific jailhouse lawyer while incarcerated and eventually argued his own case before a federal appeals court. After his release, he returned to Pinellas County and worked as a computer forensics expert.⁸

The Florida Smuggling Era the Bust Belonged To

Lamb’s career ran through the peak years of maritime marijuana smuggling in Florida, roughly the late 1960s through the mid-1980s. Smugglers used the state’s long coastline, remote mangrove islands, and shallow waterways to bring loads from Jamaica, Colombia, and other Caribbean and Latin American sources. The operations relied on shrimp boats, “go-fast” boats that met larger vessels 15 to 20 miles offshore, and semi-trucks or stripped-down Winnebagos for overland transport.¹

Federal pressure intensified through the 1980s. A three-year multiagency investigation known as Operation Everglades produced indictments or arrests of 256 people, including nearly 80 percent of the adult male population of Everglades City, and seizures of over 580,000 pounds of marijuana valued at more than $252 million.⁹ Charlie Fuss, recruited in 1983 to lead maritime interdiction under the National Narcotics Interdiction Board, built rapport with incarcerated smugglers and traded information for shorter sentences. His work led to more than 100 convictions and, by 1987, had raised the risks of maritime marijuana smuggling enough to end the era.¹

Later Years, Memoir, and Documentary

After finishing probation in 2009, Lamb settled into a quieter life on St. Pete Beach with his wife and three children. That year he self-published a memoir, The Smuggler’s Ghost: When Marijuana Turned a Florida Teen into a Millionaire Fugitive, and later appeared on the Discovery Channel series I Almost Got Away With It.⁴

In a 2016 interview with The Bitter Southerner, Lamb was unrepentant. “It was the best time of my life,” he said. “I don’t regret anything. I’m happy; the good Lord blessed me. I’ve got nothin’ to complain about.”³

That story caught the attention of filmmakers Jodi Cash and Ethan Payne, both University of Georgia graduates, who spent seven years producing a documentary about Lamb. They began shooting in 2017 and wrapped in 2023. Lamb saw an initial cut before his death on February 28, 2024, at age 71, in hospice care following a lengthy illness.¹⁰

The film, The Green Flash, held its world premiere at the Sunscreen Film Festival in St. Petersburg in April 2024, where it won Best Documentary. It went on to win the Audience Award at the Ouray International Film Festival, Best Original Score at the Swedish International Film Festival, and Best Cinematography at the Queens World Film Festival.¹¹ It toured independent theaters in Florida and Georgia in August 2025 and screened at the Beach Theatre on St. Pete Beach. The filmmakers have used the project to raise money and awareness for the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit focused on ending incarceration for marijuana-related offenses.¹⁰

1
The Bitter Southerner. Reefer Beach
2
The New York Times. 9 Tons of Marijuana Worth $4.6-Million Seized in Florida
3
St. Pete Catalyst. Smuggler Steve Lamb Dies; Upcoming Film Tells His Story
4
Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. The Story of the St. Pete Beach Smuggler
5
Tampa Bay Times. Member of History-Making Marijuana Ring Arrested Again
6
The Cinemaholic. Where Is Steve Lamb Now
7
WFLA. The Criminal Conscience: Cocaine Cowboy Spent Over Half of Life In and Out of Prison
8
Tampa Bay Times. Facing Life in Prison, Drug Smuggler Thinks of Home in Pinellas County
9
U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida. Drug Smuggling
10
The Red and Black. The Life of Steve Lamb: UGA Alumni Screen The Green Flash
11
Green Flash Productions. About Green Flash Productions