The Jersey Shore has always been part of smuggler lore with long stretches of coastline, hidden inlets, fishing towns, and rough Atlantic waters that made it the perfect place to move contraband under the cover of darkness. For the Gentlemen Smugglers, New Jersey wasn’t just a route north; it was part of the operation itself.

One of their wildest stories happened just off the town of Sea Bright in 1981, when authorities discovered a sunken ship loaded with millions of dollars worth of hashish floating beneath the Atlantic, unloaded from a mysterious ‘mother ship’ to a 65-foot fishing trawler, the Falcon, that sank under the weight of the hash in stormy seas. Bales began washing ashore near the Jersey Shore after the vessel went down, turning a quiet stretch of coastline into an international smuggling headline overnight. At trial, one of the co-conspirators, a female pirate no less, had her bail revoked after authorities disclosed she used at least seven aliases and kept a phony passport, birth certificate and driver’s licenses in her Manhattan apartment with bags of cash hidden under the kitchen sink. It was the kind of story that defined the times – fast boats, close calls, disappearing crews, and treasure lost at sea.

From Monmouth to Cape May, New Jersey’s shoreline sat directly in the path of East Coast smuggling routes, connecting the Carolinas, New York, and beyond. The same waters once used by fishermen, rum runners, and outlaw entrepreneurs became part of a much larger underground network moving cannabis, cash, and cargo up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

Today, Gentlemen Smugglers carries that history forward, inspired by the legends, close calls, and coastal mythology that helped shape one of the most notorious smuggling eras in American history.