'Sea of Greed' was real

The story began when a suspicious shrimper called Bobby M slipped into Beaufort Inlet one night in July 1982.

It ended with Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in a U.S. prison, where he remains today.

The story is told by J. Douglas McCullough, a Republican judge on the N.C. Court of Appeals, in a fascinating new true-crime thriller, called "Sea of Greed." He was the lead federal prosecutor who helped crack one of the biggest drug rings in U.S. history.

It began when Coast Guardsmen noticed the Bobby M coming into the Beaufort Inlet far closer to the banks than local shrimpers would do. When it tied up on Front Street, the men wearing gold chains, unbuttoned silk shirts and sports coats did not look like locals. When the Coast Guard asked to look into their hold, they heard a shotgun being loaded.

By the time reinforcements arrived, the crew had scattered, leaving behind 600 bales of marijuana.

When McCullough received the call, he was assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, based in Raleigh. A retired Marine colonel who grew up in Swansboro amid the watermen, he had earned his spurs prosecuting the mob in Philadelphia and as a top-level U.S. Senate staffer in Washington. Now he was back home amid the coves and inlets that he knew so well.

There was not much of a trail. The Louisiana owner of the boat claimed he knew nothing. There were some personal items thrown overboard. There were some plane tickets.

But it was enough to lead to a rogue's gallery of characters: Detroit street dealers, a Cayman Island playboy, the manager for bands including Bon Jovi.

The shrimper Bobby M was just the tip of a large drug cartel that was hauling massive amounts of Columbian marijuana into the U.S.

The top drug lords dated movie stars, lived in mansions, and traveled in their own jets. (One of the brains behind the operation was nabbed when he left his extradition-proof island to attend the wedding of his old girlfriend, actress Heather Locklear, and Tommy Lee, the drummer of Motley Crue.)

They were making so much money that banks in Miami and in the Caribbean couldn't handle all of it. So they made a deal with Noriega, who became the banker for the drug lords. (The late Sen. Jesse Helms was one of the first people in Washington to blow the whistle on Noriega's drug activities.)

But like most criminal enterprises, it came undone by feuds, mistakes and good law enforcement. Little fish give up bigger fish.

It was in a trailer near Camp Lejeune, surrounded by Marine guards with M-16 rifles, that McCullough and FBI agent Terry Peters got a drug lord to give up Noriega. Among other tools, McCullough brought in the drug lord's wife to persuade him to cut a deal with the feds.

When the U.S. military invaded Panama in 1989, they arrested Noriega. He is still in a federal prison in Florida.

McCullough, collaborating with retired filmmaker Les Pendleton, has written the tale like a thriller. While the book is based on facts, including an appendix of news stories and Senate testimony, it includes invented dialogue.

McCullough now divides his time between his judicial responsibilities in Raleigh, his home in Swan Quarter, his re-election efforts and his book promotions.

McCullough is scheduled to talk about his book at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh on Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m.