Who is Bum Farto?: The Man Behind Key West's Greatest Unsolved Mystery

On February 16, 1976, Key West Fire Chief Joseph “Bum” Farto drove out of Key West and disappeared forever. Awaiting sentencing for trafficking drugs from his own firehouse, Farto’s disappearance launched the greatest cold-case mystery in Florida Keys history. But before he became the Jimmy Hoffa of Key West, he was the flamboyant, cigar-chomping “El Jefe” of an island paradise, known for his red suits and rose-colored glasses. In Who Is Bum Farto? David L. Sloan draws on decades of research and newly declassified files to reveal how a legendary “Bubba” network of local cops and politicians intersected with the Tampa Mafia, CIA-trained Cuban exiles, and a multimillion-dollar government drug pipeline. Featuring never-before-seen photographs and more than fifty pages of rare documents, letters, memoranda, and investigative files. Before you can discover where he went, you first have to understand who he was.