---
category: Authors & Journalists
created: 2026-09-21
location: Miami, Florida
summary: Miami Herald crime reporter fed leads by the FBI, who joined Wackenhut's
  Florida crime war in December 1966 and quit after six weeks calling it a cruel hoax
  upon the people of Florida.
tags:
- Person
- HankMessick
- MiamiHerald
- OrganizedCrime
- Wackenhut
- FBI
- MeyerLansky
- Florida
updated: 2026-09-21
---

Hank Messick was a crime reporter under contract to the [Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/) whose articles on gambling and corruption in Dade and Broward counties led grand juries to indict the sheriffs of both in 1966. An internal memorandum of the [FBI](/organizations/federal-bureau-of-investigation/) records that the bureau had "made available lead information to Hank Messick, veteran crime reporter of the Miami Herald."[^1]

He resigned from the newspaper on December 13, 1966, and joined the [Wackenhut Corporation](/organizations/wackenhut-corporation/), which Governor [Claude Kirk](/people/claude-kirk/) engaged the following month to conduct a war on organized crime in [Florida](/places/florida/). On January 13, 1967, FBI headquarters ordered its Florida offices to give the company's men nothing: "The Bureau does not recognize the Wackenhut Corporation as a properly constituted law enforcement agency."[^1]

Messick left in February. "I quit the Wackenhut Corp. because I have reluctantly concluded a cruel hoax is being perpetrated upon the people of Florida," he told reporters. He said later: "As far as the war on crime is concerned, they've done absolutely nothing; they haven't even scraped the surface." His objection was that the company kept as a private client Sir [Stafford Sands](/people/stafford-sands/), a former minister of the [Bahamas](/places/bahamas/) with gambling interests, while it was supposed to be pursuing [Meyer Lansky](/people/meyer-lansky/). [George Wackenhut](/people/george-r-wackenhut/) answered: "I do not find it necessary to dignify Mr. Messick's remarks with a reply."[^2]

[^1]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, headquarters and Tampa files on the Wackenhut Corporation. https://archive.org/details/WackenhutCorporation Airtel to SAC Jacksonville, January 13, 1967, and undated headquarters memorandum.
[^2]: "Wackenhut Aide Quits; 'Cruel Hoax,'" *The Tampa Tribune,* February 17, 1967, and *St. Petersburg Times* clipping, in the FBI's Tampa file on the company.