Cocaine Cowboys

Billy Corben's astonishing story, showing in the True Stories strand, tells of the sudden rush of cocaine into the then sleepy Miami in the 1970s and 1980s. Colombian drug lords and Cuban and American gangsters realised that America had developed a taste for the drug but the authorities were slow on reacting to the threat. There was profit for all with, initially, very little risk attached. The story is told through three key characters; Jon Roberts, who claims to have imported over $2-billion worth of cocaine, pilot Mickey Munday, who personally flew in some 10 tons and the chillingly attractive Jorge `Rivi' Ayala, enforcer and assassin for Colombian `grandmother' Griselda Blanco. With a score by Jan Hammer, this is the true story behind the films Scarface and Blow, when money and mobs ruled Miami.