Beneath the sunny, carefree exterior that enclosed South Florida, lay a city with a corrupted reputation. In the last few decades of the twentieth century, Miami was no longer leading in tourism, but annual homicide rates. 
 

A vistory to Miami in the 1960s would have discovered a mainly quiet, retirement community with an economy based around tourism. Just a short decade later, with the illegal drug trade in full force, Miami had progressed into one of the most violent epicenters in the nation. A new arrival of immigrants also accompanied the expansion of the industry.South Florida enjoyed a new prosperity due to the sudden influx of money and people brought by the trade, but it came with a violent cost. 

The illegal importation of cocaine in Miami beginning in the late 1970s and continuing into the next decade ushered in what was then the largely foreign presence of violence, completely altering the city’s social scene into one characterized by rampant bloodshed. The buying and selling of drugs was irrevocably linked to murder, and Miami would soon come to be known for both.

                                                       The Miami cocaine crisis not only brought an unprecedented                                                        surge of violence unseen to the city before, it left an indelible                                                        stain on the city that would remain for years to come.