Miami Vice overly-dramatized minor acts that were part of a bigger play that the show ignored, insomuch as it was intended to reflect the Miami culture in the 70's and early 80's. Miami was transformed by the Medellín Cartel of which the key players were Jorge Ochoa (not Pablo Escobar) in Columbia and Griselda Blanco in Miami. There were innumerable smugglers, but they were all either working for those two or trying to rip them off. The TV show makes it seem as though there was a whole panorama of drug-related crime without any unifying factor, but in fact it was driven almost entirely by one operation. Obviously the show is fictional and did not portend to be a documentary, but it still influenced a lot of American's understanding of what Miami was like while keeping them ignorant of some important facts. One of those facts is that the United State Government was for a long time content to look the other way. The Federal agencies that were primarily responsible, the DEA, what is now called CBP, and the Coast Guard were doing nothing at all about the massive amounts of cocaine coming into Miami. It was having the effect of multi-billion dollar stimulus on the city and there was no apparent reason to intervene because it appeared that everyone was benefiting. That was until Griselda Blanco began a violent murder spree. If that woman wasn't psychotic, she certainly had no regard for human life whatsoever. She was ordering hits one after another in a near continuous string, most of which were carried out without regard for collateral damage. It was only her reckless disregard for peace and human life that forced the US Government to intervene.
If the US Government was standing idly by as a stream of billions of ~1980 USD (about 4X the value of 2021 USD) was flowing to Columbia, you can bet they had some intention. Maybe to fund a war against FARC or maybe they would repatriate it as payment for Venezuelan debt. If Blanco forced them to crack down, it's amazing how she got away with it. How she got off the hook was a stunning story.
