The Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church is a religious movement that originated in Jamaica during the 1940s and later spread to the United States, being incorporated in Florida in 1975. Its beliefs are based on both the Old and New testaments of the bible, as well as the teachings of Marcus Garvey, self-reliance, Afrocentricity and Ethiopianism. Their ceremonies include bible reading, chanting, and music incorporating elements from Nyahbinghi, Burru, Kumina and other indigenous traditions. The group holds many beliefs in common with the Rastafari, including the use of marijuana as a sacrament, but differ on many points, most significantly the matter of Haile Selassie's divinity.
The Fontainebleau Miami Beach, also known as Fontainebleau Hotel, is a hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Designed by Morris Lapidus, the luxury hotel opened in 1954. In 2007, the Fontainebleau Hotel was ranked ninety-third in the American Institute of Architects list of "America's Favorite Architecture". On April 18, 2012, the AIA's Florida Chapter ranked the Fontainebleau first on its list of "Florida Architecture: 100 Years. 100 Places".
The Guadalajara Cartel, also known as The Federation, was a Mexican drug cartel which was formed in the late 1970s by Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, and Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo in order to ship cocaine and marijuana to the United States. Among the first of the Mexican drug trafficking groups to work with the Colombian cocaine mafias, the Guadalajara Cartel prospered from the cocaine trade. Throughout the 1980s, the cartel controlled much of the drug trafficking in Mexico and the corridors along the Mexico–United States border. It had operations in various regions in Mexico which included the states of Jalisco, Baja California, Colima, Sonora, Chihuahua and Sinaloa among others. Multiple modern present day drug cartels such as the Tijuana, Juárez and Sinaloa cartels originally started out as branches or "plazas" of the Guadalajara Cartel before its eventual disintegration.
Cocaine Cowboys is a 2006 documentary film directed by Billy Corben, and produced by Alfred Spellman and Billy Corben through their Miami-based media studio Rakontur. The film explores the rise of cocaine dealer Jon Roberts, described by prosecutors as "The Medellin Cartel's American representative". The film chronicles his role in the Miami drug war. The producers of Cocaine Cowboys use interviews with law enforcement, journalists, lawyers, former drug smugglers, and gang members to provide a first-hand perspective of the Miami drug war.
Griselda Blanco Restrepo was a Colombian drug lord who was prominent in the cocaine-based drug trade and underworld of Miami, during the 1970s through the early 2000s, and who has also been claimed by some to have been part of the Medellín Cartel. She was shot dead in Medellín on September 3, 2012 at the age of 69.
Star Island is a neighborhood in the city of Miami Beach on a man-made island in Biscayne Bay, Florida, United States. The island is south of the Venetian Islands and just east of Palm and Hibiscus islands.
The Black Tuna Gang was the name given to a gang led by Robert Platshorn and Robert Meinster in Miami in the 1970s. The group never called themselves the "Black Tuna Gang", but the name was used by the media based on the solid gold medallion with a black tuna emblem, worn by members to identify themselves. The gang also used the words "Black Tuna" as a code word when discussing drug shipments over the radio; this term was heard on DEA interception of their communications.
Max Mermelstein was an American drug smuggler for the Medellín Cartel in the late 1970s and early 80s, who later became a key informant against the organization. In the words of James P. Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles CA, Mermelstein "was probably the single most valuable government witness in drug matters that this country has ever known." He became a "weapon for the government." Reputed to have smuggled 56 tons of cocaine worth $12.5 billion into the United States,
rakontur is a Miami-based media studio founded by Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman in 2000.
William Cohen, better known by the stage name Billy Corben, is an American documentary film director. Along with producing partner Alfred Spellman, he is co-founder of the Miami-based studio Rakontur, which has created films such as Cocaine Cowboys, Dawg Fight, The U, and The U Part 2.
Alfred Spellman is an American film and television producer who co-founded the media studio rakontur.
The Night Train drug seizure was a December 1977 seizure of 54 tons of marijuana by the United States Coast Guard off the southeastern coast of Florida which marked the beginning of Operation Stopgap, a United States federal law enforcement inter-agency drug interdiction operation focusing on interdicting drugs from Colombian cartels and other illicit Central and South American drug sources. The Night Train seizure was the largest single drug seizure in history at the time it occurred, and it remains one of the largest marijuana seizures made in the territorial waters of the United States.
Michael "Mickey" Munday is an American former drug trafficker and former associate of Colombia's Medellin Cartel during the growth phase in cocaine trafficking, 1975–1986. Munday was featured in the 2006 Rakontur documentary, Cocaine Cowboys.
Drug barons of Colombia refer to some of the most notable drug lords which operate in illegal drug trafficking in Colombia. Several of them, notably Pablo Escobar, were long considered among the world's most dangerous and most wanted men by U.S. intelligence. "Ruthless and immensely powerful", several political leaders, such as President Virgilio Barco Vargas, became convinced that the drug lords were becoming so powerful that they could oust the formal government and run the country.
The Miami drug war was a series of armed conflicts in the 1970s and 1980s, centered in the city of Miami, Florida, between the United States government and multiple drug cartels, primarily the Medellín Cartel. It was predominantly fueled by the illegal trafficking of cocaine.
Coachella Valley Church is a Rastafarian church of the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, located on The Alameda in San Jose, California. It was incorporated in 2016 and is at the same location as a previous dispensary, Amsterdam's Garden. The city has a history of litigation against its operators and seeks to end their operations, claiming it is an unpermitted marijuana dispensary.
Steve Ryan Berke is a co-founder of the International Church of Cannabis, two-time candidate for mayor of Miami Beach, cannabis activist, rapper, YouTuber, entrepreneur, and former All-American tennis player.
The cocaine boom was a stark increase in the illegal production and trade of the drug cocaine that first began in the mid to late 1970s before then peaking during the 1980s. The boom was the result of organized smugglers who imported cocaine from Latin America to the United States, and a rising demand in cocaine due to cultural trends in the United States. Smuggling rings of Cuban exiles organized trade networks from Latin America to Miami that streamlined the import of cocaine to the United States. Americans also began favoring less of the drugs popular in the 60s counterculture such as marijuana and LSD, and instead began to prefer cocaine due to a mystique of prestige that was developing around it. This increase in cocaine trade fueled the rise of the crack epidemic and government sponsored anti-drug campaigns.
Square grouper is a slang term for compressed bales of illicit marijuana that appear on the U.S. Gulf Coast, sometimes lost by smugglers in errant air drops or sea to sea transfers, and sometimes intentionally dumped by crews who fear being caught with illegal drugs.
