The plot revolves around drug smuggling where a main competitor is having an issue with an upstart drug dealer named Escobar. The episode is from 1976 which actually aligns to when Pablo Escobar began his smuggling operations.
This is the only episode in the series where Farrah Fawcett wears a swimsuit. It's not a bikini. There is an unfortunate reason for this, revealed in the motion picture Extremities (1986). Farrah had an abdominal scar, the result of an accident, which she always tried to hide, but in that movie, it became part of the story-line.
The scenes at the Mazatlán, Mexico resort and pool in the first part of the episode were actually filmed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. The hotel was the site of Robert Kennedy's 1968 assassination and was demolished in the early 2000s.
Cesare Danova (Frank Bartone) and Elyssa Davalos (Maria Bartone), appearing here as father and daughter, portrayed adversaries on The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977) the following year in The Mystery of King Tut's Tomb (1977). One is the episode's villain, with the other attempting to bring them to justice; the Hardy boys get caught in the middle.
When Sabrina pretends to be a lost tourist, she lies and says her name is Angela "Fibbersmith".