The Medellin Cartel

During Escobar’s reign, the Medellin Cartel took in above $70 million per day. This added up to above $22 billion a year. The Medellin Cartel found a systematic and efficient way to bring in this money. They did so by smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day into the United States. The cartel had so much money, that it was difficult to keep track of every single dollar. This lead to 10% of the cash being disregarded because rats would find ways to sneak into places where the money was held, and would eat some of the bills.
Escobar described the cocaine business as being very simple. He explained the process as bribing people along the way to help you out, and then paying a willing banker to get the money back. In 1989, Forbes magazine claimed that Escobar was one of 227 billionares in the entire world. They also estimated his net worth to hover around $3 billion. It is easy to see this when the cartel operated and was in charge of 80% of the world’s supply of cocaine. …show more content…
and he worked to create goodwill among the poor of Colombia. At the height of his power, drug traffickers from Medellin and other areas were giving 20% to 35% of the cocaine profits to Escobar because he consistently found success in shipping and exporting cocaine into the United States.
Colombian cartels found it difficult to maintain control and forced Colombia to take the title as the world's murder capital with 25,100 deaths due to violence in 1991 and 27,100 in the following year. The outrageously high murder rate was a result of Escobar paying hitmen to go out and kill members of the police force. Escobar knew that in a poor country, many would be willing to perform the act of murder, as long as there was a reward that came along with