Pablo Escobar used to smuggle.
The Medellín Cartel was an organized network of drug suppliers and smugglers originating in the city of Medellín , Colombia . Pablo Escobar . His cartel supplied an estimated 80 % of the cocaine smuggled into the United States at the height of his career , turning over US $ 21.9 billion a year in personal income . In the 1970s , he began to work for various contraband smugglers , often kidnapping and holding people for ransom before beginning to distribute powder cocaine himself , as well as establishing the first smuggling routes into the United States in 1975 . His drug network was commonly known as the Medellín Cartel , which often competed with rival cartels domestically and abroad , resulting in massacres and the murders of police officers , judges , locals , and prominent politicians .