Pablo Escobar two arresting officers, and the case was later dropped. Roberto Escobar details this as the point where Pablo began his pattern of dealing with the authorities, by either bribery or murder. Roberto Escobar maintains Pablo fell into the drug business simply because other types of contraband became too dangerous to traffic. As there were no drug cartels then, and only a few drug barons, Pablo saw it as untapped territory he wished to make his own. In Peru, Pablo would buy the cocaine paste, which would then be refined in a laboratory in a two-story house in Medellín. On his
Pablo Escobar by the Colombian government. Escobar was listed as a part of "Los Extraditables". Hostages were also taken for negotiation of their release, thus helping to prevent extradition of "Los Extraditables" to the U.S. for their crimes. During the height of its operations, the Medellín Cartel brought in more than US $70 million per day (roughly $26 billion in a year). Smuggling 15 tons of cocaine per day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States, the cartel spent over US $1,000 per week purchasing rubber bands to wrap the stacks of cash, storing most of it in