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 they received, storing most of it in their warehouses. Ten percent (10%) of the cash had to be written off per year because of "spoilage", due to rats creeping in and nibbling on the bills they could reach.