Columbian cartel efforts to export cocaine to the United States would not have been so successful without his criminal genius.
Escobar life of crime started early on. James Adams, a historian and author of "Medellin's New Generation,"" notes that by the time Escobar was 20 years-old, he was already a powerful gangster and accomplished car thief that had developed the a reputation as "a young crime boss on the make .that used casual lethal violence- (23). Mark Bowden, journalist and historical researcher and author of Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw, explains that Escobar's early use of violence in criminal activities caused wrought respect from local criminals (113). Escobar's criminal skills, respect in the criminal community, and birth in Medellin, Columbia made him an excellent person to implement the trafficking of Columbia's newest illegal export: cocaine.
Columbia had already been successful at transporting marijuana to North America, by the time cocaine became popular in the United States. Columbia's strategic location between the cocoa crop countries of Peru and Bolivia gave delinquents a great opportunity to start trafficking this drug as well (Adams 24). In the 1970s, Escobar, who was currently a car thief, combined forces with a few other criminals to form what would come to be known as the Medellin cartel. Escobar's reputation and fervent ideas escalated him to leader of the cartel. His idea was to convert his car theft routes to drug trafficking while his partner, Carlos Lehder, made use of small aircraft to smuggle cocaine into the United States (Bowden 47). .
Angel Rabasa, political analyst and author of Colombian Labyrinth: The Synergy of Drugs and Insurgency and Its Implications For Regional Stability, notes that by the late 1970's the cartel supplied 50% of the cocaine in the United States. With increasing availability, the numbers of cocaine users dramatically increased (55).