Deck Knight
Blast Off At The Speed Of Light! That's Right!
It's even more definitive than that. It is THE reason the marines and the World Government by extension fear Luffy. Luffy isn't even close to being the strongest anything in OP. This was a guy who, pre-timeskip, would basically dumb-rush whatever he ran into and he still got a B300,000 bounty. Even the Pacifistas wiped Luffy's whole crew out at that point. Aokiji curbstomped him.In any case, there's nothing pathetic about Luffy getting out of this with the help of others-- since a character's charisma/power to draw others to his cause is considered a great part of "power" in One Piece, and even the marines have said it's a quality of Luffy's that they fear.
While I suspect Luffy's bounty will go above B400,000 after the Dressrosa Arc, the chief driver of Luffy's bounty has always been his charisma. Without it he couldn't cause the revolt in Impel Down, get Jinbe on his side, etc.