Mexicans Ruling the Spanish Underworld

El Universal provides further evidence this morning of Mexican gangsters' growing influence abroad with a story about the presence of Mexican in Spain's drug trade. One illustration of this trend: two Mexicans were in Spanish jails on drug charges in 1998, while in 2010 that number had grown to 302. Also, the sheer number of cocaine seizures grew ten-fold from 2000 to 2006. Spanish authorities say that the Mexicans are replacing the Colombians who have long been dominant in the nation's cocaine trade, and that part of the reason for their shift of focus is the saturation of the American drug market and the difficulty in slipping drugs over the northern border.