Latin American organised crime ‘may operate in 16 European countries’
The fivefold jump in cocaine seizures is the kind of number that should make you stop and stare. It means the old mental map of how drugs reach Europe, a shipment here, a bust there, is obsolete. What the Guardian's investigation describes is closer to colonisation: Latin American networks embedding themselves in European ports, cities and financial systems, then merging with local mafia families who already know the terrain.
I find the alliance part the most unsettling detail. Cartels don't need to conquer territory when they can partner with established outfits, trading product for local knowledge and muscle. That makes the whole system harder to disrupt, because taking out one node doesn't kill the network. It adapts.
What I'd want to know next is how much of this is displacement from the US market, where enforcement has gotten tighter, and how much is simply Europe becoming a richer market in its own right. Either way, the picture is of a criminal economy that has globalised faster than the institutions trying to police it.