Whack-a-mole: Mexico's Narco-Traffickers Diversify

WPR Article | Latin America's Narco-Traffickers Diversify, Again: Part II: "Like the FARC in Colombia, Mexico's criminal gangs have been pushed out of their traditional sources of illicit income and are seeking to coopt an otherwise legal trade. Whereas the FARC has moved into illegal gold mining as a new source of revenue, Mexico's criminal gangs have been increasingly linked to thefts of Mexico's key export, oil. In general, oil is pilfered by tapping an unprotected pipeline in the desert. Last year Pemex, Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly, detected 712 pipeline taps, a five-fold increase since 2005.

Here, too, the Zetas have left their mark. In 2009 the Mexican government broke up an operation linked to the Zetas suspected of stealing $46 million worth of oil in the previous two years. A U.S.-Mexican probe in 2010 put the amount of income generated by the Zetas from stolen oil at $42 million over the past two years, on par with the group's estimated revenue from drug sales."