Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the Balinese actually benefitted from Australian tourism. Unfortunately most of the money that arrives flows straight into the hands of a tiny elite.

Originally shared by Jeff Zahari

A friend of mine was once in a bar in Kuta, with another Anglo-Australian and two Balinese guys. Having a friendly chat with locals, as he thought. Until one of the Balinese suddenly smashed a bottle on the bar and threatened them with the jagged end while yelling something they didn’t understand.

Many of these gangs started off as “decapitation squads” trained and paid for by the American government. Once the targeted kingpins were taken out, these guys ended up turning their hands to controlling the business themselves.

Company bosses prefer not to talk publicly about the level of cartel control, as it offends their political partners in Mexico. But last year Rob McEwen, the chairman and chief executive of the Canadian company McEwen Mining, broke the silence after gangsters stole more than $8 million worth of his gold from a mine in northwest Mexico.

“The cartels are active down there. Generally, we have a good relationship with them,” McEwen told the Business News Network. “If you want to go explore somewhere, you ask them, and they tell you, ‘no,’ but then they say ‘come back in a couple of weeks, we’ve finished what we are doing.’ ” After protests from Mexican politicians, Mr. McEwen retracted his statement, saying he was referring to a good relationship with local “property owners and community members” rather than gangsters.