Liverpool mafia flew to the Costa del Sol

How Liverpool docks became a hub of Europe's deadly cocaine trade World news The Observer: "Pancake Taylor and their associates, the emerging Mexican connection follows a calamitous Spanish failure. In the aftermath of Colin Smith's murder, the new leaders of the Liverpool mafia flew to the Costa del Sol with the intention of laying down the law and inheriting one of the most lucrative cocaine-smuggling operations in the world. In Marbella, the successors to the Cocaine King were not welcomed.
Attempts to wrest control of Smith's connections in Spain ran up against a wall of silence and disdain. The newcomers were ostracised by the country's well-established nexus of cocaine brokers and middlemen – Colombian, Spanish and Scouse.
Smith's middlemen, it was clear, were not interested. And there was open conflict with a shadowy group of former IRA paramilitaries turned contract-killers called the 'Cleaners', believed to be responsible for more than 20 drug-related assassinations around Merseyside. In a summer-long feud in 2008, several members of the Cleaners were murdered.
One spat with the Irish took place in the Nikki Beach Bar in Marbella when drinkers hurled themselves to the floor at the sound of breaking glass, followed by gunshots. A leaked report to a Spanish judge later claimed the Bird of Prey and Pancake belonged to a 'worldwide organisation that is dedicated mainly to drug trafficking and targeted assassinations.'
It was becoming clear that the Spanish route, gaining access to the influx of South American cocaine that came via west Africa, had been closed off. Or at least it could only be reopened at prohibitive cost."