In neoliberal terms of analysis: these groups are working in a highly regulated market, and reaping the inevitable profits from that regulation, but are also working to maintain a favourably regulated space for themselves on Spain’s southern coast in order to reduce their core costs. One is led to ask the question, given the failure of both demand- and supply-side regulation to mitigate increasing negative externalities: might an overall structural market reform be the solution? 
It does sound like El Pais/The Guardian got a bunch of “honest crooks” to go on the record. I found the candour of the Napolitan Camorra enforcer to be particularly refreshing (or perhaps “bracing” is the word).
