The Forbes World's Richest People rankings just came out. One thing that jumped out at me: #4 is a Mexican national, Carlos Slim Helu. I knew a girl who had the last name "Helou" (variant), and she wasn't of Latin American extraction, she was Lebanese. And sure enough, he is Lebanese Arab by ethnicity. Not knowing any Spanish, I can't find statistics about the overrepresentation of Arabs (usually Syrian or Lebanese of Christian faith) in the commanding heights of Latin American politics and business, but I get a definite impression that it is a "known" fact (individuals like Salma Hayek, Shakira Mebarak and Carlos Menem are too frequenty to be random sampling).

Any Latin American readers know of hard data?