Thread: 15 decapitated bodies found in Mexico, 19 dead

14 decapitated bodies found in Mexico resort city

Published January 08, 2011
Associated Press

ACAPULCO, Mexico – Police found the bodies of 15 slain men, 14 of them headless, on a street outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco on Saturday.

The victims, all of whom appeared to be in their 20s, were discovered in an area not frequented by tourists.

Handwritten signs left with the bodies were signed by "El Chapo's People" — a reference to the Sinaloa cartel, headed by drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman — said Fernando Monreal Leyva, director of investigative police for Guerrero state, where Acapulco is located.

The narco-messages indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed them for trying to intrude on the gang's turf and extort residents.

Mexico's drug cartels have increasingly taken to beheading their victims in a grisly show of force, but Saturday's discovery was the largest single group of decapitation victims found in recent years.

In 2008, a group of 12 decapitated bodies were piled outside the Yucatan state capital of Merida. The same year, 9 headless men were discovered in the Guerrero state capital of Chilpancingo.

Acapulco has been the site of fierce battles between drug gangs, and this weekend got off to a bloody start with 27 people killed there from Friday evening to early Saturday, Leyva said.

The dead included two police officers cut down on a main bayside avenue in front of tourists and locals; six people who were shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city.

"We are coordinating with federal forces and local police to reinforce security in Acapulco and investigating to try to establish the motive and perpetrators of these incidents," Monreal said.

At least 30,196 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against cartels in late 2006.

Also Saturday, authorities said a small-town mayor was found dead in northern Mexico.

Saul Vara Rivera, mayor of the municipality of Zaragoza, was reported missing by family members Wednesday, Coahuila state prosecutors said in a statement. His bullet-ridden body was discovered Friday in neighboring Nuevo Leon state.

There were no immediate arrests.

At least a dozen mayors were killed nationwide last year in acts of intimidation attributed to drug gangs.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/01/08 ... 591571545/

15 of 19 Bodies Are Beheaded in Acapulco Assaults

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: January 8, 2011

MEXICO CITY — The once thriving resort area of Acapulco suffered another blow on Saturday with the discovery of 19 bodies, 15 of them headless, from a round of assaults that bore the earmarks of organized crime.

Unlike many other tourist areas, Acapulco sits in a Pacific Coast state hotly contested by at least three drug-trafficking organizations and has paid the price with a rash of grisly killings in recent years and a sharp decline in foreign tourists.

The discovery occurred at a time when city officials had been optimistic of a rebound, driven largely by domestic vacationers.

The authorities in Guerrero State said the decapitated bodies, with the heads scattered around them, belonged to men in their 20s. They were found shortly before 1 a.m. outside the Plaza Sendero shopping center, an area not frequented by tourists, near two messages apparently left by a drug-trafficking organization.

While the culprits and their motivations were under investigation, beheadings are a common tactic among warring drug organizations. In 2008, nine decapitated bodies were found in a pile outside Guerrero’s capital.

The other four bodies found Saturday were riddled with bullets and left in two other residential neighborhoods.

Gory crime in resort areas is an especially delicate issue with promoters of the multibillion-dollar tourism industry here. Most drug-related violence, which has killed more than 30,000 people since 2006, occurs in a handful of states, particularly along the United States-Mexico border.

Acapulco, a city once synonymous with beach tourism, has sought to revive its fortunes as a destination for Mexicans. The tourist areas are heavily patrolled by the police.

But a wave of anxiety hit in November when the bodies of 18 men, abducted as they arrived for what their families said was a vacation, were found in a mass grave outside the city.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/world ... ml?_r=1&hp

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