Thread: 3 suspected drug mules killed in Santa Cruz County AZ.

3 suspected drug mules killed in Santa Cruz County

The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 22, 2011 10:36 am

NOGALES — Investigators recovered the bodies of three suspected drug mules discovered in the Tumacacori Mountains in Santa Cruz County.

Border Patrol agents found the bodies in the remote Devil’s Canyon area Monday and notified the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, the Nogales International reports.

Sheriff Tony Estrada describes the killings as execution style with the killer or killers was trying to send a message to someone. He said the bodies did not have any signs of being bound, gagged or otherwise tortured.

There were no identification documents on the bodies, which were found 4 miles west of Interstate 19, in a remote and extremely treacherous area. The bodies had been there no more than a week.

Estrada says he suspects the killings were drug related.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/s ... z1eSiNZu7l

Three men killed "execution style" near Arizona-Mexico border

TUCSON, Arizona | Tue Nov 22, 2011 3:54pm EST

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - The bodies of three suspected drug traffickers were found shot to death "execution style" in a remote area near the Arizona-Mexico border, police said on Tuesday, in a crime possibly committed by bandits.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada said Border Patrol agents found the bodies of the three men on Monday in the Tumacacori Mountains, about 20 miles northwest of the border city of Nogales.

Estrada said all three men had been shot in the head. Two were identified as Mexican nationals, aged 21 and 42, while the third man has not yet been identified.

"We suspect, because of the activity that is generated up there by illegal aliens and drug traffickers, that they were very possibly hauling drugs, and might have been ripped off," Estrada told Reuters.

"It's the first triple homicide since I have been here, about 19 years ... It is disturbing because of the way these people were murdered, execution style," he added.

Estrada said the bodies had lain in the area, known as the Devil's Canyon, for up to two weeks before being spotted by a Border Patrol helicopter crew on Monday.

They were found a few miles from the spot where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot dead by suspected border bandits in December 2010.

Terry was a member of the Border Patrol's elite tactical unit, dubbed Bortac, which was hunting down border bandits suspected of committing robberies and violent assaults in the area.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/ ... DN20111122