Suspected drug hitmen dump head in Mexican city

REUTERS

8:40 a.m. May 16, 2008

MONTERREY, Mexico – Suspected Mexican drug hitmen dumped the head of a murdered man on top of a car in the street, police said Friday, in a rare outrage in the wealthy city of Monterrey.
The head, found Thursday night on the roof of a car parked in a middle-class residential area, had a written message next to it signed by the Gulf cartel, the country's most violent drug organization.

The ears were chopped off, a senior state police officer told reporters on condition of anonymity.
Mexican drug gangs, engaged in a bitter fight with each other and security forces, often behead opponents to scare rival traffickers but this was the first such decapitation in Monterrey, home to large corporations and a wealthy business elite.

The message, written on cardboard or paper, suggested the victim may have been a common criminal who had passed himself off as a member of the Gulf cartel's feared Zetas hit squad.

“This is what happens to people who want to pass for Zetas,â€