7 found dead in tourist area with messages written on corpses
Authorities on the Gulf coast of Mexico reported that seven bodies were found on a road in the Huasteca region. This area is a popular tourist destination.
Prosecutors in San Luis Potosi state said late Thursday the bodies did not appear to be from the township of Aquismon, and may have been killed elsewhere and dumped in the rural area.
Photos showed extensive bruising, which suggests that the bodies had been beat.
Writing was scrawled on the corpses with markers that said “this is how it happened to me for working in the Gulf,” a reference to the Gulf Cartel which operates mainly along the U.S. northern border.
The messages were signed “Valles Operation O.B.” This was apparently a reference a rival gang.
The Huasteca region is a popular destination for Mexican tourists because of its waterfalls, crystalline rivers, and beautiful scenery.
Mahaux Charles/AGF/Universal via Getty
Last month, the Justice Department said that former Gulf Cartel leader Mario Cardenas-Guillen was extradited to Texas on drug trafficking charges. The cartel uses intimidation and extreme violence in order to control its territory in northeast Mexico and smuggle dangerous drugs into American communities,” Anne Milgram, DEA Administrator, said.
According to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, the Gulf Cartel was the main competitor challenging Sinaloa for trafficking routes in the early 2000s, but it now battles its former enforcement wing, Los Zetas, and Zeta Cartel splinter groups over territory in northeastern Mexico.
Mexico has been the scene of a spate of violent acts linked to gangs and cartels.
On Tuesday, gunmen killed five high school students and a woman in a street shooting in Guanajuato state, an area where gangs fight for control of trafficking routes for drugs and stolen fuel.
Two weeks before that, eight women and three men were killed in an apparent gangland revenge attack on two bars and a hotel in Celaya, another city in Guanajuato.
Since December 2006, when the government launched a controversial military anti-drug operation, Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders, according to official figures. Most of the murders have been attributed to organized crime by
Authorities.
In April, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador confirmed that Mexico had dissolved a special unit trained by U.S. authorities to fight drug cartels because it had been infiltrated by criminals.
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