Authorities in the Mexican resort of Cancun said Tuesday they were trying to identify eight bodies dumped at the Caribbean resort.
Speaking to the families of the missing, Oscar Montes de Oca, the chief prosecutor in the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo, promised more searches and identification.
The bodies were found in weekend searches where police looked into wooded areas and even sinkhole pools known as cenotes.
After the bodies were found, state authorities issued a statement on Facebook, urging people “not to publish and share false news on social networks that only damage the image of Quintana Roo.”
More than 112,000 people are listed as missing in Mexico, and searches for secret burial sites have become common across the country. What is unusual is that they are now being carried to Cancun, the crown jewel of Mexico’s tourism industry.
Paula Chiomante / Reuters
The Secret Body Dumping Ground Often used by drug cartels to dispose of the bodies of their victims. Several cartels are fighting for control of the Caribbean coast and its lucrative retail drug trade. A lack of help from officials has left many family members to take up the search efforts for their missing loved ones, often forming Volunteer search teams are known as “collectivos”.
Montes de Oca said five bodies were found at a building site that was apparently abandoned. The bodies were left there a week to two months ago; Three people have been identified as reported missing earlier.
At another site in a wooded area on the outskirts of Cancun, authorities found three skeletal remains. They have not been identified yet.
The bodies were found in a poor neighborhood about 10 miles from Cancun’s beaches and hotel zone, but relatively close to the resort’s airport.
Similar searches were conducted in Felipe Carrillo Puerto, a town south of Tulum.
Volunteer searchers, including relatives of missing persons, and specially trained dogs also joined investigators in the search.
Conflicting drug cartels have fueled resort-induced violence in Cancun and the Caribbean coast south of it.
Earlier this month, Four men were killed in Cancun In a dispute related to drug gang rivalry. The dead men were found in the city’s hotel zone near the beach.
A The American tourist was shot in the leg in the nearby town of Puerto Morelos in March. US State Department issue a trip That month warns travelers to “take extra precautions” especially after dark, in resorts such as Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum.
This warning came in view of this Kidnapping of four Americans in Mexico earlier this month. The State Department has posted a “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory for Tamaulipas, the Mexican state where the Americans were when they were abducted.
In June 2022, Two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, apparently due to debt among international drug and arms trafficking rings. Last January, two other Canadians were killed and one wounded when a gunman opened fire at a resort near Cancun.
In March 2022, a British resident of Playa del Carmen was shot dead in broad daylight while traveling in his car with his daughter.
In October 2021, further south in the quiet destination of Tulum, two tourists – one California travel blogger The Indian-born and other Germans – were killed when they were apparently caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers.
The following month, two suspected drug dealers were killed in a shootout that sent swimsuit-clad tourists fleeing in panic from a beach near Cancun.