Police found 17 corpses stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across Mexico on Monday in what appeared to be the latest wave of violence by drug gangs.
In the resort city of Cancun, the bodies of three men and two women were found in an SUV, state police said in a news release. The victims' heads were covered in tape and their hands bound behind their backs, it said. One of the male victims was dressed in women's clothes.
Antonio Coral, spokesman for Quintana Roo state police, said he could not immediately confirm the causes of death.
In Mexico City, police found three corpses in an SUV parked in a middle-class neighborhood.
Mexico City Attorney General said the deaths appeared to be linked to a turf war between drug gangs as a note was found with the bodies threatening an alleged trafficker called "Chango Mendez."
Another two corpses were found in a car in the city of Iguala, about 160km south of the capital. A note in the car threatened Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the alleged head of the Sinaloa Cartel who escaped from a federal prison in 2001.
Three burned bodies were also found in two cars in the Sinaloan city of Culiacan, while four more bodies were found in garbage bags in the central city of Taxco and the port city of Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico.
Federal investigators say the Sinaloa cartel is fighting a bloody turf war with the Gulf Cartel and their army of enforcers known as the Zetas over billion-dollar drug trafficking routes to the US.
Mexico's Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said the US needs to do more to stop guns and drug money heading south fueling Mexican drug violence. The vast majority of arms used by the soldiers of drug cartels are smuggled from the US, he said.
Analysts estimate that Mexican drug gangs make between US$10 billion and US$30 billion selling cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine to the US market, rivaling the money Mexico makes from oil exports and foreign tourism.
Mexico's army detained on Monday more than a hundred police for alleged ties to drug traffickers as authorities reported a spree of drug-related murders.
The police were arrested in 12 municipalities near Monterrey, the industrial capital of Nuevo Leon, said Omar Cervantes, Nuevo Leon state spokesman.
The police officers will be investigated to determine their involvement in several shootings around the state, Cervantes said.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese