Police Find 17 Bodies Across Mexico

Apr 17, 12:07 AM EDT
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
Associated Press Writer
AP Photo/Israel Leal

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Police found 17 bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across Mexico on Monday in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by warring drug gangs.

In the resort city of Cancun, the bodies of three men and two women were found in an SUV with their heads covered in tape and their hands bound behind their backs, Quintana Roo state police said.

Police spokesman Antonio Coral said he could not immediately confirm the cause of death.

Mexico City police found more three bodies in an SUV parked in a middle-class neighborhood in what the Mexico City attorney general said appeared to be killings linked to a turf war between drug gangs.

Two more bodies were found in a car in Iguala, about 100 miles south of Mexico City. A note found at the scene threatened Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the alleged head of the Sinaloa Cartel who escaped from a federal prison in 2001.

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Mexico drugs cartels feud erupts

At least 20 people have been killed in what Mexican police say is a violent feud between rival drugs gangs across the country.

Police said bodies were found in several of the country's states from the early hours of Monday.

Some of those killed were found with evidence of torture or were wrapped in plastic bags, while others had had messages pinned to their bodies.

The killings are being blamed on drugs cartels fighting for control.

Execution-style killings

The bodies of five victims, two of them women, were found in a car parked at the entrance of an exclusive neighbourhood in the resort city of Cancun, reports say.

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Dozens of police held in drug sweep
From Times Wire Reports
April 17, 2007

Mexican troops arrested more than 100 policemen as part of a national drive against powerful drug gangs and the police officers on their payrolls.

Soldiers and police swept into more than a dozen police stations across the northern border state of Nuevo Leon, which was long one of Mexico's more peaceful regions but has seen a wave of execution-style killings in the last year.