Mexican authorities in the tourist hotspot of Cancun are working to identify several bodies they found in two clandestine gravesites. The discovery comes at a time when Cancun and other nearby beachfront hotspots are seeing a dramatic rise in cartel violence.
This week, the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s office found several bodies in two mass graves in the central part of town near the Santa Cecilia neighborhood. Authorities were in the neighborhood searching for the body of the son of a commander with the state prosecutor’s office. In a wooded area, authorities found a gravesite with two bodies — one is believed to be the body of the commander’s son.
Once there, the smell of decamping flesh led authorities to a second gravesite with three bodies. Police have yet to identify the victims’ bodies, Infobae reported.
On Saturday morning, authorities found another body in the Santa Lucia neighborhood a short distance from the first two gravesites, Mexico’s Noticaribe reported. At the scene, authorities found a body wrapped in a blanket.
In recent months, the tourist hotspot of Cancun experienced a dramatic rise in violence as rival drug cartels fight for control over the local distribution of drugs. In addition, control of the lucrative extortion fees charged to local restaurants and bars added to the violence. Most of the fighting in the turf war is linked to various cartel cells tied to the Sinaloa Cartel and rival cells with Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG).
In March, authorities found five other bodies in a natural sinkhole. The victims in that gravesite are believed to be members of CJNG.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the states of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “C.P. Mireles” from Tamaulipas