Mexican authorities announced the arrest of eight gunmen in connection with the recent dismemberment of five bodies inside a taxi cab and three others left in a clandestine gravesite near the tourist hotspot of Cancun. The arrest comes as the region has seen a dramatic spike in violence, including the fatal shooting of a U.S. woman and, in a separate case, the kidnapping of a U.S. man who was held for days until authorities rescued him.
This week, the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of six men and two teenagers in connection to a rash of cartel killings, including dismemberments and at least one clandestine gravesite. While authorities did not identify which cartel the gunmen belonged to. They did confirm that the group was behind the local distribution of drugs and extortion and tied to widespread violence against other criminal organizations.
According to authorities, the eight gunmen were tied to a January 29 mass killing where they reportedly dismembered five victims and placed them inside a taxi cab on the south side of Cancun. At the time, authorities discovered two dismembered bodies in the front of the vehicle and three bodies inside bags in the trunk of the car, Mexico’s NotiCaribe reported. The gunmen had also shot the vehicle multiple times.
Authorities also linked the eight gunmen to a clandestine gravesite with three bodies that they found while arresting the group. At the time of the arrest, authorities seized various weapons and large quantities of street-level drugs.
The arrest comes just days after a group of gunmen shot and killed a U.S. woman on a resort beach in the city of Tulum, just south of Cancun. Initial reporting by Mexican news outlets claimed that the woman was the wife of a retired DEA agent. However, that information has not been confirmed or denied by authorities from either the U.S. or Mexico.
As Breitbart Texas reported, authorities also rescued a U.S. citizen from New York last week who had been kidnapped and held for ransom for several days until Mexican military forces rescued him in a rural area not far from Cancun.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.