12 bodies found in Mexican tourist town — Officials

GUADALAJARA, Mexico: A dozen bodies – including seven that were headless and mutilated -were discovered over the weekend in western Mexico’s seaside resort of Manzanillo, apparent victims of the country’s epidemic of drug violence, local officials said Sunday.

It was a shocking turn of events for an area popular with American and other foreign tourists, which until now had largely been spared from the bloody drug wars wracking other parts of Mexico.

Seven bodies were found early Saturday in an abandoned taxi on the road from Manzanillo to the town of Cihuatlan.

The bodies were “mutilated, apparently decapitated, and one of the victims was a woman,” the port city’s police chief Carlos Heredia told AFP.

On the vehicle was a message signed by the increasingly powerful Jalisco New Generation drug cartel, he said.

That cartel is blamed for a surge in murders in the tiny Pacific state of Colima, where Manzanillo is located.

On Sunday, five half-naked bodies were found dumped in a forested area, a municipal police commander told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

The bodies showed signs of torture and were left with two green cards signed by the Jalisco New Generation cartel, he said.

The Colima state attorney’s office said in a statement it was “seeking those responsible for depriving five people of their lives, whose bodies were found Sunday afternoon” on the highway between Manzanillo and Minatitlan.

Authorities have not said if the two sets of victims were related. None have yet been identified.

The past six months have seen an increase in killings linked to disputes within the Jalisco cartel, police records showed.

On January 16 and 17, six people were shot to death in three separate incidents in Manzanillo. Authorities believe all were linked to organized crime. — AFP