Mexican drug cartel dumps 35 bodies in heart of city

Horrified motorists grabbed mobile phones and sent Twitter messages warning others to avoid the area near the biggest shopping mall in Boca del Rio, part of the metropolitan area of Veracruz city.

“Keep away…hooded men unloaded bodies from trucks, slow traffic, danger zone,” one Twitter user warned. The gruesome gesture marked a sharp escalation in cartel violence in Veracruz state, which sits on an important route for drugs and Central American migrants heading north.

Veracruz state attorney general Reynaldo Escobar Perez yesterday said the bodies were left piled in two trucks and on the ground under the overpass near the statue of the Voladores de Papantla, ritual dancers from Veracruz state.

He said some of the victims had their heads covered with black plastic bags and showed signs of torture.

Police have identified seven of the victims so far and all had criminal records for murder, drug dealing, kidnapping and extortion and were linked to organised crime, Mr Escobar said.

Twelve of the victims were women.

Violence between rival drug cartels has been heating up in the coffee and sugar-growing state of Veracruz and daily newspaper Milenio said the dead were members of Zetas cartel.

About 42,000 people have been killed since president Felipe Calderon launched a campaign against drug cartels in late 2006.

Most of the violence has been focused on the northern border with the United States, but has started encroaching on other parts of the country as some gangs fracture and old alliances dissolve.

Violent incidents in the Gulf city of Veracruz had been rare until recently, but a group of armed men hurled a grenade into a popular area of the city in August, killing one person.

This week, 32 prisoners escaped from jails in Veracruz state, but Mr Escobar said there was no sign any of the escapees were among the dead.

“We have never seen a situation like this before,” he said.

The Gulf of Mexico port is used to ship goods to Europe, making it a coveted spot for the crime gangs to control as the groups expand their global reach, said independent Mexican security expert Alberto Islas.

“Veracruz is an important strategic port. That has always been true for trade and commerce, but it’s now also true for drug exports,” Mr Islas said.

While the Zetas and Gulf cartels have had a strong foothold in Veracruz, other gangs like the Beltran Leyva and Sinaloa cartel are also moving in, Mr Islas said.

The Zetas are a paramilitary-style group founded by deserters from Mexico’s army special forces who split off from their former employer, the Gulf cartel.

They were blamed for a recent attack on a Monterrey casino which killed more than 50 people, many of them women, and for the massacre of 72 migrants last year.

The Zetas and their former bosses are now fighting a battle for lucrative drug-smuggling routes to the US in a rivalry which has engulfed the prosperous business city of Monterrey and the state of Tamaulipas in northern Mexico.

Meanwhile, the Mexican army announced it has captured a key figure in the cult-like Knights Templar drug cartel that is sowing violence in western Mexico.

Saul Solis Solis, 49, a former police chief and one-time congressional candidate, was captured without incident on Monday in the cartel’s home state of Michoacan.

Solis is considered one of the principal lieutenants in the Knights Templar, which split late last year from La Familia, a pseudo-religious drug gang known as a major trafficker of methamphetamine.