Mutilated body threat to bloggers

MEXICO’S violent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what one expert calls a “frontal offensive” against people who post crime reports on an internet chatroom as part of an apparent bid to control information about the drug war.

Residents of the border city of Nuevo Laredo said a man’s decapitated body was found lying on top of a banner suggesting he had been killed for putting a post on the “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo” site.

If the killing is confirmed to be internet-related it would be the fourth such murder in the city in recent months.

Police would not discuss details of the killing yesterday, but a photograph of the scene posted on a blog shows a handcuffed man lying face down on a bloodstained message, his severed head nearby. The message reads: “This happened to me for not understanding that I shouldn’t report things on the social networks.”

The message claimed the man, identified by his nickname “Rascatripas” or “Belly Scratcher,” was a moderator of “Nuevo Laredo en Vivo,” a website used by the city’s residents to denounce crime and warn each other about drug cartel gunfights and roadblocks.

The gruesome killing may be the fourth since September in which people in Nuevo Laredo were killed by a drug cartel for what they posted on the net.

The decapitated body of a woman was found in September with a message that said she was killed for her website posts, signed with the letter “Z,” for the Zetas drug cartel.

The Zetas have dominated Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas, for years.