Undetermined number of hacked-up bodies found in vehicles on Mexico’s Gulf coast

MEXICO CITY (AP) — An undetermined number of hacked-up bodies have been found in two vehicles abandoned on a bridge in Mexico’s Gulf coast state of Veracruz, prosecutors said Monday.

The bodies were found Sunday in the city of Tuxpan, not far from the Gulf coast. The body parts were apparently packed into Styrofoam coolers aboard the two trucks.

A printed banner left on the side of one truck containing some of the remains suggested the victims might be Guatemalans, and claimed authorship of the crime to “the four letters” or The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, often referred to by its four initials in Spanish, CJNG.

Prosecutors said police found “human anatomical parts” in the vehicles, and that investigators were performing laboratory tests to determine the number of victims.

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A photo of the banner published in local media showed part of it read “Guatemalans, stop believing in Grupo Sombra, and stay in your hometowns.”

Grupo Sombra appears to be a faction of the now-splintered Gulf cartel, and is battling Jalisco for turf in the northern part of Veracruz, including nearby cities like Poza Rica.

There have been instances in the past of Mexican cartels, and especially the CJNG, recruiting Guatemalans as gunmen, particularly former special forces soldiers known as “Kaibiles.”

The Veracruz state interior department said the killings appeared to involve a “settling of scores” between gangs.

“This administration has made a point of not allowing the so-called ‘settling of scores’ between criminal gangs to affect the public peace,” the interior department said in a statement. “For that reason, those responsible for the criminal acts between organized crime groups in Tuxpan will be pursued, and a reinforcement of security in the region has begun.”

Veracruz had been one of Mexico’s most violent states when the old Zetas cartel was fighting rivals there, and it continues to see killings linked to the Gulf cartel and other gangs.

The state has one of the country’s highest number of clandestine body dumping grounds, where the cartels dispose of their victims.

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