Mexico police find mutilated bodies of 43 men, 6 women

Police found 49 mutilated bodies scattered in a pool of blood near the border with the US, a region where Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels are trying to outdo each other in bloodshed while warring over smuggling routes.

Police found 49 mutilated bodies scattered in a pool of blood near the border with the US, a region where Mexico’s two dominant drug cartels are trying to outdo each other in bloodshed while warring over smuggling routes.

HT Image

The bodies of 43 men and six women with their heads, hands and feet chopped off were dumped at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway that connects the industrial city of Monterrey with Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas.

At the spot where authorities discovered the bodies before dawn yesterday, a white stone arch that normally welcomes visitors to the town was spray-painted with “100% Zeta” in black letters an apparent reference to the fearsome Zetas drug cartel that was founded by deserters from the Mexican army’s special forces. The bodies were most likely brought to the spot and dropped from the back of a dump truck, Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said. Domene said the dead would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and feet.