MONTERREY, Mexico - Forty-nine decapitated and mutilated bodies were found Sunday dumped on a highway connecting the northern Mexican metropolis of Monterrey to the US border in what could be the latest outburst in an escalating war among drug gangs.
Mexico’s organized crime groups often abandon multiple bodies in public places to warn their rivals, though Nuevo Leon state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said he did not rule out the possibility that the victims were US-bound migrants.
The bodies of the 43 men and six women were found in San Juan, a town on the highway to the border city of Reynosa, at about 4 a.m., forcing police and troops to close off the highway.
Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that a banner left at the site had a message with the Zetas drug cartel taking responsibility for the massacre.
Domene said the fact the bodies were found with the heads, hands, and feet removed will make identification difficult. The bodies were being taken to Monterrey for DNA tests.
De la Garza said the victims could have been killed as long as two days ago at another location, then transported to San Juan, a town 75 miles southwest of a Roma, Texas, border crossing.
Mexican drug cartels have been waging a bloody war to control smuggling routes, the local drug market, and extortion rackets, including shakedowns of migrants trying to reach the United States.
A drug gang aligned with the Sinaloa cartel left 35 bodies at a freeway overpass in the city of Veracruz in September, and police found 32 other bodies, apparently killed by the same gang, days later.
Officials last year found 183 bodies in mass graves in the town of San Fernando. They were believed to have been killed by the Zetas drug cartel.