canadian tourist dies in mexico

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Canadian killed in southern Mexico, 2nd tourist slain in Oaxaca in less than a week

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Canadian man was shot to death in Mexico’s Pacific coast beach town of Puerto Escondido, prosecutors said Tuesday.

He was the second foreign tourist killed in the southern state of Oaxaca in less than a week.

Oaxaca state prosecutors said Tuesday the Canadian man was found dead in a car with a bullet wound on Monday in a neighborhood of Puerto Escondido where few tourists stay.

Prosecutors did not provide any possible motive in the slaying. The dead man was identified as Víctor Masson, 27, but no information on his hometown was available.

The killing comes three days after a man from Argentina was seriously wounded in a machete attack in another coastal town in Oaxaca.

Prosecutors said Monday the Argentine tourist — whose name was not released — died of his injuries at a hospital in Mexico City.

He was among a group of three Argentines were attacked by a Mexican man with a machete on Friday in the hamlet of La Isla, at the mouth of the Laguna de Chacahua, on the Pacific coast. The other two tourists were also wounded in the attack, but their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

Laguna de Chacahua is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Puerto Escondido.

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Canadian tourist shot dead in Mexican resort town Puerto Escondido

Victor masson, 27, is the second foreigner to be killed in the state of oaxaca this week. an argentine man also died after being attacked with a machete.

A 27-year-old Canadian tourist named Victor Masson died Monday after being shot in the back in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Escondido. His body was found inside a car in the coastal town, which is located in the state of Oaxaca. Masson is the second foreigner to be violently murdered in Oaxaca this week: two days earlier, Benjamin Gamond, a 23-year-old Argentine traveler, died after receiving several machete blows.

According to local media, the murder took place in the Arroyo Seco neighborhood at around 1 p.m. The shot alerted residents in the area, who notified the authorities. Municipal police and several officers from the Secretariat of the Navy arrived at the scene a few minutes later, where they found the young man dead inside a car. So far, the Oaxaca Prosecutor’s Office has not issued any statement about what happened.

Masson’s death is the second instance of violence against foreigners on the Oaxacan coast. Benjamin Gamond, from the Argentine city of Córdoba, was killed in Laguna de Chacahua, one of the most important national parks in Oaxaca. The young man had been living in Mexico for several months. Last Saturday, he was with a couple of friends when a man armed with a machete attacked him from behind, making several cuts to his head. Gamond’s two friends were also injured. Two days after the attack, Gamond died in hospital. The Oaxaca Prosecutor’s Office have arrested one person.

Following the attack, Gamond’s family took to social media to ask for financial help to travel to Mexico. “My younger brother — who was traveling through Mexico, a few months ago he was working there — has been violently attacked [...] He is hovering between life and death. This is an urgent call to help us be with him and be by his side at this difficult moment,” Marcos Gamond said in a video posted on Instagram .

In 2021 — the last year with the latest complete records — Oaxaca registered 786 murders of the 37,500 recorded throughout Mexico. The high number of killings is linked to drug cartel violence , which has cast a shadow over popular tourist destinations such as the Riviera Maya . During Easter Week, the Mexican government decided to put soldiers on the country’s most touristic beaches in an attempt to protect vacationers. The move was taken after at least eight people were killed in the country’s biggest tourist hotspots: Acapulco (in Guerrero) and Cancún (in Quintana Roo).

The Mexican government sent 4,724 soldiers to guard the beaches of Acapulco, Cancún, Tulum, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and the coasts of Veracruz. Another 3,800 soldiers were tasked with protecting the country’s highways. Violence against tourists was not a problem for Oaxaca in this period, a situation that has now changed.

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Extortion and murder in the Riviera Maya: The dark side of Mexico’s tourist paradise

Mexico puts soldiers on its beaches to guard vacationers

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Canadian killed in southern Mexico, 2nd tourist slain in Oaxaca in less than a week

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A Canadian man was shot to death in Mexico’s Pacific coast beach town of Puerto Escondido, prosecutors said Tuesday.

He was the second foreign tourist killed in the southern state of Oaxaca in less than a week.

Oaxaca state prosecutors said Tuesday the Canadian man was found dead in a car with a bullet wound on Monday in a neighborhood of Puerto Escondido where few tourists stay.

Prosecutors did not provide any possible motive in the slaying. The dead man was identified as Víctor Masson, 27, but no information on his hometown was available.

The killing comes three days after a man from Argentina was seriously wounded in a machete attack in another coastal town in Oaxaca.

Prosecutors said Monday the Argentine tourist — whose name was not released — died of his injuries at a hospital in Mexico City.

He was among a group of three Argentines were attacked by a Mexican man with a machete on Friday in the hamlet of La Isla, at the mouth of the Laguna de Chacahua, on the Pacific coast. The other two tourists were also wounded in the attack, but their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

Laguna de Chacahua is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Puerto Escondido.

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Canadian killed in southern Mexico, 2nd tourist slain in Oaxaca in less than a week

By The Associated Press

Posted May 16, 2023 4:54 pm.

Last Updated May 16, 2023 6:39 pm.

A Canadian man was shot to death in Mexico’s Pacific coast beach town of Puerto Escondido, prosecutors said Tuesday.

He was the second foreign tourist killed in the southern state of Oaxaca in less than a week.

Oaxaca state prosecutors said Tuesday the Canadian man was found dead in a car with a bullet wound on Monday in a neighborhood of Puerto Escondido where few tourists stay.

Prosecutors did not provide any possible motive in the slaying. The dead man was identified as Víctor Masson, 27, but no information on his hometown was available.

The killing comes three days after a man from Argentina was seriously wounded in a machete attack in another coastal town in Oaxaca.

Prosecutors said Monday that the Argentine tourist, whose name was not released, died of his injuries at a hospital in Mexico City.

He was among a group of three Argentines who were attacked by a Mexican man with a machete on Friday in the hamlet of La Isla, at the mouth of the Laguna de Chacahua, on the Pacific coast. The other two tourists were also wounded in the attack, but their injuries do not appear to be life-threatening.

Laguna de Chacahua is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) west of Puerto Escondido.

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Winnipeg woman seeks answers after husband killed during belated honeymoon at Mexican resort

2 men identified as hotel staff members arrested but no formal charges filed.

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A Winnipeg man on a long-awaited honeymoon with his wife at a resort in Mexico was killed last week after police were called to a fight at a hotel bar where the couple was staying, the man's wife told CBC News.

Jesse Ropos, 36, died in the early morning hours of Jan. 13 after a 10-day vacation in Puerto Aventuras, a gated community located about 75 kilometres southwest of Cancun.

The father of three was killed just 12 hours before he was set to return home with his wife, Stacey Ropos.

"I went to go on this beautiful vacation with my husband and now I'm coming back with his body," Stacey told CBC News Tuesday night, shortly after arriving back in Winnipeg. 

It was their first big trip together, she said in an earlier interview Tuesday morning before leaving Mexico. Her husband's body was being sent back to Canada on a different flight.

"It was essentially our honeymoon after getting married eight years ago," Stacey said, fighting through tears. "Losing him was hard but trying to tell our babies when I can't hold them and hug them and make them feel better — that was the worst."

Stacey said she went to the hotel bar with Jesse earlier in the night. He stayed when she left to go back to their room, where she was later woken up by hotel staff asking her to come to the lobby.

"I could see the police tape and a woman came up to me and stopped me and said, 'I'm sorry but I need to tell you that your husband's dead,'" Stacey said.

"I just ran underneath that police tape and just ran to him and started screaming for him to get up." 

CBC News reached out to police in the state of Quintana Roo regarding Ropos's death, but they referred the inquiry to the Quintana Roo state attorney general's office, which couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

According to a translation of a document from the state attorney general's office, which was written in Spanish and obtained by CBC News, Jesse died as a result of choking from strangulation.

Two men identified as hotel staff members were arrested in connection with Ropos's death, according to the document, but no formal charges have been filed, Stacey said.

Removed from bar after fight

A report from police in the document says officers were called to the hotel due to a fight involving two hotel guests.

Stacey watched remotely in Mexico Sunday as a court hearing for the two accused in her husband's death took place.  

During that hearing she learned her husband had been removed from the bar because he was in a fight but was allowed back in after a friend they met in Mexico calmed him down.

"I guess the fight started happening again, so they removed him," Stacey said. "They got him outside and from what I understand the security guard had got him down onto his knees and had his hands behind his back and the second man, which was the bar supervisor, ran out of nowhere and started putting him into … a sleeper chokehold."

The hotel the couple was staying at has not responded to an email request for comment from CBC News and couldn't be reached by phone.

A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said the department could not provide any details.

"Global Affairs Canada is aware of the death of a Canadian citizen in Mexico," the spokesperson said in an email. "Consular services are being provided to the family. Due to privacy considerations, no further information can be disclosed."

Stacey described Jesse as a happy-go-lucky guy who always tried to look at the positive side of things.

"We had a really special bond and I'm sure if you ask many of his friends he was kind of that big, bright shining light who you could hear chatting from three rooms away," she said.

Now, she's planning her husband's funeral service and honouring his memory.

• Daughter waits to bring parents home after Winnipeg couple found dead in Jamaica
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An online fundraiser has been started by a friend, in part because the cost of transporting Jesse's body back to Canada has exceeded what travel insurance will cover, Stacey said. 

She paid more than $10,800 US to prepare his body and transport him home while the policy they had taken out covered up to $7,500 Cdn in repatriation cost, which is around half of the total bill.

"It was really kind of a rude awakening and shocking revelation to know that I bought this insurance thinking we would be covered," Stacey said. "I'm incredibly thankful for the people that have stepped forward and helped me."

"The funeral home, they're not going to release the body until they have full payment. It was basically three days of pure stress trying to figure out this money situation."

She said they felt safe at the resort during the trip but that all changed after Jesse's death. Stacey said it prompted her to leave the resort and move to an undisclosed area while working with a lawyer and funeral director in Mexico.

"We specifically chose this place because it was a gated community," she said. "It's just crazy to think that we were supposed to be safe and that we were, unfortunately, far from it."

None of the allegations against the men arrested have been tested in court and both are presumed innocent.

Winnipeg man killed during belated honeymoon at Mexican resort

About the author.

Josh Crabb is a reporter with CBC Manitoba. He started reporting in 2005 at CKX-TV in Brandon, Man. After spending three years working in television in Red Deer, Alta., Josh returned to Manitoba in 2010 and has been covering stories across the province and in Winnipeg ever since.

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People on a beach in Mexico’s Mayan Riviera near Playa del Carmen.

• DANIEL SLIM / AFP via GETTY IMAGES
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Global Affairs Canada haven’t released the identities of a Canadian couple whose bodies were found with their throats slit early Monday in a tourist apartment in Playa del Carmen

Two Canadians found murdered in Mexican beach resort town of Playa del Carmen

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The Canadian government is reminding travellers to avoid non-essential travel to more than a dozen regions in Mexico following the murders of two Canadians in Playa del Carmen early Monday morning.

Global Affairs Canada has not released the identities of a Canadian couple whose bodies were found with their throats slit early Monday in a tourist apartment in the beach resort town on the Mexican Caribbean

Police report that the Canadian victims murdered this week suffered cuts to the neck caused by a razor or a knife.

A security guard was also injured in the attacks in central Playa del Carmen, according to the Quintana Roo state prosecutor’s office.

The bodies were found in a tourist apartment, near identification documents bearing at least three different names for the man, who was wanted internationally for fraud, authorities say.

The murders were particularly cruel according to Luis Horacio Nájera, a former Mexican reporter specializing in organized crime who now lives in Canada.

“Cutting throats is a cruel way to kill that is frequently used by organized crime groups,” Nájera said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to know a video was filmed by the killers,” he added.

Najera added that murders in Mexico are sometimes ordered from Canada.

On Jan. 21, two other Canadians were killed and one injured in a shooting at a resort near Cancun.

Quintana Roo state authorities have indicated that most of the recent attacks on foreigners are related to retail drug sales or extortion.

The Mexican Caribbean is one of the world’s top beach destinations.

The Mexican government has reported that a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking has led to more than 340,000 murders since December 2006.

Global Affairs Canada updated its travel advisories for Mexico hours after the murders early Monday morning.

The alerts advise Canadians to “exercise a high degree of caution” in Mexico and avoid non-essential travel in more than a dozen regions “due to high levels of violence and organized crime.”

Those regions are:

• all Chihuahua
• all Colima, except the city of Manzanillo
• all Coahuila, except the southern part of the state at and below the Saltillo-Torreón highway corridor
• all Durango, except Durango City
• all Guerrero, except the cities of Ixtapa/Zihuatanejo and Taxco
• in Guanajuato, on Highway 45 between León and Irapuato and the area south of and including Highway 45D between Irapuato and Celaya
• all Michoacán, except the city of Morelia
• in Morelos, the Lagunas de Zempoala National Park and surrounding areas
• in Nayarit, the area within 20 km of the border with Sinaloa and Durango and the city of Tepic
• all Nuevo León, except the city of Monterrey
• all Sinaloa, except the city of Mazatlán
• all Sonora, except the cities of Hermosillo and Guaymas/San Carlos and Puerto Peñasco
• all Tamaulipas
• all Zacatecas

Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: [email protected]

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Canadian Tourist Killed, 2 Wounded in Mexico Resort Shooting

In late October, farther south in the laidback destination of Tulum, two tourists — one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German — were caught in the apparent crossfire of rival drug dealers and killed.

By Associated Press • Published January 21, 2022 • Updated on January 21, 2022 at 3:36 pm

What to know.

• Authorities were searching for a Hotel Xcaret guest in the shooting.
• All three victims were taken to a hospital where one later died.

In November, a shootout on the beach of Puerto Morelos left two suspected drug dealers dead. Authorities said there were some 15 gunmen from a gang that apparently disputed control of drug sales there.

A Canadian tourist was killed Friday and two more wounded in a shooting at a hotel along Mexico's Caribbean coast, state authorities said.

Quintana Roo state security chief Lucio Hernández said via Twitter that authorities were searching for a Hotel Xcaret guest in the shooting. He shared a photo of a man walking with a handgun.

The Xcaret resort is south of Playa del Carmen.

Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.

Hernández said all three victims were taken to a hospital where one later died.

It is just the latest brazen act of violence along Mexico's famed Mayan Riviera, the crown jewel of its tourism industry.

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This article tagged under:

2 Canadians killed in Mexico originally from Quebec

Two Canadians, a man and a woman, found dead from knife wounds at a resort in Mexico were from Quebec, a source confirmed to CTV News.

The pair have been identified as Raphael Huppe and Fannie Lorrain.

Both were found dead at a hotel or condominium in Playa del Carmen, the Quintana Roo state prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.

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Prosecutors also confirmed the male victim was on an Interpol wanted list for fraud charges. A third person was reported injured.

"Global Affairs Canada is aware of the death of two Canadian Citizens in Mexico," a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson said in a statement to CTVNews.ca.

"Consular officials stand ready to provide consular assistance to families, and are in contact with local authorities to gather additional information. Due to privacy considerations, no additional information can be provided."

The deaths come after two Canadian men were killed at a resort near Playa del Carmen , which prosecutors at the time said appeared to be motivated by debts between gangs involved in international drug and weapons trafficking.

In March, police in Playa del Carmen found the bodies of four men dumped near a housing development , in shrubs beside an access road, in what has been described as a gangland-style killing.

In November, some 15 gunmen arrived on a beach in Puerto Morelos, just south of Cancun, and engaged in a shootout, killing two alleged drug dealers , as part of a gang dispute over the control of drug sales.

As of Tuesday, the Government of Canada officially advises Canadians to "exercise a high degree of caution in Mexico due to high levels of criminal activity and kidnapping."

There are also a number of regional advisories for areas the federal government says Canadians should avoid non-essential travel. However, the regional advisories do not include Quintana Roo, the state where the two Canadians were found dead on Tuesday.

With files from The Associated Press

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Canadian couple found murdered in Mexico resort town of Playa del Carmen

Male victim was wanted by Interpol

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Two Canadian citizens, a man and a woman, have been killed at the beach resort of Playa del Carmen on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, authorities said on Tuesday.

A senior state official told Reuters the man, whose identity has not been made public, was wanted by Interpol.

“He was not a tourist,” the official said, adding that the man had been in hiding in Mexico for about four years. Local papers have identified the man as a Quebec native who first entered the country in 2016.

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The killings in the state of Quintana Roo follow the fatal shooting in January of two Canadians with criminal records in nearby Cancun.

Investigators searched the apartment where the bodies were found and discovered the male victim had IDs with three different names.

Mexican media said the victims had had their throats cut, citing a local police report. The Quintana Roo attorney general’s office said the two had suffered knife injuries, but did not immediately reply to requests for further comment.

Their bodies were found in local accommodation and a third person, a man, also was injured, the office said.

Canada’s embassy in Mexico confirmed the deceased were Canadian citizens and said it was in contact with local authorities. It said it could not reveal further information at this time.

Playa del Carmen has been hit by several instances of violence involving foreigners, most recently in January, when two Canadians were killed at a local resort, apparently because of debts between international drug and weapons trafficking gangs.

In March, police in Playa del Carmen found the bodies of four men dumped near a housing development. The fact the bodies were left together in the shrubs beside an access road suggested a gangland-style killing.

There has been a series of brazen acts of violence elsewhere along Mexico’s resort-studded Mayan Riviera coast, the crown jewel of the country’s tourism industry.

In November, a shootout on the beach of Puerto Morelos, just north of Playa del Carmen, left two suspected drug dealers dead. Authorities said some 15 gunmen were from a gang that apparently disputed control of drug sales there.

In late October, farther south in the laid-back destination of Tulum, two tourists — one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German — were caught in the apparent crossfire of rival drug dealers and killed.

Murders in the resort state have nearly quadrupled since 2016, to about 37 per 100,000 residents.

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Two Tourists Killed in Separate Attacks in Mexican Hotspot, Police Say

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A Canadian tourist was killed in the Mexican state of Oaxaca this week, local authorities said on Tuesday, a day after another tourist was killed in an attack in the popular holiday region.

Oaxacan authorities said a male Canadian was killed in Puerto Escondido, a relaxed beach town popular with surfers, adding that they were investigating his death. They gave no indication of the motivation for the attack.

Argentine tourist Benjamin Gamond, who was attacked with a machete on May 12 in the nearby coastal area of Chacahua and died on Monday after being transported to a Mexico City hospital, prosecutors from the state said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Gamond's attacker, accused of assaulting two other Argentine tourists who survived, is being held on suspicion of homicide.

A relative of Gamond who posted on social media suggested that he had died "a hero" during a struggle.

Oaxaca and its beaches have lower crime rates than most states in Mexico.

This year, two American citizens died after a group of four were kidnapped in northern Mexico.

(Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Additional reporting by Isabel Woodford. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters .

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Body of Canadian tourist found in Mexico next to his crying and shocked five-year-old son

John poulson hadn’t been seen for a week before his body was discovered in vacation rental, article bookmarked.

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A five-year-old Canadian boy was found crying beside the decomposing body of his father at their vacation rental just north of the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, according to reports.

The ex-wife of John Poulson, 44, raised the alarm after she was unable to get in touch with him from Canada, Mexico News Daily reported.

She contacted a neighbour who went to check on Mr Poulson at the rental in Jarretaderas, in Nayarit state, and found the boy sobbing and in shock beside his father’s body on 14 August, the news site reported.

Police told Tribuna de la Bahia that Mr Poulson the boy lying next to his father’s body in a bedroom with the lights off and air conditioning running.

Mr Poulson was in an advanced state of decomposition, police said.

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According to neighbours, he had not been seen since 7 August.

Police have not yet released a cause of death.

The boy was placed in child protection services while his mother travelled to Mexico from Canada.

While there is no immediate suggestion he was the victim of foul play, the US State Department on Wednesday widened its “do not travel” warning to six of Mexico’s 31 states and urged Americans to “reconsider travel” to 11 more  after a wave of orchestrated violence by criminal cartels across the country .

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Canadian tourist found dead in Mexico’s Oaxaca region

• Mexican authorities make arrest in killing of Canadian man in seaside town
• Canadian shot dead in Mexico beach town, 2nd tourist killed this week

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Woman suspected of kidnapping and killing girl is beaten to death by mob in Mexican tourist city

Updated on: March 29, 2024 / 7:47 AM EDT / CBS/AP

A mob in the Mexican tourist city of Taxco brutally beat a woman to death Thursday because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing a young girl, rampaging just hours before the city's famous Holy Week procession.

The mob formed after an 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday. Her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security camera footage appeared to show a woman and a man loading a bundle, which may have been the girl's body, into a taxi.

The mob surrounded the woman's house Thursday, threatening to drag her out. Police took the woman into the bed of a police pickup truck, but then stood by - apparently intimidated by the crowd - as members of the mob dragged her out of the truck and down onto the street where they stomped, kicked and pummeled her until she lay, partly stripped and motionless.

Police then picked her up and took her away, leaving the pavement stained with blood. The Guerrero state prosecutors' office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries.

"This is the result of the bad government we have," said a member of the mob, who gave her name as Andrea but refused to give her last name. "This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened," she said, referring to the murder of the girl, "but this is the first time the people have done something."

"We are fed up," she said. "This time it was an 8-year-old girl."

The mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, said he shared residents' outrage over the killing. Figueroa said a total of three people beaten by the mob - the woman and two men - had been taken away by police. Video from the scene suggested they had also been beaten, though The Associated Press witnessed only the beating of the woman.

The state prosecutors' office said the two men were hospitalized. There was no immediate information on their condition.

In a statement issued soon after the event, Figueroa complained he did not get any help from the state government for his small, outnumbered municipal police force.

"Unfortunately, up to now we have not received any help or answers," Figueroa said.

The Good Friday eve religious procession, which dates back centuries in the old silver-mining town, went off as planned Thursday night.

People crowded Taxco's colonial streets to watch hooded men walking while whipping themselves or carrying heavy bundles of thorns across their bare shoulders in penitence to emulate the suffering of Jesus Christ carrying the cross.

But the earlier flash of violence cast a pall over the already solemn procession, which draws thousands to the small town.

Many participants wore small white ribbons of mourning.

"I never thought that in a touristic place like Taxco we would experience a lynching," said Felipa Lagunas, a local elementary school teacher. "I saw it as something distant, in places far from civilization ... I never imagined that my community would experience this on such a special day."

Mob attacks in rural Mexico are common. In 2018, two men were torched by an angry crowd in the central state of Puebla, and the next day a man and woman were dragged from their vehicle, beaten and set afire in the neighboring state of Hidalgo.

But Taxco and other cities in Guerrero state have been particularly prone to violence.

In late January, Taxco endured a days-long strike by private taxi and van drivers who suffered threats from one of several drug gangs fighting for control of the area. The situation was so bad that police had to give people rides in the back of their patrol vehicles.

Around the same time, the bullet-ridden bodies of two detectives were found on the outskirts of Taxco. Local media said their bodies showed signs of torture.

In February, Figueroa's own bulletproof car was shot up by gunmen on motorcycles.

In Taxco and throughout Guerrero state, drug cartels and gangs routinely prey on the local population, demanding protection payments from store owners, taxi and bus drivers. They kill those who refuse to pay.

Cartel violence in Guerrero has continued unabated this year.

In February, investigators in Guerrero said they confirmed the contents of a grisly drug cartel video showing gunmen shooting, kicking and burning the corpses of their enemies. Prosecutors said they had reached the remote scene of the crime in the mountain township of Totolapan and  found five charred bodies .  

In January, an alleged  cartel attack in Guerrero  killed at least six people and injured 13 others.

The U.S. State Department urges Americans not to travel to Guerrero, citing widespread crime and violence. "Armed groups operate independently of the government in many areas of Guerrero," the U.S. advisory says . "Members of these groups frequently maintain roadblocks and may use violence towards travelers."

Residents said they have had enough, even though the violence may further affect tourism.

"We know the town lives off of Holy Week (tourism) and that this is going to mess it up. There will be a lot of people who won't want to come anymore," said Andrea, the woman who was in the mob. "We make our living off tourism, but we cannot continue to allow them to do these things to us."

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Mob in Mexico brutally beats suspected kidnapper to death hours before Holy Week procession

The Good Friday Eve religious procession, which dates back centuries in the old Mexican silver-mining town of Taxco, went off as planned Thursday night despite the mob killing of a woman earlier in the day.

A woman suspected in the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, is dragged out of a police vehicle by a mob in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Police then picked her up off the ground and took her away. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

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A mob beats a woman they suspect of kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl, after dragging her out of a police vehicle, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Police then picked her up and took her away. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

ADDS THAT THE WOMAN DIED - A mob beats a woman they suspect of kidnapping and killing an 8-year-old girl, after dragging her out of a police vehicle, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Police then picked her up and took her away. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Residents gather as the coffin that contain the remains of an 8-year-old girl is delivered to family, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. The 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday; her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Funeral workers carry the coffin that contain the remains of an 8-year-old girl, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. The 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday; her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A relative of an 8-year-old girl, who was kidnapped the previous day, weeps as her body is handed over to family in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A relative mourns as funeral workers carry the coffin that contain the remains of an 8-year-old girl, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. The 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday; her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman holds a sign with a message that reads in Spanish: “Justice for Cami” in reference to an 8-year-old girl who disappeared the previous day, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. The 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday; her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman wipes away tears during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Women chant the word “justice” during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman chants the Spanish word for “justice” during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman carries her daughter during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A woman holds a sign with a message that loosely translates from Spanish: “Children should not be harmed”, during a demonstration protesting the kidnapping and killing of an 8-year-old girl, in the main square of Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. Hours earlier a mob beat a woman to death because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing the young girl. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

A bare-footed penitent walks in a Holy Week procession, in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Penitents carry a bundle of thorny branches during a Holy Week procession in Taxco, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2024. In traditional processions that last from Thursday evening into the early morning hours of Friday, hooded penitents drag chains and shoulder the thorny bundles through the streets, as some flog themselves with nail-studded whips meant to bring them closer to God. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

TAXCO, Mexico (AP) — A mob in the Mexican tourist city of Taxco brutally beat a woman to death Thursday because she was suspected of kidnapping and killing a young girl, rampaging just hours before the city’s famous Holy Week procession.

The mob formed after an 8-year-old girl disappeared Wednesday. Her body was found on a road on the outskirts of the city early Thursday. Security camera footage appeared to show a woman and a man loading a bundle, which may have been the girl’s body, into a taxi.

The mob surrounded the woman’s house Thursday, threatening to drag her out. Police took the woman into the bed of a police pickup truck, but then stood by — apparently intimidated by the crowd — as members of the mob dragged her out of the truck and down onto the street where they stomped, kicked and pummeled her until she lay, partly stripped and motionless.

Police then picked her up and took her away, leaving the pavement stained with blood. The Guerrero state prosecutors’ office later confirmed the woman died of her injuries.

“This is the result of the bad government we have,” said a member of the mob, who gave her name as Andrea but refused to give her last name. “This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened,” she said, referring to the murder of the girl, “but this is the first time the people have done something.”

“We are fed up,” she said. “This time it was an 8-year-old girl.”

The mayor of Taxco, Mario Figueroa, said he shared residents’ outrage over the killing. Figueroa said a total of three people beaten by the mob — the woman and two men — had been taken away by police. Video from the scene suggested they had also been beaten, though The Associated Press witnessed only the beating of the woman.

The state prosecutors’ office said the two men were hospitalized. There was no immediate information on their condition.

In a statement issued soon after the event, Figueroa complained he did not get any help from the state government for his small, outnumbered municipal police force.

“Unfortunately, up to now we have not received any help or answers,” Figueroa said.

The Good Friday eve religious procession, which dates back centuries in the old silver-mining town, went off as planned Thursday night.

People crowded Taxco’s colonial streets to watch hooded men walking while whipping themselves or carrying heavy bundles of thorns across their bare shoulders in penitence to emulate the suffering of Jesus Christ carrying the cross.

But the earlier flash of violence cast a pall over the already solemn procession, which draws thousands to the small town.

Many participants wore small white ribbons of mourning.

“I never thought that in a touristic place like Taxco we would experience a lynching,” said Felipa Lagunas, a local elementary school teacher. “I saw it as something distant, in places far from civilization ... I never imagined that my community would experience this on such a special day.”

Mob attacks in rural Mexico are common . In 2018, two men were torched by an angry crowd in the central state of Puebla, and the next day a man and woman were dragged from their vehicle, beaten and set afire in the neighboring state of Hidalgo.

But Taxco and other cities in Guerrero state have been particularly prone to violence.

In late January, Taxco endured a days-long strike by private taxi and van drivers who suffered threats from one of several drug gangs fighting for control of the area. The situation was so bad that police had to give people rides in the back of their patrol vehicles.

Around the same time, the bullet-ridden bodies of two detectives were found on the outskirts of Taxco. Local media said their bodies showed signs of torture.

In February, Figueroa’s own bulletproof car was shot up by gunmen on motorcycles.

In Taxco and throughout Guerrero state, drug cartels and gangs routinely prey on the local population, demanding protection payments from store owners, taxi and bus drivers. They kill those who refuse to pay.

Residents said they have had enough, even though the violence may further affect tourism.

“We know the town lives off of Holy Week (tourism) and that this is going to mess it up. There will be a lot of people who won’t want to come anymore,” said Andrea, the woman who was in the mob. “We make our living off tourism, but we cannot continue to allow them to do these things to us.”

Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

7 bodies, 5 of them decapitated and 1 dismembered, found in Mexico

Authorities in one of Mexico's largest cities say they have found seven bodies — five of them decapitated and another completely dismembered — in a car left in the middle of traffic on a main expressway

MEXICO CITY -- Authorities in one of Mexico ’s largest cities said Friday they have found seven bodies with five of them decapitated and another completely dismembered, in a car left in the middle of traffic on a main expressway.

Prosecutors in the central state of Puebla said all of the bodies bore messages supposedly outlining the reasons each were killed. Each was accused of having committed a particular crime, from street-level drug dealing to robbing freight trucks to extortion, prosecutors said.

“On each of the bodies, we found hand-written messages written on paper, each one detailing the reason they were killed,” said Puebla state chief prosecutor Gilberto Higuera.

Higuera did not mention whether the deaths might be related to drug cartels. He said the stolen car was left in the middle of traffic on the expressway.

While vigilantes have sometimes left such messages on corpses, similar signs are far more frequently left on victims’ bodies by drug cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.

Higuera was extremely guarded in describing the evidence, but suggested it involved “not only a dispute (between gangs) but also something related to dominance over certain people, aimed at not only domination, but recruitment.”

He did not further clarify that. But some cartels in Mexico, when seeking to establish a territory as their own, will kill off rivals or any petty thieves or drug dealers they find, and leave messages to convince local residents that such activities will not be tolerated under the new cartel.

The grisly killings were striking because they occurred in the relatively affluent and large city of Puebla, just east of Mexico City. Puebla is Mexico’s fifth largest city and had largely been spared the drug cartel violence affecting surrounding areas.

Leaving the bodies in the middle of an expressway also was unusual. Police were quickly alerted to the cadaver-laden car because it was blocking traffic on the city's main ring road.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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World News | Decapitated bodies with hand-written notes…

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World News | 7 bodies, 5 decapitated, found in Mexico with hand-written notes on each corpse

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Authorities in one of Mexico’s largest cities said Friday they found seven bodies, with five of them decapitated and another completely dismembered, in a car left in the middle of traffic on a main expressway.

Prosecutors in the central state of Puebla said all of the bodies bore messages supposedly outlining the reasons each were killed. Each was accused of having committed a particular crime, from street-level drug dealing to robbing freight trucks to extortion, prosecutors said.

“On each of the bodies, we found hand-written messages written on paper, each one detailing the reason they were killed,” said Puebla state chief prosecutor Gilberto Higuera.

Higuera did not mention whether the deaths might be related to drug cartels. He said the stolen car was left in the middle of traffic on the expressway.

While vigilantes have sometimes left such messages on corpses , similar signs are far more frequently left on victims’ bodies by drug cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules.

Higuera was extremely guarded in describing the evidence, but suggested it involved “not only a dispute (between gangs) but also something related to dominance over certain people, aimed at not only domination, but recruitment.”

He did not further clarify that. But some cartels in Mexico, when seeking to establish a territory as their own,  will kill off rivals or any petty thieves or drug dealers they find , and leave messages to convince local residents that such activities will not be tolerated under the new cartel.

The grisly killings were striking because they occurred in the relatively affluent and large city of Puebla, just east of Mexico City. Puebla is Mexico’s fifth largest city and had largely been spared the drug cartel violence affecting surrounding areas.

Leaving the bodies in the middle of an expressway also was unusual. Police were quickly alerted to the cadaver-laden car because it was blocking traffic on the city’s main ring road.

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American teenager among 3 killed in an avalanche near the Swiss resort of Zermatt

GENEVA — An American teenager and two other people were killed in avalanche near the Swiss resort of Zermatt, police said Tuesday. One person was flown to a hospital with serious injuries.

The avalanche occurred at about 2 p.m. Monday in an off-piste area of the Riffelberg, above the resort and below the famed Matterhorn peak. Rescuers recovered three bodies and the injured skier, a 20-year-old Swiss man.

The victims were a 15-year-old American boy, a man and a woman whose identification has not yet been concluded, police in Valais canton (state) said in a statement. They gave no further details, but said they currently have no information on the woman’s identity.

Prosecutors were investigating the incident.

Last month, five members of a Swiss family were found dead after going missing while cross-country skiing near the Matterhorn in difficult weather conditions. Authorities abandoned the search for a sixth missing person days later.

The Associated Press