More cartel violence on popular Mexico tourist beach as two men found strangled to death in Acapulco resort with police claiming they were ‘tortured around the neck’
Two men were found tortured to death in an abandoned cabana on a beach in the Mexican resort of Acapulco.
Beach workers made a gruesome discovery on Condesa Beach around 6 a.m. Thursday morning after receiving a tip from an anonymous caller and city police.
The victims were found lying with their hands tied and a piece of wood wedged over their necks.
The names of the individuals were not released Friday by the Guerrero state attorney general’s office.
Two men were found tortured to death in an abandoned cabana on a beach in Acapulco, Mexico on Thursday morning.
Authorities said beach workers received an anonymous call Thursday and found the two dead men in the cabana at a bar on Condesa Beach in Acapulco.
Prosecutors said the men’s bodies showed signs of “torture by ligature” with “signs of torture around the neck.”
Mexican drug gangs often kill their victims by suffocation, by strangling them or by wrapping duct tape or plastic bags around their heads.
The victims were among six people killed in a period of less than 24 hours.
Two severed heads were found abandoned Wednesday near a school and one on a main street.
The beach killings come a week after Niko Honarbakhsh, 44, was killed during a shootout between drug dealers at the Mia Beach Club in the popular Caribbean coast resort of Tulum.
ABC News reported that Honarbakhsh, the wife of a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was living in nearby Cancun at the time of her death.
National and local drug dealer Shawn Billary, 22, was also killed during the shootout.
Billary had cocaine and pills in his possession, the Quintana Roo attorney general’s office said.
Mexican law enforcement officers remove body bags containing the bodies of two men found tortured to death in a cabana on an Acapulco beach on Thursday
Police in Acapulco on Thursday remove one of two bodies found dead in a cabana on Condesa Beach in Acapulco, Mexico. The city reported 31 homicides
Located along the Pacific coast, Acapulco was once a favorite landing spot for the Hollywood elite, which has been plagued by violence since 2006, fueled by rival cartels and gangs competing for the drug trade.
To combat crime, a security force consisting of 16,000 members of the National Guard, the military and state and local police patrols Acapulco, where visitors have slowly returned after Hurricane Otis devastated the city in October.
The storm killed 52 people and destroyed and damaged hotels — a fraction of the city’s hotel rooms — of which about 7,000 have been repaired.
In early February, the state government deployed 60 armed detectives to patrol the beaches “in light of the violent events that have occurred recently.”
At least three people were shot dead on the beaches of Acapulco that week, one by gunmen who arrived – and escaped – aboard a boat.
The heavy military and police presence has not been enough to keep the violence at bay.
In January, Acapulco’s main Chamber of Commerce reported that gang threats and attacks caused about 90 percent of passenger vans in the city to stop operating, affecting the resort’s main mode of transportation.
The cartel and gangs have fought over drug sales and revenue from extorting protection payments from businesses, bars, bus and taxi drivers.
At least 465 people were killed in Acapulco in 2023, compared to 453 murders recorded in 2022.
The city ranks sixth in the country with 31 reported homicides in January.
Niko Honarbakhsh, 44, the wife of a former Drug Enforcement Administration special agent, was shot dead when she was apparently caught in the crossfire of a drug cartel dispute at a luxury Mexican resort on Sunday
The US State Department has issued a travel ban on six states, including Guerrero, for crimes including carjacking, kidnapping, theft and murder.
American travelers have been advised to take extra caution when visiting Quintana Roo, where Cancun and Tulum are located.
In December 2023, Canadian citizen Samy Tamouro, 37, was shot at a gym in downtown Cancun and died while being rushed to a medical facility after being denied treatment at the first hospital he was taken to.
In April 2023, eight dead bodies were found scattered across Cancun, including three skeletal remains.