The bodies of five decapitated men were found on a road in Mexico on Sunday.
The remains were left along a stretch of highway in the municipality of Ojuelos that connects the nearby town of San Juan de Los Lagos and San Luis Potosí.
The Jalisco prosecutor’s office said the National Guard received a call at 7:05 a.m. from a person reporting several bags that appeared to contain human bodies and severed heads.
Officers from the public prosecutor’s office were sent to the scene and were able to confirm the gruesome findings.
Authorities investigate the site where five decapitated bodies were found Sunday in the city of Ojuelos in western Mexico
A grim image leaked on social media showed the men with their hands tied and their jeans down to their ankles.
Additional photos show the bruised faces of several victims, suggesting they were beaten and tortured before death.
The prosecutor’s office said it could not determine the identities of the five victims.
Defense Ministry intelligence indicates that the area where the bodies were left is under the influence of the Immediate Reaction Criminal Elite Group, a unit of assassins linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the two most powerful criminal organizations in Mexico, online news portal Infobae reported.
The Jalisco Attorney General’s Office said the heads of the five victims were found in a separate bag
The network of hired killers is led by Hugo “El Sapo” González, who oversees the cartel’s operations in the resort town of Puerto Vallarta and is reportedly one of the men closest to cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera. is wanted by the United States.
The intelligence report shows that it is the armed unit’s responsibility to prevent its main rival, the Sinaloa Cartel, from setting up operations in Ojuelos and the neighboring towns of Encarnación de Díaz, Teocaltiche and Villa Hidalgo.
According to government data, 1,415 people were killed between January and September. By comparison, 1,441 murders were reported in all of 2023.
Authorities recorded a 37.4 percent drop in homicides in September, the lowest since September 2018, when there was a 30.6 percent drop.