Mexico Cops Find More Human Heads
Grizzly Decapitations In Acapulco Thought To Be Linked To Drug Trade
ACAPULCO, Mexico, June 30, 2006
(AP) Authorities on Friday found two more human heads in front of a government office in this Pacific coast resort, a day after a similar grisly discovery was made outside the main entrance to City Hall. That makes six severed heads found in the tourist city this year, most with threatening messages linked to the drug trade.
The heads found Friday were accompanied by a note that read,
"One more message, dirtbags, so that you learn to respect." They were dumped in front of the Guerrero state Finance Department where the heads of two decapitated police officers were left in April with a similar note that warned, "So that you learn to respect."
Four drug traffickers were killed during a shootout with law enforcement outside the office earlier this year.
Authorities were trying to determine if the heads found Friday belonged to two decapitated bodies also discovered Friday dumped in a vacant lot on the edge of Acapulco, near the small beach community of Pie de La Cuesta.
Neither the heads nor the bodies have been identified.
On Thursday, police found the head of former Mexican solider, Hugo Carpio Garcia, by the main entrance to City Hall with a similar note signed by "Z," which authorities said was an attempt to link the death to "Las Zetas,"
a group of former elite Mexican soldiers who now work for the Gulf drug cartel.
Earlier this month, a severed human head washed up on the beach in the heart of Acapulco's tourist zone.
All this comes amid a feisty presidential race that will culminate in elections Sunday.
Felipe Calderon, the conservative candidate for the ruling National Action Party,
has promised to increase the flow of extraditions of drug traffickers to the United States.
Leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador — running about even with the Calderon — hasn't mentioned extraditions, but wants to work with U.S. authorities to combat drug traffickers, said his campaign manager, Jesus Ortega.
Acapulco, located 180 miles southwest of Mexico City, has been shaken this year by more than a dozen high-profile gun slayings
as well as several grenade attacks on police stations. Federal investigators link the violence to a turf war between drug gangs in northern Mexico for lucrative smuggling routes into the United States.
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