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Number of bodies found Mexico state rises to 122

By 이우영
Published : April 15, 2011 - 18:32


Mexican army soldiers patrol the streets in Ciudad Mier, Tamaulipas State, Mexico. (AP-Yonhap News)


MEXICO CITY (AP) _ Mexican investigators found a clandestine grave with six bodies in Tamaulipas state, bringing to 122 the number of bodies found in pits in a region near the U.S. border that is wracked by battling drug cartels, authorities said Wednesday.

Tamaulipas state Interior Secretary Morelos Canseco said investigators are searching for more bodies at the pit found late Tuesday. The bodies were taken to a morgue in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

The first graves were found earlier this month in the township of San Fernando, the same area of Tamaulipas where investigators found the bodies of 72 migrants massacred by suspects tied to the brutal Zetas drug gang last August. Most of the 72 migrants were Central Americans, who frequently travel through the area to reach the United States.

Authorities also blame the latest killings on the Zetas.

The Mexican government said it's offering a 15 million pesos

($1.27 million) reward each for information leading to the arrest of Salvador Martinez Escobedo, the alleged leader of the Zetas in San Fernando, and Omar Estrada Luna, a cell leader. The government is also offering 10 million pesos ($846,000) for Roman Palomo Rincones and 5 million pesos ($423,000) for Sarai Diaz Arroyo, who both allegedly participated in the latest massacre, Attorney General Marisela Morales said.

Morales said 16 San Fernando police officers have been detained for allegedly protecting members of the Zetas and covering up the kidnappings of bus passengers and others who traveled on a highway connecting San Fernando to the U.S. border.

Another 17 suspects tied to the brutal Zetas gang were earlier detained in relation to the killings, some of whom have purportedly confessed to abducting passengers from buses and killing them.

The motive for the bus abductions remains unclear, though prosecutors have suggested the gang may have been forcefully recruiting people to work for it.

San Fernando is a town about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Brownsville, Texas, on a well-traveled stretch of highway. The Zetas and rival Gulf Cartel are fighting in Tamaulipas over lucrative drug transit routes to the U.S.

Hours earlier, investigators in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa found at least a dozen skeletal remains in a series of pits, while officials in neighboring Sonora pulled four bodies from two pits, authorities said Wednesday.

The graves in Sinaloa were discovered by a farmer who reported unusual odors coming from a field in the township of Ahome, near the state line with Sonora, state prosecutors' spokesman Martin Gastelum said.

He said that seven pits were found late Tuesday and excavations continued Wednesday. Two sets of remains appeared to belong to women who had been reported missing in October.

The state is the home base of Mexico's most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa cartel.

The Sonora pits were discovered Wednesday in Nogales, a city across the U.S. border from Nogales, Arizona, Sonora state police said in a statement. One pit contained the body of a man and the second held the corpses of three men.

All the victims appeared to be about 30 to 35 years old, and the bodies appeared to have been buried between 10 and 15 days ago, the statement said. Mexican drug cartels have been blamed for a number of such mass graves, in which gangs deposit the bodies of kidnap victims or executed rivals.

Morales also said her office is offering a 10 million peso reward for information leading to the arrest of Julio Radilla Hernandez and Jose Luquin Delgado, both alleged members of the Southern Pacific drug cartel, which authorities say formed from the remnants of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Morales said both men took part in the March 28 killing of Juan Francisco Sicilia, the son of Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, and six other people in Cuernavaca outside Mexico City.

Meanwhile, authorities in the border state of Ciudad Juarez said they have found four bodies buried in the desert that could belong to four men who were last seen when being detained by city police officers.

Prosecutors in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, said in a statement Wednesday that the bodies and the clothes they are wearing matched the description given by relatives of the missing men.

In the northern industrial hub of Monterrey, a spokesman for state police said Wednesday that five suspected drug cartel members and a female motorist were killed in a shootout between soldiers and the suspects late Tuesday.

The spokesman, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the five suspects _ including one woman _ were traveling in a sport utility vehicle on an expressway and ignored an order to stop. In their bid to escape, they opened fire on soldiers and apparently tossed a hand grenade that hit a van, which exploded but whose driver was able to escape without major injuries.

However, a woman traveling in another SUV was hit by crossfire in the running gunbattle and died. Her 8-year-old daughter suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and is in stable condition.



멕시코서 암매장 시신 일주일새 127구

최대 마약갱단 '세타스' 납치.살해 추정

멕시코에서 마약 갱단에 납치됐다 살해 된 것으로 추정되는 암매장 시신들이 수없이 나오고 있다.

수색작업을 하면 할 수록 시신이 더 나올 것이라는 얘기가 나오고 있다.

13일 외신보도에 따르면 현지 경찰은 전날 동북부 타마울리파스주(州) 국경 부근인 산 페르난도 지역에서 암매장 된 시신 28구를 추가로 발견했다.

당국이 7일부터 산 페르난도 일대의 용의지역을 뒤지기 시작하면서 나온 암매장 시신은 당일 59구에 이어 8일 13구, 11일 6구 그리고 이날 28구로 일주일 동안 산 페르난도 지역에서 발견된 시신은 모두 116구에 이른다.

지역은 다르지만 13일에도 서부 시날로아주(州)에서 여성 2명을 포함, 최소 11명의 시신이 구덩이에서 발견됐으며, 현장에서는 마약갱단인 '로스 세타스'와 '벨트 란 레이바'가 작성한 것으로 보이는 메시지가 발견됐다.

세타스는 산 페르난도에서 잇따라 발견된 변사체의 핵심 용의 단체로 당국은 세타스가 산 페르난도 지역을 여행하던 버스 승객들을 무더기로 납치한 뒤 살해한 것으로 추정하고 있다.

세타스는 과거 멕시코군을 탈영한 특수부대원들이 만든 멕시코 최대 마약갱단으로 군시절 '마약과의 전쟁'에 투입되며 배웠던 전투 기술을 이제는 동료 군인과 경찰을 상대로 사용하며 악명을 떨치고 있다.

연방 검찰은 전문가 30명을 투입해 암매장 시신의 신원을 확인하고 있지만 현재까지 신원이 나온 사람은 멕시코인 1명과 과테말라인 1명 등 2명뿐이다.

당국은 최근 검거한 용의자 아르만도 모랄레스 우스칸가의 진술을 토대로 사건 배후를 캐면서 시신 암매장 지역을 계속 수색하고 있다.

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