Global General

Mexican authorities find 12 bodies in improvised graves

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2010-06-19 14:06

MEXICO CITY - Authorities of Mexico's Caribbean resort Cancun found 12 bodies in four improvised graves close to the city, officials said on Friday.

"They died of suffocation and were found with their hands and feet tied and with signs of torture," Francisco Alor, the state attorney of Quintana Roo, told reporters.

At least three bodies were cut open and were marked with the letter "Z", he added.

The letter might be a reference to the Zetas, assassins who work for a drug trafficking gang based in the Gulf of Mexico area.

In Nayarit, a state on the nation's Pacific coast, six people were killed and six others were injured in a gunfight on a major highway when gangsters attempted to ambush Mexican troops.

The dead include five suspected gangsters and one soldier. Mexico's military has sealed areas around the battle scene.