Police in Monterrey, capital of Mexico's northern Nuevo Leon state, have found some 49 mutilated bodies dumped along a highway leading to the U.S. border, media reports citing officials said late on Sunday.
The dismembered bodies were reportedly found dumped in Cadereyta municipality on the highway from Monterrey to Reynosa on the U.S. border. According to officials, the victims appeared to have been killed elsewhere at least two days ago and dumped from a truck.
Police officials were quoted as saying by the Mexican media that the body parts were that of 43 men and six women. They said the bodies were mutilated beyond recognition and added that a note found alongside the corpses indicated that the massacre was carried out by the Zetas cartel.
The dreaded Zetas drug cartel was formed by former Mexican special forces soldiers. The Zetas initially served as hit-men and armed enforcers for the powerful Gulf cartel. They later split from their employers and extended their activities to include drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. The group has been engaged in fierce turf-wars with the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels for control of the lucrative drug smuggling routes into the U.S.
The development comes just days after the decapitated and dismembered bodies of at least 15 people were found stuffed inside two vans in the country's western Pacific coast state of Jalisco. Prior to that, some 23 bodies were found in the border city of Nuevo Laredo in Nuevo Leon state earlier this month. Also, police had found the remains of 26 bodies stuffed into three vehicles in Jalisco state capital Guadalajara, Mexico's second-largest city, in November.
The states of Jalisco and Nuevo Laredo were earlier controlled by the infamous Sinaloa cartel led by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, who is Mexico's most wanted drug lord. He has been on the run since he escaped from a Mexican prison ten years ago. The two states began witnessing regular drug-related violence in recent years after the Zetas began challenging the Sinaloa cartel and other drug gangs based in western and northern Mexico.
The Mexican government says that more than 45,000 people have died in drug-related violence in the country since President Felipe Calderon launched an offensive against drug gangs after taking office in December 2006.
Besides fighting drug cartels, Calderon has deployed thousands of troops across the country to check drug-related violence and launched a massive anti-corruption drive named 'Operation Clean-up' to identify and punish public servants having links with drug cartels.
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