Six men murdered and dismembered in Mexican state of Michoacan

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Gunmen murdered six men and dismembered their bodies in a rural area of the western Mexican state of Michoacán, the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office (FGE) said on Wednesday.

The institution indicated that the mutilated bodies were located around 2 PM (19.00 GMT) in a town called El Zapote, in the municipality of Villa Jimenez. The six victims presented severe torture marks, and all of them were dismembered, although forensic personnel of the FGE presumes that they were killed by asphyxiation.

The authorities indicated that the six dismembered bodies were sent to the Forensic Medical Service (Semefo), awaiting to be identified and claimed by their relatives.

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The FGE stated that the main line of investigation is the possibility that the multiple crime is the result of revenge between drug trafficking cartels.

According to the Michoacan Public Security Secretariat (SSP), the Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), the Knights Templar, and the New Michoacan Family cartels operate in the municipality of Villa Jimenez and neighboring municipalities.

Michoacan is currently experiencing a serious wave of violence between the various drug cartels, which are seeking a realignment in the state’s geography, mainly in the regions of Tierra Caliente, Costa, and Bajio, where drug traffickers are fighting for the production and trafficking of drugs such as marijuana, poppy, and methamphetamine.

This is just a few months before the leftist Alfredo Ramirez Bedolla takes office on October 1 as governor of the state, after winning the June 6 elections as the candidate of the National Regeneration Movement (Morena) the party of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.