Four killed near Cancun beach resorts; two suspects detained, Mexican officials say
Mexican officials confirmed Monday they discovered four dead bodies in a hotel area in the popular resort town of Cancun.
The deaths, ruled homicides, took place on Kukulcán boulevard near the popular Paradisus Cancun and Fiesta Americana resorts, according to the Quintana Roo Attorney General’s office, and come just weeks after the U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a travel advisory for popular spring break tourist destinations in Mexico, including Cancun.
Mexican officials say they swept the area near the hotel and detained two suspects.
“The victims are connected with drug dealing activities, ruling out that they might be hotel workers or tourists,” said Quintana Roo security official José de la Peña Ruiz de Chávez.
Last week, an American tourist took a bullet to the leg in a late night shooting by assailants in Puerto Morelos, a small resort town just south of Cancun. The tourist survived, but the motive for the attack was unclear.
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Quintana Roo officials on Monday offered the public a 1,000,000 Mexican peso, roughly $55,000, reward for information leading to the arrest of a third suspect identified in the Cancun killings as Héctor Elías Flores Aceves, known as “El 15,” a suspected Sinaloa Cartel operative in the area who has in the past been linked by Mexican news reports to other attacks in Cancun.
Monday’s killings unfolded as many in the country set off on spring break vacation, which typically lands on Holy Week or “Semana Santa” leading up to Easter Sunday.
Quintana Roo, a tropical state on Mexico’s Caribbean coast, is on the State Department’s “Exercise Increased Caution” list due to “crime and kidnapping” risk.
The State Department has warned Americans not to travel to a handful of other Mexican states, including Tamaulipas, where two Americans were abducted and two were killed last month in the border city of Matamoros.
Contributing: The Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Four killed near Mexico's Cancun beach resorts; suspects arrested
