5 decapitated bodies found on road in Mexico, heads discovered in bag nearby

Mexican authorities said Sunday they had found the bodies of five decapitated men on a road in western Jalisco state, the latest grisly find in the violence-plagued country.

The bodies were found in black plastic bags in the municipality of Ojuelos, in northeastern Jalisco, the state prosecutor’s office said.

“A report was received indicating that, on the asphalt strip of the road (…) there were several bags that looked like human silhouettes,” it said.

Upon arriving at the site, National Guard members found the headless bodies of five men, wearing only pants.

Nearby, they found another bag containing what appeared to be the heads of the victims, the prosecutor’s office said, adding that forensic scientists were combing the area for evidence.

The municipality of Ojuelos borders the city of Lagos de Moreno, which has been the scene of several grisly killings blamed on organized crime.

One of the most notorious cases involved the disappearance of five young people on August 11, 2023, whose torture and murder was later revealed in a video posted on social media.

The violence in Jalisco is blamed chiefly on the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent criminal groups.  The Jalisco cartel is better known for producing millions of doses of deadly fentanyl and smuggling them into the United States disguised to look like Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone. Such pills cause about 70,000 overdose deaths per year in the United States.

The U.S. government has offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Jalisco cartel leader Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho.” 

According to official figures, 1,415 people were murdered in Jalisco state between January and September of this year.

Across Mexico, more than 450,000 people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing in a spiral of violence since the government deployed the army to combat drug trafficking in 2006.

Last week, the mayor of Chilpancingo city in Guerrero state, Alejandro Arcos, was found beheaded less than a week after taking office. Local media reported that his head was left on the hood of a pick-up truck.

One day later, officials said four other mayors in Mexico asked federal authorities for protection.

Earlier this month, 12 bodies — all bearing signs of torture and left with messages by cartels — were found in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato.

Mexico’s first woman president Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office on October 1, faces a major challenge to tackle the cartel violence.

She has pledged to stick with her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to tackle crime at its roots.

“The war on drugs will not return,” the leftist president told a news conference this week, referring to the U.S.-backed offensive launched in 2006.