5 women found shot dead inside vehicle in northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Five women were found shot to death inside an SUV on Monday in the northern Mexico state of Zacatecas.

The Zacatecas public security secretary said in a statement that the bodies were discovered early in the morning in the town of Juan Aldama, near the border with Durango state.

According to the statement, witnesses saw another vehicle pursuing the SUV, which crashed into a wall.

Authorities said they had identified only one of the victims. A gun was discovered inside a plastic bag in the vehicle along with a variety of drugs, and shells from a semi-automatic rifle were also found in the area.

In the neighbouring state of Jalisco, authorities said that one of 10 men arrested Sunday for transporting bodies in the back of a pickup truck was a state police detective. Police have frequently been accused of collaborating with Mexico’s drug gangs.

Jalisco chief prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer also raised from five to six the number of bodies found covered with plastic in the truck. Four of the dead had been identified and were said to have had drug trafficking links in the past.

Almaguer said the killings were apparently part of a dispute between drug gangs on the outskirts of the state capital, Guadalajara.

Jalisco is home to Mexico’s fastest-growing drug gang, the Jalisco New Generation cartel. Almaguer said another of the 10 detained was a leading operator for Jalisco New Generation in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.