Police kill Mexico drug cartel killer who burned victims

MEXICO CITY – Prosecutors in the western Mexico state of Jalisco said Thursday that detectives killed a member of a local drug gang who allegedly burned his victims or tossed their bodies into a well.

State prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer didn’t identify the dead suspect, who allegedly refused orders to surrender when he was surrounded on a highway late Wednesday. Almaguer said only that the man was known by his nicknames: “TunTun,” ”Barbas” or “El Viejon,” the “Old Man” or the “Beard.”

Almaguer said that two burned bodies had been found at a rural encampment where the suspect hung out and that there was evidence he had killed at least 30 people and tossed some bodies into a well near an old mine.

In 2010, authorities recovered 55 bodies dumped in an abandoned mine in the southern state of Guerrero by a local gang.

Also Thursday, officials in the border state of Tamaulipas said soldiers killed six suspected kidnappers during a shootout near the U.S. border.

Authorities said the troops were patrolling a neighbourhood near the border crossing that leads to McAllen, Texas, when they came under fire from assailants inside a property. The soldiers returned fire, entered the property and found two kidnap victims as well as a bullet-proof vehicle and seven assault rifles, officials said.