The rackets include extortion, prostitution, local drug sales, and kidnapping, as well as “using ATM skimmers to rip off unsuspecting tourists,” Bunker said. Smaller gangs such as the Pelones, Bonfil, and fragments of the once-mighty Zetas cartel also compete for revenue streams from a variety of underworld activities. Bunker, director of research and analysis at the security firm C/O Futures LLC, said Tulum has become “a cartel snake pit.”īunker named the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel as the two biggest players in the region. He added that narcotics are brought into the coastal region from Central and South America using “airports, hidden landing strips, and by sea via go-fast boats that can elude the Mexican navy.”ĭr. There are many people all around, so it’s easier to disguise and move contraband and to launder money in the hotels and other businesses,” said the police commander. “Logically in the struggle for power and drug trafficking routes the cartels desire tourist zones. Watch: A haunted tale: A little boy's spirit haunts this New Mexico Theater A man was executed outside a law office in Cancun this August, prompting additional headlines about how violence “ continues to take over” in the region. In June, another American was wounded in a shooting that killed two other people when gunmen opened fire from jet skis. An American firefighter was kidnapped and murdered from an all-inclusive resort in July. But Tulum and the rest of the Riviera Maya are increasingly becoming inundated by cartel violence. We Finally Know How 43 Students on a Bus Vanished Into Thin AirĪ playground for celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow, Tulum is famous for its Mayan-era ruins and pristine beaches. When a firefight breaks out no one is safe,” the commander said. “It’s a sad mistake for the victims, but such cases are not rare or unusual anymore. “They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and got caught in an exchange of gunfire between competing drug traffickers,” said a high-ranking Mexican police commander, who agreed to speak with The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity. Of the two women who were killed, one was from Germany and the other India.
Three other people were also wounded when the firefight broke out in the popular restaurant, La Malquerida, not far from the beach.
Two foreign female tourists were caught in a crossfire between rival crime groups and shot to death last Thursday in the high-end resort town of Tulum, Mexico.