A group of tourists visiting Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, was attacked by suspected members of a criminal organization. One man was killed and the others have disappeared and may have been kidnapped, Jalisco state authorities reported.
Jalisco state prosecutor Gerardo Octavio Solís Gómez said the incident took place on July 18 in a residential area of the city.
He said 13 or 14 people from Guanajuato had split up into two groups after arriving in Puerta Vallarta and then met up in the residential area, where they were confronted by attackers.
“There was a series of shots,” Solís Gómez said. “One person was left wounded at the place, others managed to flee, some on foot, others in vehicles.”
The wounded person was pronounced dead at a hospital, and there has been no news about the others in the group, he said. Several off-road vehicles are also missing.
Sources said several of the missing tourists are business owners, including the man who died.
The prosecutor held the news conference hours after the Mexican media published several stories on the attack, saying the tourists had been kidnapped.
Octavio Solís Gómez didn’t rule out that possibility.
“It’s part of the investigations in conjunction with the murder and theft, and we’re going to continue along this line,” he said.
However, he stressed there are no formal allegations of abduction. He said the prosecutor’s office has had no contact with relatives of the missing people and has no knowledge of ransom requests.
Solís Gómez said everything points to the attack being perpetrated by a “high-danger crime cell” linked to some organized crime group.
The western state is the base of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which is one of the most violent criminal organizations in Mexico and has been blamed for the recent failed attack on Mexico City’s police chief, Omar García Harfuch. It is engaged in a bloody fight over territory with other groups, including a local gang in neighboring Guanajuato known as the Santa Rosa de Lima cartel, led by “El Marro.”
The prosecutor said none of the attacked tourists was linked to any criminal activity, but added that fear of cartels might be why no witnesses have appeared.
Puerto Vallarta is a beach resort city located on the Pacific Ocean. It is widely popular among national and international tourists.
Jalisco has seen a surge in crime and violence in the last decade.
The state has become the scenario of turf wars between rival drug trafficking organizations. Over the years, authorities have found hundreds of bodies inside illegal mass graves.
On July 20, Jalisco's Attorney General’s Office discovered a mass grave inside a property in Guadalajara. So far, authorities have found 23 corpses and six plastic bags containing human remains.
The local Attorney General’s Office informed that the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Disappeared Persons (FEPD) started the search operation on July 13. The property is located in El Pedregal neighborhood, in the El Salto township.
Up until July 17, authorities found 23 bodies and four bags containing human remains. So far, authorities identified three bodies through information crossover and the victims’ families have received the news.
Local authorities transported the human remains to the IJCF’s office, where experts will analyze the corpses and identify them.
The local Attorney General’s Office said the search will continue in the upcoming days.
On June 18, state authorities announced they found 14 bodies in two ranches located in Lagos de Moreno during an operation to search for missing persons.
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