Mexico Identifies 4 Bodies Left With Warning

MEXICO CITY (AP) – Officials in Mexico’s capital said Monday they had identified four bound bodies found in a sport utility vehicle over the weekend with hand-lettered messages identifying the dead men as kidnappers.

Investigators said three of the men had “Kidnapper” written on their backs with a marker. A sign also was left in the vehicle reading “For kidnapping, the Boss of Bosses,” which is a nickname for alleged drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva.

Another sign found in the vehicle Saturday read “Job 38:15,” a reference to a biblical verse that says: “The wicked are denied their light, and their upraised arm is broken.”

The city Attorney General’s Office said a motive had not been established.

Mexico has one of the world’s highest kidnapping rates. The Mexican government says about 97 kidnappings are reported each month but acknowledges most abductions go unreported because of fear that police themselves may be involved.

Prosecutors said the slain men were from the northern city of Monterrey and relatives identified them as the owners of automotive body shops or employees.

Over the weekend, Mayor Mauricio Fernandez of the upscale Monterrey suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia suggested one of the dead men had threatened him. Fernandez told local media the man was a kidnapper, adding: “They are going to understand, by fair means or foul, we are not going to accept any kind of kidnapping … and if not they will pay for it.”

In other violence, the army said Monday that soldiers in the border city of Tijuana detained a group of 13 suspects after a Sunday shootout that wounded a soldier and a gunman.

Some of the suspects were described as wearing military-style uniforms with “Jackass”-style logos showing a skull and crossed crutches. That is apparently a reference to a Mexican cartel operator nicknamed “Muletas,” or “Crutches.”

Other uniforms have been found in Tijuana recently with the logo “Muletas Special Forces.”

Soldiers seized five rifles and over 3,000 rounds of ammunition from the group, the army said.

Also Monday, the army said soldiers raided and destroyed three methamphetamine labs in the western state of Michoacan. The raids Sunday netted five suspects and more than two metric tons of apparent methamphetamine, the army said.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)