8 bodies found by farmer likely kidnapped workers from Mexican resort, prosecutors say

Eight bodies were found Saturday on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, and they appear to be those of eight men apparently kidnapped from a resort on the Caribbean coast, officials said.

Prosecutors in the state of Yucatan said the bodies were probably those of men reported abducted in the laid-back beach town of Xcalak.

Xcalak, which is sometimes spelled Xcalac – the spelling used by prosecutors – is located on the southern tip of Mexico’s Caribbean coast, near Belize.

At least seven men, and possibly eight, had been reported abducted Friday from a ranch in Xcalak.

The bodies were found by a farmer in a field in a Yucatan village just over the border from Quintana Roo. Yucatan prosecutors said they do not appear to have been killed where they were found, and were probably just dumped there.

Officials did not identify the abducted men, but local media reported they were workers at a coastal ranch.

So far Xcalak had largely been spared the violence that has afflicted other beach towns in Quintana Roo state. However, packages of drugs have been known to wash ashore there in the past.

Violence is not uncommon in the region, but until recently has occurred mostly away from tourist areas.

Last week, two Canadians were found dead in an apartment in the Mexican resort city of Playa del Carmen, which is in Quintana Roo state.

Last October, a shootout between suspected drug traffickers in Tulum left two tourists dead, a German woman and an Indian woman who lived in California.

On January 21, two other Canadians were killed and one injured in a shooting at a resort near Cancun.

And in March, a British resident of Playa del Carmen was shot and killed in broad daylight while traveling with his daughter in his car.

Quintana Roo authorities have indicated that most of the recent attacks are related to drug dealing or extortion.

Mexico has registered more than 340,000 murders and tens of thousands of disappearances since launching a controversial military offensive against organized crime in 2006.