Sixteen charred bodies found in SUVs in northern Mexico

Nov 23, 2011, 21:10 GMT

Mexico City - The bodies of 16 people, reportedly including one woman and three police officers, were found Wednesday, burnt inside two SUVs in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan.

According to the state attorney general's office, the bodies were found in two separate incidents in the capital of the state of Sinaloa, about 1,200 kilometres north-west of Mexico City. In a third incident, four people were murdered in the town of Los Pericos, in northern Sinaloa.

In Culiacan, firemen called to a burning SUV found five bodies in the back and a further seven bodies under a false bottom in the vehicle, a spokesman for the Sinaloa attorney general's office told dpa.

A further SUV was reported as being on fire later in a different place. Four bodies were found burnt inside the vehicle. Of these, three were wearing tactical vests, leading authorities to believe they could be police officers who were abducted Monday in the town of Angostura.

Preliminary investigation indicates that the bodies were burnt directly inside the vans. There was no immediate evidence that they had been shot first.

The state of Sinaloa is the birthplace of several of Mexico's top drug lords, including the leaders of the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juarez and Beltran Leyva cartels.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in Mexico over the past five years in incidents linked to organized crime.