Gunmen raid Holiday Inn in northern Mexico, kidnap 3 people

Gunmen abduct 3 from hotel in northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY — Dozens of gunmen burst into a Holiday Inn hotel in the northern industrial city of Monterrey on Wednesday and abducted at least three people, prosecutors said.

The Nuevo Leon state attorney general’s office said it was not clear what motivated the abductions or who the victims were.

Local media reported that as many as 50 masked gunmen hijacked several trucks and used them to block streets near the hotel during the raid. But a prosecutor’s spokesman, who said he was not authorized to be quoted by name, said it was unclear if the two events were related.

The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey denied media reports that an American woman had been kidnapped from the Holiday Inn, and it repeated warnings to U.S. citizens to be wary of violence in Nuevo Leon state.

Violence by battling drug cartels has become increasingly intrusive in Monterrey, where drug cartels have tried to confound police and soldiers by blockading roads with stolen, sometimes-burning vehicles.

On March 19, two university students were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen and soldiers outside the gates of their campus.

Since those shootings, at least three U.S. universities have suspended their exchange studies programs in Monterrey, a major industrial hub.

In one wealthy suburb on Monterrey, the mayor created a group of private crime fighters, unaffiliated with police and paid with donations by local businessmen — a security force he now says will be disbanded.

Mayor Mauricio Fernandez of San Pedro Garza Garcia said the group was “smeared” by allegations it might itself be involved in illegal activities.

He previously said the group would perform “rough work, I would call it cleansing” and suggested it might operate outside the law.

Elsewhere, police found the bound bodies of two men in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca, alongside a banner that threatened to kill 25 more drug cartel members.

Police said the killings are part of a battle between traffickers Hector Beltran Leyva and U.S.-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “La Barbie.”

Cuernavaca police said the bodies were found early Wednesday outside a bar.

A message left near the cadavers said 25 of Beltran Leyva’s henchmen are being held and interrogated in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco and would be executed soon.

State police reported that three men were found shot to death Tuesday in a taxi in Acapulco. It was unclear whether they were related to the drug dispute.