Gunmen raid norhtern Mexico hotel, kidnap at least 3 people

Gunmen raid northern Mexico hotel

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — A gang of gunmen burst into a hotel in the northern industrial city of Monterrey Wednesday and kidnapped at least three people, prosecutors said.

The Nuevo Leon state attorney general’s office said the victims’ identities and the possible motive in the dramatic seizure at the Holiday Inn have not yet been established.

Local media reported that as many as 50 masked gunmen hijacked several trucks and used them to block streets near the hotel during the kidnapping. 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.

Violence by battling drug cartels has become increasingly intrusive in Monterrey, where two university students were killed in the crossfire of a shootout between gunmen and soldiers outside the gates of their campus on March 19.

At least 3 U.S. universities have suspended their exchange studies programs in Monterrey since those shootings.

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.

The 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.