4 found dead in hotel area of Mexico’s Cancun beach resort

CANCUN, Mexico — Authorities in the Mexican resort of Cancun said Monday they have found four dead bodies in the city’s hotel zone near the beach.

There was no immediate information on the nationalities or identities of the victims. The announcement of the deaths came less that a week after a U.S. tourist was shot in the leg in the nearby town of Puerto Morelos.

Prosecutors originally said three bodies were found Monday in a lot near one of Cancun’s beachside hotels along the Kukulkan Boulevard. They then added that a fourth body was found in the undergrowth on the same lot, brining to four the number of victims.

Prosecutors in the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo said two suspects had been detained in the killings. They said the deaths were under investigation, but did not give a cause of death.

Last week in Puerto Morelos, a U.S. tourist was approached by several suspects, and they shot him in the leg. The motive remains under investigation. The wounded man was taken to a hospital in Cancun for treatment, and his injury was judged to be not life-threatening.

The U.S. State Department issued a travel alert earlier this month warning travelers to “exercise increased caution,” especially after dark, at Mexico’s Caribbean beach resorts like Cancun, Playa del Carmen and Tulum, which have been plagued by drug gang violence in the past.

There have been a series of brazen acts of violence along the Caribbean coast, the crown jewel of Mexico’s tourism industry.

In 2022, two Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, apparently because of debts between international drug and weapons trafficking gangs.

In 2021, farther south in the laid-back destination of Tulum, two tourists – one a California travel blogger born in India and the other German – were killed when they apparently were caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers.