Six severed heads found on city street in brutal gang warfare escalation

Six severed heads were recently found on a road in central Mexico, sparking a major investigation.

The discovery was made by local authorities early on Tuesday morning in an area that is usually peaceful and not associated with cartel violence.

The route where the severed heads were found links the central states of Puebla and Tlaxcala. Police have not yet provided a motive behind the killings, nor have they revealed any information regarding which criminal groups operating in Mexicocould have been behind the horrific act.

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A blanket was reportedly left at the gruesome crime scene with a message that issued a warning to rival gangs, as per local media. It was allegedly signed by a group called “La Barredora” which translates to "the sweeper".

“La Barredora” happens to be the name of a little-known criminal gang that operates in the western state of Guerrero, however, there’s no clarity on whether the cartel was behind the attack or their motive.

The Tlaxcala Prosecutor’s Office — which has already launched an investigation into the shocking killings — said the heads found in Tlaxcala were those of men. They took to

Federal authorities are yet to issue an official comment on the killings.

Apart from drug-trafficking, the region is famously plagued by the issue of fuel smuggling, also called “huachicoleo”, which generates billions of dollars in a year for the gangs behind the nefarious illegal activity.

The grisly news comes amid a massive crackdown on fentanyl trafficking by President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration.

Tlaxcala and Puebla, located just over 100 kilometers (62 miles) away from Mexico City, are generally not prone to this kind of extreme cartel violence — as seen in other parts of the country — with both the central states known to be largely peaceful.

In fact, Tlaxcala accounts for only 0.5 per cent of the nationally recorded intentional homicides figure of 14,769 between January and July, while Puebla makes up 3.4 per cent. However, authorities have acknowledged the states tend to face problems such as the movement of criminal groups dedicated to human and drug trafficking, as well as fuel theft, due to their central geographical location.

2022 saw authorities in Puebla discovering 116 migrants of various nationalities being transported in a truck.

In Sinaloa, a state torn by gang violence and crime, 20 male bodies with gunshot wounds were found in June this year on a bridge over a federal highway — out of which five were decapitated.

Meanwhile, in May, a shooting at a Catholic Church festival in the central state of Guanajuato resulted in the deaths of seven Mexican youths.

Mexico has seen a massive surge in violence between cartels in recent years — as hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and tens of thousands have gone missing — ever since the government of the country first began using the Mexican military against gangs back in 2006.