Two Mexican Men stormed into the Mermaid Bar in Cancun

Two men stormed into The Mermaid bar with automatic rifles and gunned down seven people, wounding four others.

“I understand that it can be disturbing but this area is really in the outskirts of Cancun and is not tourist related. No tourists go there,” Matteo Luthi, general manager at Journey Mexico, told the Daily News.

At least seven people were killed and four wounded on the outskirts of the Mexican resort area of Cancun. The state prosecutor, Armando Garcíia Torres, told a local radio station that the motive was under investigation, and that the possibility of the involvement of organized crime gangs, which have targeted taxi workers in other states, had not been ruled out.

Most of the victims are members of a taxi drivers union but police are still working on the motive, said Jesus Aiza, the public safety secretary. Aiza said the gunmen arrived in two cars Thursday afternoon, went inside the bar and began shooting. Reuters noted that Cancun, located on the northeast coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, has largely escaped the kind of drug violence that has plagued other parts of the country.

Mexico’s efforts to increase tourism have not been helped by recent episodes of crime near or in tourist spots, including the arrest last month of local police officers in the rape of an Italian woman in Playa del Carmen, near Cancún, and the sexual assault of six women from Spain last month at a beach house in Acapulco, on the Pacific coast.

The Telegraphnoted that armed army personnel regularly patrol the most popular tourist beach and hotel spots. Soldiers are standing guard at the hospital where the wounded are receiving treatment, Aiza explained.

Were raped by hooded men at a beach house. One traveler, who was in Cancun during the murders, did not learn about the incident until his vacation was already over.

Last month in Acapulco, a fading vacation spot on the Pacific coast, six Spanish tourists

As many as 43,000 spring breakers are expected to descend upon Cancun this year, according to Maximo Garcia Rocha, tourism director for Cancun.
This estimate constitutes a massive leap from last year’s 25,000 spring breakers, reported The Associated Press.

Since 2007, drug violence in Mexico claimed the lives of about 70,000 people.