Murders rock Mexico’s tourist hub of Mazatlan

CULIACAN—Gunmen opened fire on a group of friends and killed five people outside a liquor store in Mazatlan, one of Mexico’s busiest international tourist hubs, authorities said Sunday.

Witnesses told police the gunmen did not say a word: they simply passed by the friends, who were in a vehicle outside the store, and opened fire, killing three men and two women, Sinaloa state police said.

Sinaloa is one of the hardest-hit states in Mexico’s spiraling drug-related crime wave.

More than 41,000 people have been killed across Mexico since the federal government in 2006 launched a crackdown against drug cartels, according to official data and media tallies.

The state is home to Joaquin ‘el Chapo’ Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s largest, with its operational reach extending through Central America and down to Colombia.

Guzman was arrested in 1993 but bribed his way out of a maximum security facility by hiding himself in a laundry cart.

He has a $5 million bounty on his head.