Mexican Beaches Becoming Drug Battlefields?

MEXICAN BEACHES BECOMING DRUG BATTLEFIELDS? As parties play out on the Riviera Maya, so does the drug business. This 80-mile stretch from Cancun to Tulum draws 20 million tourists per year with their appetites for drugs. Hoteliers face the choice of either allowing onsite drug sales, paying protection money, or closing down.

But the drug business also ultimately draws drug hitmen. Ten drug gangs are fighting to control the drug and extortion market in Tulum alone. On Oct. 20, a shootout between rival gangs killed two tourists outside a Tulum restaurant. Then on Nov. 4, 15 assassins shot dead two drug dealers in front of tourists on a Puerto Morelos beach.

Soldiers mix with sunbathers

Finally on Nov. 14, President Lopez Obrador deployed 1,500 National Guardsmen to the coastal strip. They roam beaches and streets with assault rifles and bulletproof vests amid scantily-clad sunbathers. They have focused not only on Tulum and Puerto Morelos, but also Isla Mujeres and Solidaridad. Now they will have to add Cancun to their beats.

Because on Dec. 8, five attackers on jet skis came up to a 4-star Cancun hotel beach and opened fire. Witness Kerry Arms said, “There was a delayed reaction for about maybe five seconds, then everybody started scrambling and screaming and crying, and running.”

No one was killed, and authorities found the jet skis abandoned a mile away.

International crime expert Robert Almonte says the National Guard presence helps. But it will not stop the violent rivalries.

‘The bottom line is these cartels are ruthless,’ Almonte said. ‘They are not going to let…national guardsmen deter them from executing their hit… And they’re not careful when they do that. So they’re spraying bullets and the result of that is innocent bystanders, tourists are killed.’