Tourists witness armed men gunning down drug gang rivals at Cancun’s Hyatt beachfront hotel

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Tourists witness armed men gunning down drug gang rivals at Cancun’s Hyatt beachfront hotel | Secret Flying

Turf wars spread to tourist hotspots.

 

A commando of drug gang gunmen stormed ashore at a Cancun beach in front of the Hyatt Ziva Riviera hotel, before executing two drug dealers from a rival gang.

 

The assailants arrived by boat and wore ski masks, as they hunted their rivals Thursday afternoon.

 

According to reports, the two suspected drug dealers killed had apparently arrived at the beach earlier in the day, claiming it was now their territory.

 

One of the men targeted in the attack fled into a hotel before dying, while the other was killed on the beach.

 

Mike Sington, a former senior executive at NBCUniversal staying at the Hyatt, tweeted Thursday that one guest was hit with a stray bullet.

 

Sington said guests were instructed to hide in their rooms and barricade the doors as the chaos ensued downstairs.

 

The head prosecutor of Quintana Roo state, Oscar Montes de Oca, told Radio Formula station: “About 15 people arrived on the beach to assassinate two men who had showed up saying they were the new dealers in the area.”

 

Thursday’s incident was the second to shake Mexico’s Riviera Maya in recent weeks, after two tourists from Germany and India were killed in a shootout between suspected drug dealers in Tulum last month.

 

In the wake of the shocking Cancun shooting, many Americans are asking if it’s safe to visit the area.

 

The recurring violence is huge blow to a tourism industry still recovering from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 300,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006.

 

However, locals claim there is an unspoken agreement that the cartels do not bring trouble to the lucrative tourist areas. Whether that still is the case remains to be seen.