A dozen drug gangs are fighting for tourist market in Mexico’s Caribbean, official says

Government forces guard the entrance of hotel after an armed confrontation Thursday near Puerto Morelos, Mexico. The shooting of two suspected drug dealers at a resort on Mexico’s Caribbean coast is part of a fight among about a dozen gangs to carve up the lucrative market of selling drugs to tourists and locals, an official said Friday. “In Tulum, we have about 10 groups of drug dealers, and here in Puerto Morelos, there are two groups fighting each other,” prosecutor Oscar Montes de Oca told the Imagen Radio station. “So we all kind of worried that something will happen while we’re there, and we’ll get caught in the action.” Jackson and Marie Hitches, also of London, said they saw about five masked men walking down the beach a couple of hours before the shooting, asking questions of a lifeguard and security staff, apparently looking for rival drug dealers, who had masqueraded as trinket vendors. The Puerto Morelos shooting comes two weeks after California travel blogger Anjali Ryot of San Jose and German citizen Jennifer Henzold were killed by crossfire during what appeared to be a clash over street-level drug sales in Tulum, prosecutors said.