Three suspected of smuggling Cubans found dead in Cancún (Cuban Americans)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Miami Herald

Three suspected of smuggling Cubans found dead in Cancún
Posted on Sat, Aug. 04, 2007Digg it del.icio.us reprint or license print email
BY MANUEL ROIG-FRANZIA
Washington Post Service

MEXICO CITY -- The bodies of three people suspected of smuggling Cubans to the United States through Mexico were found gagged and blindfolded Friday in a natural sinkhole near Cancún.

The killings were the latest in a series of incidents related to the smuggling of Cubans into Mexico, where authorities have observed a marked increase in such attempts in recent months. At least four people linked to smuggling allegations have been killed this week in Cancún, which has become a popular landing spot for boats sneaking Cubans into the country.

Police were led to the three most recent victims -- Jesús Aguilar, Edwin Park and a woman whose name was not given, all of whom are Mexican -- by red arrows painted on a highway leading to the sinkhole. Three days earlier, police found the bullet-riddled body of Luis Lázaro Lara Morejón, a Cuban American suspected of smuggling, on a roadside near Cancún. The woman found Friday was Lara's girlfriend.

''We believe these people were executed by those who are part of a Cuban-American mafia,'' Bello Melchor Rodríguez, attorney general of Quintana Roo state, told the Associated Press. ``They probably hired people to execute them. We don't know if the Cuban Americans themselves killed them.''


Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/192528.html

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Wikipedia on Jose Miguel Battle, Sr., "El Padrino," the Cuban Mafia "godfather:"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Miguel_Battle,_Sr.

Better BBC article on "El Padrino:"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3568413.stm