Bodies With Hearts Cut Out Found in Mexican Cave Outside Cancun

(June 7) -- Even in the midst of a drug war that has left thousands dead, this was a particularly gruesome discovery: six bodies in a cave, three of them with their hearts apparently cut out.

That is what police in Mexico found Sunday, in a natural cave just outside the resort town of Cancun.

Francisco Alor, the attorney general in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, said the victims -- two women and four men -- had been tortured. In a statement to The Associated Press, Alor's office said their "chests were opened to remove the hearts."

In the U.S., Cancun is probably best known as a vacation spot, but recently it has become yet another backdrop for Mexico's increasingly violent battle against the drug cartels.

The city is home to high-profile murders, drug-related violence and human smuggling. And it is becoming known as a hotbed of corruption as well. In May, former Cancun mayor Gregorio Sanchez, a candidate for governor of Quintana Roo state, was arrested for allegedly having ties to drug cartels. He claims he is innocent.

The bodies found in the cave have not been identified, and police did not confirm that they were victims of the drug war. But the Mexican newspaper El Pais reports that "Zs" were carved into the bodies, a widely known symbol of the Zetas, one of Mexico's most powerful cartels.

"Six deaths is not news in Mexico," El Pais lamented.

Cesar Munoz, an editor at Novedades, a newspaper in Cancun, said the resort town is no longer immune from the violence.

"The reality is that Cancun, like the rest of Mexico, is at war," he told the Los Angeles Times last year. "It's at war with the drug cartels."

Mexico's war on drugs is a national one. Two people were killed Sunday in Coyuca de Catalan when armed men opened fire at a "quinceanera," or "sweet 15," celebration.