Severed body parts, cartel signs found hanging in Mexico

Body parts surrounded by handwritten signs were discovered near a pedestrian bridge outside Mexico City this week — and a violent drug cartel has claimed responsibility.

The severed human leg was first found hanging from a bridge in Toluco on Wednesday, CBS News reported.  

The torso of what is believed to be the same body was then found on the street below, not far from the city center, the outlet said.

The mangled torso, which is thought to have belonged to a male victim between 35 and 40 years old, was discovered alongside handwritten signs from the Familia Michoacana cartel.

Other parts of the body were later found in another neighborhood, also with signs nearby, and police subsequently discovered the remains of a second body scattered on the city’s east side, CBS said.

More body parts were then found in a burning car on Toluca’s industrial north side.

Despite the grisly finds, Mayor Raymundo Martínez Carbajal called for collective calm in the face of possible incursion from the Familia Michoacana.

“The issue of crime brings us all together, and we all have to fight it,” he said.

The cartel, which originated in the Michoacan state in the early 2000s, has wreaked havoc in the State of Mexico and the neighboring Guerrero state for years after being ousted from its home turf.

The group is known for carrying out deadly ambushes on police and local residents, CBS noted.

Last year, the US Treasury Department sanctioned the Familia Michoacana over accusations that the cartel was manufacturing “rainbow” fentanyl pills to target children.

The discoveries of the scattered body parts in Toluca came just one day after authorities found the bodies of four men and two women in the northern city of Monterrey amid a wave of cartel violence.

Displaying severed body parts is one of the more gruesome ways the Familia Michoacana and other gangs try to intimidate their rivals, CBS explained.

In June 2021, the outlet noted, two heads and other body parts were left at a polling station in Tijuana on an election day. One year later, six severed heads were found on top of a Volkswagen in Chilapa de Alvarez with a warning sign strung in the trees overhead.