By Jeanine Lee Kitchel

Novedades/Cancun’s Saturday headline was disturbing. In encapsulated question marks, it read: Are Police Behind The Executions? The executions, of course, being those of the (now) four people linked to smuggling allegations whose bodies were found this week in Cancun. The last three victims, all Mexican, were found Friday by following red arrows painted on a highway that lead to a sinkhole which contained the bodies.

As mentioned in David Simmond’s story a few days ago, smuggling Cubans through Mexico has become a big business with these water coyotes receiving $10,000 USD per person.

As with many newspaper articles here, follow-ups can be rare and even the news stories themselves leave out important information. But in the spate of attacks on Cancun police by drug cartels (a police chief and his bodyguard and a police commissioner were executed within the past eight months in Cancun and have been attributed to the cartel) the drama of murders in Cancun, something unheard of in the recent past, is big news.

Many people I know here are in denial as to the changing times we’re experiencing on this once super safe coast. But about once a month I hear someone voice their concern about how things are changing. Cancunese fear that the cartel will gain a foothold in Cancun. And this recent crime, three more dead due to smuggling Cubans, has been attributed to the Cuban-America mafia, by the Quintana Roo attorney general. All in all, the body count is mounting, and although murder here is far less common than in the U.S., it’s disturbing to see these changes.

Details on this story can be found through the Miami Herald website at: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/story/192528.html.