The
Cadereyta Jiménez massacre occurred on the
Mexican Federal Highway 40 on 13 May 2012. Mexican officials stated that 49 people were
decapitated and mutilated by members of
Los Zetas drug cartel and dumped by a roadside near the city of
Monterrey in northern Mexico. The
Blog del Narco, a blog that documents events and people of the Mexican Drug War anonymously, reported that the actual (unofficial) death toll may be more than 68 people. The bodies were found in the town of San Juan in the municipality of
Cadereyta Jiménez, Nuevo León at about 4 a.m. on a non-toll highway leading to
Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The forty-three men and six women killed had their heads, feet, and hands cut off, making their identification difficult. Those killed also bore signs of torture and were stuffed in plastic bags. The arrested suspects have indicated that the victims were
Gulf Cartel members, but the Mexican authorities have not ruled out the possibility that they were U.S.-bound migrants. Four days before this incident, 18 people were found decapitated and dismembered near Mexico's second largest city,
Guadalajara.