Mexico to Send 1,500 Troops to Cancun Area After Deadly Gunplay

Mexico will deploy a battalion of almost 1,500 National Guard troops to Cancun and surrounding beaches after two separate deadly shootouts sparked concerns over the security of the Riviera Maya region, the country’s top tourist destination.

“This battalion will provide security to the entire tourist area,” General Cresencio Sandoval, Mexico’s secretary of national defense, said in a press briefing Wednesday.

Mexico recently stationed 450 members of the armed forces in Tulum, the Caribbean beach resort popular with celebrities, after two foreign tourists were murdered last month in the crossfire of two groups dealing drugs. A few days later, two presumed drug dealers were killed, sending tourists fleeing, in another shootout near luxury hotels in Puerto Morelos, also on Mexico’s Caribbean coast. 

The battalion will be deployed Dec. 1, Sandoval said, adding that the government’s different defense bodies will coordinate efforts to increase security in the region. Depending on the results of this plan, the Secretary of Defense plans to expand it out to the other main tourist areas in the country, he said.