Internet blogger decapitated by Los Zetas

In September there were several high profile cases of internet users -- here they're referred to as cibernautas -- who were executed by drug cartels. Why?

In each case the person had used some form of social media, such as a Twitter or Facebook account, or a blog or website, to post information about organized crime. In one gruesome case, the 39 year old lead editor of the newspaper Primera Hora, María Elizabeth Macías, was found decapitated and mutilated in northern Nuevo León state. A narcomensaje, or executioner’s warning note left by her head, said that she had been killed in retaliation for using the internet and social media networks to report on drug trafficking.

In a similar case shortly before that, a 25 year old man and a 28 year old woman were executed and then hung from a bridge -- to serve as a warning to others -- for similar public postings. These crimes all occurred in adjoining areas controlled by the Los Zetas cartel, in the northern Mexico states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo León. Although each of the cibernautas had of course used code names online, somehow the executioners tracked them down. Yet the bridge pair was never identified by authorities.

Today, in the border town of Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state, the body of a 35 year old man was found handcuffed and decapitated at the base of a Christopher Columbus monument. Police say that he had been tortured before his death. As with the other victims, an executioner's note said that he was killed for disclosing information about cartel activities in the area. Authorities also confirmed that the man moderated a web site which focused on Los Zetas, and that he had collaborated on a blog with the female editor who was decapitated in late September.

Report on the María Elizabeth Macías case: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/amnesty-international-demands-action-in.html.

El mismo reporte en español: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/se-encuentra-otra-periodista-mexicana.html.

Reports on the pair hung from the bridge: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/cuidado-con-tus-tweets-los-sicarios-te.html;
and: http://mexicogulfreporter.blogspot.com/2011/09/update-on-social-media-executions-in.html.