Mexico police find decapitated women believed to be drug informants

Police appear to be fighting a losing battle in Mexico's murderous drug war. Picture: AP

 POLICE in northern Mexico have found the decapitated bodies of two women with missing index fingers, a sign among drug gangs that they believed the victims were informants. 

 

The women, between the ages of 20 and 25, had also been shot and tortured, a Nuevo Leon state investigator told AFP overnight, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The bodies were found near a highway in the Monterrey metropolitan area.

Nineteen women have been murdered this year in Monterrey, state police said.

The northern city of Monterrey, population three million, is an industrial hub and Mexico's third most populous metropolis.

Monterrey and surrounding areas have gone from being one of the safest regions in Mexico to becoming a flashpoint in the country's continuing drug violence in recent years.

Violence in the area is blamed on turf wars between the Zetas gang and Gulf cartel.

Some 50,000 people have died in rising drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon deployed tens of thousands of troops to take on the powerful cartels five years ago, according to media counts.