Bodies of Australian surfers found in Sinaloa

Sheesh :(

Any place there is heavy drug cartel presence, the cops and the military convoy and cluster and generally 99.9% of the area has no police at all. So if they think they can get away with it, common criminals roam and cherry pick targets that will not offend the sensibilities of cartel sicarios.

Sinaloa except for tourist Mazatlan is no place to vacation. Rural and isolated Sinaloa is a death wish. Same for many areas in bigger cities and towns. Culiacan is not the place to wander off the main drag. OK to find a hotel on the main boulevard and then get out of Dodge first thing in the morning, but I will not even seek out a restaurant in that city. Mochis, Escuinapa, and every last non-Mazatlan beach is off my radar. This is totally Bad Karma land. Mex 15 and 15-D all the way to Tepic or Sn Blas.

What makes me wonder is the utter lack of decent surf until near Mazatlan. From there north is the shore for the Gulf of California. Even Mazatlan needs the right wind and swell to have surfable water. South of Mazatlan the surf gets better, but Sn Blas southward is supposedly better yet. Big question mark.

The violence down here is well-known world-wide. To have Australians decide to vacation in Sinaloa is hard and I mean REALLY hard to fathom. All this just does not fit somehow.

Wanton predation on helpless tourists is not anything other than a crime of opportunity and unless the victims were carrying a large amount of cash what possible motive could a scumbag have? The van was not stolen. A lot of questions that will probably go forever answered.

I believe that "profiling" is a science. IMO it's a great tool in your arsenal of methods which are useful in solving problems. Why else would experience matter?
As far as which country has the most violence, or which country do you prefer to visit or for residence,..... who cares? Just do whatever you want. I'm not offended by opinions.

The apologists and people who have vested financial interests in Mexican tourism will have you believe the van was struck by lightning or the fire was somehow the fault of the victims.

briansue wrote:

They probably ran into a cartel check point and didn't cooperate with it and got torched. They probably took the plates to put on another van and cause more havoc.

Probably probably probably - where are the facts?

you dont just burn up to death in your van, you think they sat there and torched? They were most likely already dead. If it wasn't the cartels then most likely the Policia.

As those of us who speak spanish and have lived and traveled south of the border know, most of these stories are fabricated to hurt the corrupt seated government in power and replace it with one that serves the people. This is probably an isolated incident that upon study will reveal the real truth. No reason to fear travel across the border folks. Nothing to see here, move on...

Tequila wrote:
It seems these guys were traveling after dark and likeley boondocking. It is likeley they met with foul play, but who here would travel after dark into parts of SE LA, Detroit or New Orleans & boondock?

You got the right. And not just those localities mentioned. Just look at the number of threads that continue to pop up about paranoid people not traveling or camping in an RV without carrying a handgun or long gun for protection anywhere in the U.S.

They probably ran into a cartel check point and didn't cooperate with it and got torched. They probably took the plates to put on another van and cause more havoc.

Probably probably probably - where are the facts?

The cartels do crazy **** all day, there main income isn't just drugs it's also kidnappings. They probably ran into a cartel check point and didn't cooperate with it and got torched. They probably took the plates to put on another van and cause more havoc.

It seems these guys were traveling after dark and likeley boondocking. It is likeley they met with foul play, but who here would travel after dark into parts of SE LA, Detroit or New Orleans & boondock?

There is another thread going on about this on this forum.

We read these news reports and have to wonder where the reporters get their information. It is very sad that this happened to these young men. But what actually happened? What evidence is there this has anything to do with cartels? And what possible reason would the cartels have for doing this? Makes no sense to me.

My father was a newspaper reporter and music critic way back when journalism was still an honorable profession. Maybe today these so called journalists get paid for each word they write. So they take a story and add another story - or maybe a few more stories - and try to find ways to tie this to that and just ramble on building a story with as many words as they can. Does making things up pay better than finding facts?

How about we wait until someone has more details and evidence before we get involved in supposition and speculation and rumor and gossip and just plain making things up.

So the cartels operate in Sinaloa. Something bad happens in Sinaloa so it must be the cartels. I am in no way trying to defend cartels. But I simply do not get what this would have to do with cartels. I won't guess or speculate as to what happened. Maybe it was a simple case of their vehicle catching on fire. But then the missing license plates could indicate otherwise. Why would someone take the license plates?

People are guessing they were driving at night. Probably. Do we know that? Why were they off the main highway? We may never know. It sounds like they were missing for a least a couple days before the van was noticed. Was it in that spot all the time or was it taken there after something else happened? We may never know. Where were they between the time they communicated with the girlfriend and the time the van was found?

The word is these guys were experienced Mexico travelers and spoke Spanish. One had a girlfriend in Guadalajara and he had been there quite a few times. Did they know to be careful? Did they become overconfident and complacent? Did they know not to travel at night?

Is there even the wildest chance they ran into a couple other gringos and decided to party with their new found friends - who turned out to be bad guys - no Mexicans involved? Wild speculation. But is there evidence that says otherwise? What if they went roaming around Detroit or St. Louis at night? Are the odds better or worse? I have no idea.

Many years ago I was driving 48 states trucking when Castro let all the criminals out of prison and they went to Florida. Lots of drugs and killings. I needed a place to stay with the truck and asked in a truckstop if it was OK to spend the night - in other words asking permission. The guy said - "are you kidding - they kill people in the daytime around here". Totally irrelevant. But most of us who travel in Mexico know how to stay safe. Where to go and where not to go. Just as in the US we try to reduce the risk wherever we go.

We may never know what happened to the guys in this van. We probably won't. But we do not need to be making up stories about what did or did not happen until we know more facts.