Gruesome footage emerged on social media last week showing a dog carrying a severed human head in its mouth in the violence-hit state of Zacatecas, in Mexico.
Local police sources told Fox News that the head, along with other body parts, were left in an automatic teller booth in the town of Monte Escobedo on Wednesday, October 26.
The dismembered body was left alongside a a message referencing one of the many local drug cartels -- drug cartels in Mexico often leave notes next to dismembered human remains, as a form of intimidation toward rival cartels, or the security forces.
Before the police could secure the crime scene and collect evidence, the stray dog grabbed the head, carrying it off in its mouth by the neck.
The video on social media showed cops in a car trailing the dog, which is seen carrying the severed head, in a grisly and macabre scene. Police were eventually able to catch up to the dog and pry the severed head away from it.
Mexico's bloody drug war
According to figures released by the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System (Secretariado Ejecutivo del Sistema Nacional de Seguridad Pública - SESNSP), homicides in the state increased by 143.7 percent between 2020 and 2021, from 789 to 1134, making Zacatecas the state with the highest homicide rates in Mexico.
And that sad story is representative of the staggering levels of violence seen across Mexico, as rival drug cartels vie for territory and control of the highly lucrative smuggling routes north into the United States.
Although Mexican drug trafficking organizations have existed for several decades, their influence increased after the demise of the Colombian Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s.
Mexican drug cartels dominate wholesale illicit drug markets and in 2007 controlled 90% of the cocaine entering the United States. Arrests of key cartel leaders, particularly in the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, have led to increasing drug violence as cartels fight for control of the trafficking routes into the United States.
