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A San Jose, California woman (Indian born) was one of 2 foreign tourists killed in the apparent crossfire of a drug-gang shootout in Mexico’s Caribbean coast resort of Tulum. The authorities in Quintana Roo (the state where Tulum, Playa del Carmen, and Cancun are located) said one of the dead women was Anjali Ryot. An Instagram account under the same name showed a post of Ryot lounging and smiling on a seaside pier in Tulum 2-days ago. It listed her as a travel blogger from Himachal, India, living in California. A linked Facebook page said she lived in San Jose. A German woman who was killed has been identified as Jennifer Henzold, though no hometown was immediately available for her.3 other foreign tourists were also wounded in the shooting on late Wednesday at a street-side eatery that has some outdoor tables, right off Tulum’s main strip.

They included 2 German men and a Dutch woman. The German Foreign Office issued a travel advisory about the violence and advised its citizens that if you are currently in the Tulum or Playa del Carmen area, don’t leave your secured hotel facilities. The prosecutors said the gunfight apparently broke out between 2 groups that operate street-level drug sales in the area. The tourists were apparently dining at the restaurant and may have been caught in the crossfire. The shooting occurred on Tulum’s ‘Mini-Quinta,’ a reference to Playa del Carmen’s larger, flashier bar, and restaurant zone known as Quinta Avenida, or 5^th Avenue. The civic group Citizens Observatorio of Tulum posted photos of hand-lettered signs on Friday that appeared at a local market in Tulum, signed by a drug gang known as Los Pelones (the Shaved Heads).

The sign indicates the shooting was a warning and said you either get in line or we are going to continue shutting places down like the Mini Quinta. It was an apparent warning to pay extortion demands for protection money. The sign added, “We are in control here”. The gang is part of the Gulf Cartel, which has long extorted protection money from bars and nightclubs in Cancun but has now apparently extended operations further south to Playa del Carmen and Tulum. The gang is also fighting the Jalisco Cartel and other groups for the area’s lucrative drug market. The killings threatened Tulum’s reputation as a low-key carefree beach town without the crowding and problems of Cancun. A US tourist James Graham said, “I came to Tulum with the idea of possibly buying a property there to rent out on ‘AirBnB’. Right now, we are not so sure we’re going to buy anything here”.