Mexican drug crime: The bodies of 23 people have been found hanging from a bridge or decapitated and dumped along the border city of Nuevo Laredo, where drug cartels are fighting a bloody and escalating turf war

Authorities found nine of the victims, including four women, hanging from an overpass leading to a main highway. Hours later, police found 14 human heads inside coolers outside city hall along with a threatening note. The 14 bodies were found in black plastic bags inside a car abandoned near an international bridge. The city across the border from Laredo, Texas has recently been torn by a renewed turf war between the Zetas cartel, a gang of former Mexican special-forces soldiers, and the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which has joined forces with the Gulf cartel, former allies of the Zetas. Nuevo Laredo was the site of a 2003 dispute between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels that set off a wave of violence that has left thousands dead and spread brutal violence across Mexico.