Hours after a Mexican presidential candidate suggested cutting off hands to punish crime, a gang gave his idea grisly sign of approval

A Mexican presidential candidate suggested cutting off the hands of thieves during a debate on Sunday.
On Monday, a dismembered body appeared in Acapulco with a sign alluding to the candidate's comments.
Crime is on the rise in Mexico, but candidates have offered few new ideas to address it.

Few new ideas were offered by Mexico's presidential candidates during the first debate of the campaign on Sunday night, but one comment aroused surprise and anger around the country.

"We have to cut off the hands of those who rob. It's that simple," Jaime Rodriguez, or "El Bronco," a former Nuevo Leon state governor running as an independent, said during a discussion about corruption. He added

The moderator, taken aback by the comment, twice asked him if he was speaking literally and then checked again if he really meant it.

"That's right. That's right," Rodriguez replied. "Literally," he added, making a chopping motion with his hand.

He was repudiated for the comment, which was quickly mocked by Mexicans. But he doubled-down after the debate, and hours later, one of the gangs that have proliferated around the country in recent years appeared to endorse it with a grisly display.

Next to a dismembered body left on the outskirts of Acapulco on Monday morning, authorities found a sign reading, "El Bronco already said it: cutting off the hands of the scum who steal here is the first thing." The slain man's head, arms, and legs were recovered, but the torso was not found, according to Proceso.

The sign was attributed to Los Enterradores, possibly one of many criminal groups that have appeared around Acapulco, a once idyllic resort area that has been called "Guerrero's Iraq." Other signs found near the scene referenced taxes, or "quotas," levied by criminal groups on activities in areas under their control.

Such messages, often called "narcomantas," are frequently found at the scene of drug- or organized-crime-related violence in Mexico and were often seen during peak years of cartel bloodshed around 2011.

They are usually meant to claim credit for some action or as a warning to rivals or authorities. In some cases, criminal groups have left them on territory controlled by enemies to draw authorities' attention there.

In other instances, narcomantas have been left with bodies left in highly visible public areas, as was the case at a pedestrian overpass near the border in Tijuana at the end of 2016 or at several bridges near tourist areas in Baja California Sur in December 2017. The latter incident was the first time that state had seen such displays.

Javier Garza, a journalist in the northern city of Torreón, told The Guardian that Rodriguez knew the idea was "a non-starter" but also knew it would generate attention.

Hours after a Mexican presidential candidate suggested cutting off hands to punish crime, a gang gave his idea grisly sign of approval

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