6 Spanish Tourists Raped near Acapulco

The latest crime report will only make it harder for Mexico to shrug off the incidents of crime in tourist towns as isolated and rare


Five armed attackers broke into a property on a beach resort on Monday, tying up six men before raping the women 

Despite past assurances that tourists are safe in their country, Mexican tourism officials are again faced with trying to explain away another report of crime against foreign visitors.

The attack came three days after a pair of Mexican tourists returning from a beach east of Acapulco, where the tourists were renting bungalows near four-star hotels, were shot at and slightly wounded by members of a masked self-defence squad that set up cordons in areas north of the city to defend their communities against gang violence.

Crime tied to drug violence has reduced the number of tourists from the U.S. to Mexico in recent years but Mexican tourism officials have responded by targeting travelers from countries such as Russia, Brazil, Peru and Colombia.





Update on 2/24/2013: A Belgian citizen shot to death in the Pacific resort of Acapulco near the site of the Mexican Open tennis tournament was a resident businessman working for a transnational firm, local prosecutors in Mexico said Sunday.

Saturday’s killing was the second violent attack involving foreigners in Acapulco in less than three weeks. On Feb. 4, a band of masked gunmen invaded a beachfront home and raped six visiting Spanish women.