Mexico man's face skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball in Sinaloa in threat to Juarez drug cartel

By Soraya Roberts
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Saturday, January 9th 2010, 5:54 PM

In a new incident of grisly drug war violence, a man's face was skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball as a threat to members of Mexico's Juarez drug cartel.

The unknown assailants cut up the body of Hugo Hernandez into seven pieces and left him on a street in the northern city of Los Mochis, a spokesman for Sinaloa prosecutors, Martin Robles, told the Associated Press.

Hernandez's torso was found in a plastic container in a separate location from another box that contained his arms, legs and skull. The macabre soccer ball was discovered a plastic bag near Los Mochis' City Hall in Sinaloa.

The gruesome discovery included a note, which read, "Happy New Year, because this will be your last."

Hernandez, 26, was kidnapped from Sonora on Jan. 2 and taken to the neigboring state of Sinaloa. The motive for his abduction remains unclear but Sonora is known for its marijuana farms, Robles said.

Sinaloa state is the hometown of the bosses from four of the six major drug cartels in Mexico.

While tortures and beheadings have become a familiar sight since President Felipe Calderon started his crackdown on drugs three years ago, Hernandez's murder was particularly grisly.

More than 15,000 people have been killed in the drug war, many of them in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. At least 17 journalists have been killed since 1992 after reporting on the local drug community, which has spurred some of the country's newspapers to stop covering violence to avoid more deaths.

Members of the cartels often torture and mutilate their victims in order to intimidate the people who threaten them.

From: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/01/09/2010-01-09_mexico_mans_face_skinned_and_stitched_onto_a_soccer_ball_in_threat_to_juarez_dru.html