Seven Brutally Murdered in Northern Mexico

Police on Sunday found the remains of seven people whose bodies were chopped up and dumped in cars in northern Mexico, near the U.S. border.

Police in Nuevo Laredo received a phone tip Sunday reporting bodies found in two cars that had been abandoned in a shopping center, state prosecutors said in a statement.

A source with the prosecutors' office, speaking privately, said the bodies were those of six men between 30-35 and another person whose age and gender had not been confirmed.

Just September 14, the bodies of 16 people were found spread over two locations in Nuevo Laredo.

The grisly incidents come on the heels of the September 12 arrest of Gulf cartel boss Eduardo Costilla, alias "El Coss," in Tampico, Tamaulipas state. The Gulf cartel has been weakened by its clash with the Zetas, a rival group set up by army deserters.

The Zetas were originally hired as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel, but turned on their employers and have taken over their lucrative turf, which includes key land routes to smuggle drugs across Central America and into the United States.

Mexico has been in the grip of a massive crime wave in recent years, with more than 60,000 people killed in drug-related violence since the launch of a military crackdown against the cartels in 2006.