Three men killed "execution style" near Arizona-Mexico border (Reuters)

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) ? The bodies of three suspected drug traffickers were found shot to death "execution style" in a remote area near the Arizona-Mexico border, police said on Tuesday, in a crime possibly committed by bandits.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada said Border Patrol agents found the bodies of the three men on Monday in the Tumacacori Mountains, about 20 miles northwest of the border city of Nogales.

Estrada said all three men had been shot in the head. Two were identified as Mexican nationals, aged 21 and 42, while the third man has not yet been identified.

"We suspect, because of the activity that is generated up there by illegal aliens and drug traffickers, that they were very possibly hauling drugs, and might have been ripped off," Estrada told Reuters.

"It's the first triple homicide since I have been here, about 19 years ... It is disturbing because of the way these people were murdered, execution style," he added.

Estrada said the bodies had lain in the area, known as the Devil's Canyon, for up to two weeks before being spotted by a Border Patrol helicopter crew on Monday.

They were found a few miles from the spot where Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was shot dead by suspected border bandits in December 2010.

Terry was a member of the Border Patrol's elite tactical unit, dubbed Bortac, which was hunting down border bandits suspected of committing robberies and violent assaults in the area.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Greg McCune)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/crime/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111122/us_nm/us_crime_arizona_murders

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