18 bodies found in Mexican mass grave after YouTube tip off

Acapulco - Police in Mexico have recovered 18 bodies from a mass grave amid an escalation in the bloody, drug related violence raging across the central American country.

Reports suggest the mass grave may contain up to twenty men who went missing whilst visiting the city of Acapulco over a month ago. The bodies were found in a rural woodland area on the outskirts of Acapulco. Police had received an anonymous tip off on Tuesday afternoon, and began digging where they found two bodies. Hours earlier a video appeared on YouTube in which two men, whose arms were apparently tied behind their backs, said they killed 20 men from the neighbouring state of Michoacan, reports Sky News They claimed in the video that the bodies of the twenty men who went missing were located at the same area as the two that police had found earlier. In the past ten days alone, some thirty people have been murdered in Acapulco, mostly from separate drug related violence. A Canadian businessman, Daniel Dion, 51, originally from Quebec disappeared there last week and his family have now identified his body after his rental car was found with a burned body in the trunk. A written statement from his family, published by EMC read: Considering what we know and have seen, the people that killed Daniel were professionals and went greatly out of their way to leave as little trace of the vehicle and his body as possible. This leads us to believe it was a contract execution It has been four years now since a military clampdown on organised crime was announced by President Felipe Calderon, which has led to the deaths of more than 28,000 people associated with the Mexican drug wars