In Mexico, drug cartels threaten prized tourist destinations on the Mayan Riviera (2024)

With their machine guns and bulletproof vests conspicuous on the sandy beach in Playa del Carmen, in southeastern Mexico, the police officers and national guardsmen pick their way between the towels, failing to disturb the thousands of vacationers basking in the sun. A few meters away, a Canadian couple was murdered at knifepoint on Tuesday, June 21, in one of the residences of this former fishing village, now a city of more than 330,000 inhabitants. And a month earlier, a mafia attack left three people injured in a trendy bar. These are just the latest bloody episodes in a series of violent outbreaks threatening this cornerstone of the Mexican economy that acts like a magnet for the drug cartels.

Here at the edge of the Caribbean Sea, in the heat of the night, the atmosphere is electrifying as thousands of young people stroll along the Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue), the city's main pedestrian artery. Playa del Carmen is the economic jewel in the crown of the state of Quintana Roo, lying between the famous seaside resorts of Cancun, to the north, and Tulum, to the south. Spanning a length of 130 kilometers, the tourist area welcomed 13 million vacationers in 2021. With 120,000 hotel rooms, the region concentrates almost half of the revenue from a sector representing more than 7% of the gross domestic product of Mexico.

On the terrace of the Cerveceria Chapultepec brewery, dozens of revelers are sipping craft beer. Little did they know that on Sunday, May 22, gunmen had opened fire there, wounding three Mexicans, including a seven-year-old girl who received a scratch on the head. The pressures of doing business prevailed, and the brewery quickly reopened. Had it been an outburst of gratuitous violence, or maybe a settling of scores? "Here, we prefer not to say too much to journalists," confided the manager of a nearby bar, who said that, this time, "there were only light injuries." Others have not been so lucky. On May 6, 55 kilometers from there, gunfire in a bar in Cancun left one dead and six wounded.

In this city with a population of nearly one million and which hosts an international airport, tourists discovered human remains on a beach in mid-March. Two days earlier, in Playa del Carmen, a British businessman was shot dead behind the wheel of his car by two assailants on a motorcycle. The code of silence also reigns among the employees of Mamita's Beach Club, located 400 meters from the Quinta Avenida. In January, its Argentinian manager was shot while in the bathroom of the sleek establishment. Today, its posh customers are seated under large white umbrellas, enjoying colorful co*cktails as if nothing had happened.

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