CULIACAN, Mexico: Mexican authorities have arrested three alleged highway robbers in connection with the suspected murder of two Australian surfers who vanished last month, prosecutors said Friday.
The tourists’ burnt-out van was found with two unidentified bodies on Nov. 21 in the violence-plagued northwestern state of Sinaloa, but authorities have not confirmed that the remains belong to the Australians.
The van belonging to Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman was stopped on Nov. 21 by a gang driving a car that flashed police-like lights on a road in Sinaloa, said chief state prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez.
The suspects shot a long-haired man in the face when he resisted the robbery, Higuera told reporters.
The robbers killed the second man, drove the vehicle to another location and “set fire to the van with two bodies inside,” Higuera said.
“The documented reports leads to believe that the bodies found inside the burned van could be those of the Australian citizens Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman,” he said.
The prosecutor stressed that while the case was being investigated as a murder, DNA tests are due to confirm the identities of the bodies.
Two other suspects are on the run. Prosecutors did not say when the arrests were made.
“These people are part of a criminal group dedicated to vehicle thefts, drug dealing and with a history of committing murders,” Higuera said.
Municipal and federal police uniforms were seized from the suspects, who wore them to commit highway robberies, the prosecutor said. One of the gang members worked as a lookout, notifying accomplices when he saw vehicles that could be robbed.
Lucas and Coleman, both 33, were last reported to be in the Sinaloa town of Topolobampo on November 20 after arriving on a ferry from the Baja California peninsula.
The two men had driven from Edmonton, Canada and across the United States to Mexico to join Coleman’s Mexican girlfriend in the western city of Guadalajara.
Their van was discovered on Nov. 21 on a rural road of the town of Navolato. Last weekend, authorities confirmed the vehicle belonged to the Australians, raising fears about their fate.
Navolato’s mayor, Miguel Calderon, described the region as a “Bermuda Triangle” of crimes that include robberies, murders and kidnappings.
More than $60,000 has been raised on the crowdfunding website www.gofundme.com to help the two men’s parents travel to Mexico and bring their sons home.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop voiced “grave concerns” for the young men on Monday.
The Australian foreign affairs department issued a statement on Sunday on behalf of the families saying they were aware of reports that the van had been located and that “a tragic event has occurred.”
“The families hold deep fears for the safety of their sons but stress that they are still waiting for details to be confirmed,” the statement said.
The state is home to the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel led by fugitive drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who broke out of a maximum security prison in July.
While tens of thousands of Mexicans have been killed and 26,000 gone missing in nearly a decade of drug violence, violent attacks on foreign tourists are less common.
In July 2014, the decomposing body of Franco-American Harry Devert was found with signs of strangulation in the southwestern state of Guerrero, six months after he went missing while crossing the country on a motorcycle. He had traveled from New York, hoping to reach Brazil for the World Cup.
Mexico arrests 3 for suspected murder of Australian surfers
Mexico arrests 3 for suspected murder of Australian surfers
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
Carney says Canada has no plans to pursue free trade agreement with China as Trump threatens tariffs
TORONTO: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday his country has no intention of pursuing a free trade deal with China. He was responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a 100 percent tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with a trade deal with Beijing.
Carney said his recent agreement with China merely cuts tariffs on a few sectors that were recently hit with tariffs.
Trump claims otherwise, posting that “China is successfully and completely taking over the once Great Country of Canada. So sad to see it happen. I only hope they leave Ice Hockey alone! President DJT”
The prime minister said under the free trade agreement with the US and Mexico there are commitments not to pursue free trade agreements with nonmarket economies without prior notification.
“We have no intention of doing that with China or any other nonmarket economy,” Carney said. “What we have done with China is to rectify some issues that developed in the last couple of years.”
In 2024, Canada mirrored the United States by putting a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles from Beijing and a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum. China had responded by imposing 100 percent import taxes on Canadian canola oil and meal and 25 percent on pork and seafood.
Breaking with the United States this month during a visit to China, Carney cut its 100 percent tariff on Chinese electric cars in return for lower tariffs on those Canadian products.
Carney has said there would be an initial annual cap of 49,000 vehicles on Chinese EV exports coming into Canada at a tariff rate of 6.1 percent, growing to about 70,000 over five years. He noted there was no cap before 2024. He also has said the initial cap on Chinese EV imports was about 3 percent of the 1.8 million vehicles sold in Canada annually and that, in exchange, China is expected to begin investing in the Canadian auto industry within three years.
Trump posted a video Sunday in which the chief executive of the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers’ Association warns there will be no Canadian auto industry without US access, while noting the Canadian market alone is too small to justify large scale manufacturing from China.
“A MUST WATCH. Canada is systematically destroying itself. The China deal is a disaster for them. Will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history. All their businesses are moving to the USA. I want to see Canada SURVIVE AND THRIVE! President DJT,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump’s post on Saturday said that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”
“We can’t let Canada become an opening that the Chinese pour their cheap goods into the U.S,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have a , but based off — based on that, which is going to be renegotiated this summer, and I’m not sure what Prime Minister Carney is doing here, other than trying to virtue-signal to his globalist friends at Davos.”
Trump’s threat came amid an escalating war of words with Carney as the Republican president’s push to acquire Greenland strained the NATO alliance.
Carney has emerged as a leader of a movement for countries to find ways to link up and counter the US under Trump. Speaking in Davos before Trump, Carney said, “Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu” and he warned about coercion by great powers — without mentioning Trump’s name. The prime minister received widespread praise and attention for his remarks, upstaging Trump at the World Economic Forum.
Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has come after he has repeatedly needled Canada over its sovereignty and suggested it also be absorbed into the United States as a 51st state. He posted an altered image on social media this week showing a map of the United States that included Canada, Venezuela, Greenland and Cuba as part of its territory.
