Eight dead bodies dumped near El Paso border as rival cartels battle over migrant smuggling routes

The bodies of eight men slaughtered by a gang were dumped along a popular migrant route to the US border Sunday — a chilling message from one cartel to another as they war over human trafficking, sources told The Post.The victims had multiple stab wounds, showed signs of torture and had been shot according police, who found them semi-naked along the side of the highway between Chihuahua City and Juarez, the El Paso Times reported.Those killed have yet to be identified.

A note was pinned to one of the bodies with a knife including the line “Chihuahua tiene dueño,” which translates to “Chihuahua has an owner” — a phrase used by one cartel to assert their dominance in the area.Victor Avila, a retired agent for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), told The Post the area surrounding El Paso, is “one of the most coveted trafficking corridors from Mexico that exist” and the business of migrant smuggling has become the biggest cash cow.People smuggling into El Paso is controlled by three cartels, Sinaloa, La Linea and La Empresa, according to sources.“Just a few years ago, the cartels never dealt with humans, not human trafficking or human smuggling.

You had human trafficking organizations and human smuggling organizations that’s all they did, and the cartels did the drugs and other things,” said Avila, who was shot in the line of duty by a Los Zetas cartel member.“But that’s what has completely changed.The cartels saw the amount of potential money to be made with the human [smuggling] and they’ve now taken over.”“These human trafficking organizations and human smuggling organizations now have been incorporated and answer to the cartels and that’s where a lot of the struggle is because, yes, the cartels do want that money to be paid to them.”Two more people were located burned inside a vehicle a little further up the road to the border on the same day, both citizens of the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Chihuahua Attorney General Ce...