MEXICO: Three bodies found after surfers go missing – FBI

Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence.

Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific, AFP journalists observed.

“We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims.

Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter have not been seen since April 27.

They were on vacation near the coastal city of Ensenada in the northwestern state of Baja California but the brothers’ mother, Debra Robinson, said they never arrived at their planned accommodation.

“Reaching out to anyone who has seen my two sons. They have not contacted us,” she wrote on a Facebook page for Baja California tourists before Friday’s discovery.

Santo Tomas, where the FBI reported the discovery of the three bodies, is about 30 miles (45 kilometers) southeast of Ensenada.

More than a dozen responders, including federal agents, state police, forensic experts and military personnel, were at work Friday on the difficult-to-access cliff area.