Two Tourists Were Murdered in Oaxaca’s Once Peaceful Beach Area in a Week

MEXICO CITY — A Canadian man was found shot to death inside a car in the Mexican beachside city of Puerto Escondido on Monday, authorities said. He was the second tourist violently murdered along the coast of the southern state of Oaxaca coast in less than a week.

The man was found in an inland part of the city, far from the usual tourist haunts closer to the city’s famed beaches, according to Oaxaca state prosecutors. Authorities did not announce the man’s name, but he was identified in the media as Victor Masson, 27. It’s unclear what part of Canada Masson was from, or how long he had been in Puerto Escondido.

Masson’s murder came just days after three Argentine tourists were attacked in Oaxaca with a machete on May 12. One of them, identified as Benjamín Gamond from the city of Cordoba, died days later in hospital.

The machete attack took place in the Laguna de Chacahua, a popular day trip from Puerto Escondido, a couple hours northwest along the pacific coast. Local residents reportedly subdued the machete-wielding man and turned him into the authorities. No motive was provided for the man’s attack.

The pacific coast of Oaxaca has long been considered a safe and relaxing destination for foreigner travelers compared to their more famed and glitzy counterparts on Mexico’s southeastern Mayan Riviera, where there is a large internal drug market and cartel presence. While popular getaways like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum have seen a recent uptick in violence against tourists, Oaxaca remained largely unaffected, until now.

Over the past two years, several tourists were killed in the Mayan Riviera. In January 2022, two Canadians were gunned down inside a hotel in Playa del Carmen, although authorities suggested the dead men may have had connections to organized crime. A shootout outside of a popular restaurant on the main drag in Tulum in October 2021 left two foreign tourists dead from stray bullets — a travel blogger from California and a German traveler.

As a response, the Mexican government sent thousands of soldiers to guard popular beachside areas around the country to deal with the issue, although few went to Oaxaca. That could change after this week’s violent incidents.