Tourist shot to death in popular Mexican resort town days after another tourist killed in machete attack

A Canadian tourist has been shot and killed in a Mexican beach town just days after a tourist from Argentina was hacked to death in a machete attack in the same Pacific coast resort area.

Prosecutors in the Mexican state of Oaxaca say the Canadian man was found dead in a car with a bullet wound in the town of Puerto Escondido, a relaxed beach town popular with surfers, on Monday. 

No details were revealed regarding the specific circumstances of the man’s death, but he was identified as 27-year-old Víctor Masson.

Masson’s death comes three days after a tourist from Argentina was killed in a machete attack in the state of Oaxaca, generally considered one of the safer states in Mexico, roughly 60 miles west of Puerto Escondido in the hamlet of La Isla.

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The Argentine was identified as Benjamin Gamond and Mexican police say he was one of three tourists from Argentina attacked by a man wielding a machete on Friday and that he died in the hospital after the attack. His two travel companions suffered non-life-threatening injuries. 

The current State Department travel advisory urges Americans to “Exercise Increased Caution When Traveling” to Oaxaca.

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Several tourists have been victimized by crime so far in 2023 including a Mexican tourist who was shot to death in the Caribbean coast resort of Tulum in a dramatic robbery at a U.S. chain coffee shop in April.

In March, an American tourist was shot in the leg by unknown assailants in the town of Puerto Morelos outside of Cancun during spring break. The individual survived his injuries.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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