CANCUN, Mexico — Students preparing for spring break at this beach resort have a spate of bad local news to factor into their plans: the brutal slaying of an army general, the jailing of the police chief for alleged complicity in the killing, and a link to the feared Zetas drug gang based along the Mexico-Texas border.
The head of the city jail was also jailed late last month, and a dozen city police are being investigated after the discovery of a Zeta "cell" turned up a list of authorities alleged to be on the take.
Recent events suggest that Cancun is starting to see the drug violence that has long plagued places like Ciudad Juarez.
Mexican officials say it ain't so, asserting that the 18-mile island with its hundreds of hotels, restaurants and bars is immune from the narco-violence popping up in the adjoining downtown and the larger metropolitan area on the mainland known as Benito Juarez.
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But some spring breakers already here, many from the U.S. northeast, are taking extra precautions.
"We have not left the resort, and we arranged transportation ahead of time," said Adrienne Smith, 21, of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. She and her friends have no plans to visit "the other Cancun" beyond the hotel strip.
"Even before we came here, tons and tons of people told us how dangerous it is, like muggings," she said.
And some analysts say that the relative security in the "hotel zone" could disappear quickly should a drug turf war break out in a region long know for drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling.
Ed Coleman, 23, came from the Rochester Institute of Technology prepared in case of trouble. He arranged cell phone service in Mexico and saved the phone numbers of the U.S. Consulate and Embassy.
"So far, we have not seen much of anything" in terms of trouble, he said.
But as the bulk of "los espring breakers," as the Mexican media call them, start to arrive this weekend, analysts say that there is a latent fear that Cancun could go the direction of once-popular party spots for Americans like Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana and even Acapulco, which has had drug hits along its hotel strip.
Arturo Yanez, a commentator on the drug trade, said Cancun "is on the verge of becoming the Ciudad Juarez of the southeast because it is one of the principal entrances for drugs from Central America."
Both Juarez and Cancun have had a rapid influx of outsiders and a history of police corruption. Mario Villanueva, the former governor of the state where Cancun is located, Quintana Roo, was imprisoned a decade ago for drug crimes.
Mayor Gregorio Sanchez Martinez, whose nephew was killed in early February when drug traffickers abducted and killed retired army Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, said the high-level killing was "an isolated incident" and a direct reaction to a government crackdown against trafficking groups, which Sanchez said would continue with greater vigor. The city had hired Tello to set up an elite police force to fight drug trafficking.
"This blood had to flow, perhaps, so that there could be a real housecleaning, and these criminal groups have been dismantled," said Sanchez, who took office 11 months ago.
One reason the Cancun hotel zone is remarkably safe, Sanchez added, is because it is essentially a long island with just two entry and exit points.
Alejandro Betancourt Perez, head of the island's separate Tourist Police, said that crime against tourists has decreased over the past year and that the Tourist Police force was tripled to 100 officers, most of them bilingual.
Far more dangerous than the narcos for spring breakers, officials said, are the university kids themselves. Fights, fueled by alcohol, and rapes continue to be problems, along with car or motorcycle accidents.
