Canadian man fatally shot in Mexico beach town becomes second tourist killed in less than a week

The body of a Canadian man shot to death in Puerto Escondido, a beach town on Mexico's Pacific coast, was discovered on Monday, making him the second foreign tourist killed in Oaxaca in three days.

According to Oaxaca state prosecutors, Víctor Masson, 27, was found dead in a car with a bullet wound in Puerto Escondido.



Prosecutors did not release a possible motive, however, the slaying comes three days after an Argentinian man was seriously wounded in a machete attack in another Oaxaca coastal town and later succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Mexico City.

According to CBS, the man was part of a group of three Argentines who were attacked on Friday by a Mexican man with a machete. The other two Argentines were wounded in the attack which occurred also occurred on the Pacific Coast, in the hamlet of La Isla, at the mouth of the Laguna de Chacahua, approximately 60 miles west of Puerto Escondido.

The two murders follow a series of other tourist slayings this year in Mexico. A US tourist was shot in the leg in Puerto Morelos in March, and shortly thereafter the US State Department issued a travel alert warning travelers to "exercise increased caution" at resort destinations like Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum.

Earlier this month, four Americans were kidnapped in Mexico, and the State Department posted a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" advisory for Tamaulipas, the Mexican state where the kidnapping occurred. 

In January 2022, two Canadians were killed and another injured in a shooting at a Cancun resort. Just months later, two more Canadians were killed in Playa del Carmen, allegedly over debts between international drug and weapons trafficking gangs.

While traveling with his daughter in a car in March 2022, a British resident of Playa del Carmen was fatally shot in broad daylight.

A California travel blogger born in India and a German tourist were killed after being caught in the crossfire of a gunfight between rival drug dealers in Tulum in October 2021.