An American woman and an alleged drug dealer from Belize were killed in a shootout between drug gangs at a beach club in the Mexican resort city of Tulum Friday night, officials confirmed.
The State Attorney General’s office of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo clarified that the woman had no connection to the alleged drug dealer.
Local media had initially reported that the two were a couple using a photo of the Belizean man in the company of an entirely different woman.
Though the victims’ names have not been formally publicized, ABC News identified the woman as 44-year-old Niko Honarbakhsh, who was originally from Los Angeles but was currently residing in Cancun, Mexico.
Prosecutors believe Ms. Honarbakhsh was struck by a stray bullet.
The state AG office said the Belizean man has been “identified for his probable participation” in drug-related crimes and “was part of a criminal group that generated violence in the state.”
Police found the man had an unidentified number of transparent bags on him containing a white powder, “with characteristics typical of cocaine”, as well as a bunch of pills and a bag of unidentified brown granulated powder.
Preliminary investigation has allowed some of the suspects in the beach club shooting to be identified, and police are on the hunt for them, the AG’s office said. None involved have been publicly named as of Monday.
Ms. Honarbakhsh is not the first foreigner to have been killed after getting caught in a drug-related shootout in the once-peaceful beach resort of Tulum, 80 miles south of Cancun.
In October 2021, two tourists, a 25-year-old California travel blogger named Anjali Ryot and a 35-year-old German woman, were killed while they were having dinner at a restaurant, and three others were injured when a gunfight broke out between rivaling drug dealers.
In response, the German Foreign Office issued a travel advisory, urging Germans visiting the Tulum or Playa del Carmen area not to “leave your secured hotel facilities.”
Last year, the U.S. State Department updated its long list of Mexico travel advice with a warning for Americans to “exercise increased situational awareness after dark in downtown areas of Cancun, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen” and “to remain in well-lit pedestrian streets and tourist zones.”
“Violent crime—such as homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery—is widespread and common in Mexico,” the State Department says in its summary of the country, having issued a “do not travel to” warning for six Mexican states and a “reconsider traveling to” warning for another seven, citing “crime” and “kidnapping” as the main dangers.
In March 2023, four Americans were kidnapped at gunpoint in the Mexican city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, just across the border with Texas. Investigators believe the four were targeted by a Mexican cartel that likely mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers. Two of the captives were killed, and one survivor was shot three times in the leg.