Folk ballad singer the latest to get hit

A Mexican singer has been shot dead in the northern state of Sinaloa, the latest in what appeared to be a growing list of folk musician slayings by organised crime gangs.

Jorge Antonio Sepulveda, 20, had been shot a dozen times near Guasave. Around half a dozen musicians have been killed over the past two years as hitmen who once targeted performers of "narcocorridos", or ballads about drug kingpins, broadened their aim to include more mainstream folk singers.

- REUTERS