Mexico fires morgue director in corpse scandal

After discovery of a refrigerated truck that spent two years full of 170 corpses. Photo / Getty Images

A forensics chief in Mexico has been fired after the discovery of a refrigerated truck that spent more than two years full of 170 cadavers.

Authorities had run out of space in morgues amid record numbers of drug murders.

Luis Octavio Cotero, the former head of Jalisco's Forensic Science Institute, warned that there could be at least one more truck containing bodies. He said he had been made a scapegoat, and that his agency was not responsible for storing the bodies.

The truck came to light this week after it went on a 10-day road trip around the western state. It was first parked outside the forensics centre, near the state capital of Guadalajara, two years ago.

It is not clear why it was driven away, but last week it emerged in a warehouse on the outskirts of Guadalajara, where a mayor complained it was illegally parked.

It was later seen in a nearby field, where residents reported putrid smells.

Cotero said the institute he headed doesn't have the budget to deal with the amount of work required as a result of the levels of violence in the state. Jalisco, which is the heartland of the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (JCNG), one of Mexico's strongest crime syndicates, has registered a record 16,339 murders this year.

The rise in homicides has been attributed in part to conflict between the JCNG and its parent organisation and now rival, the Sinaloa Cartel.

- Telegraph Group Ltd