8 bodies found in Mexico's Veracruz state

Mexican military troops discovered the bodies of seven men and a woman in a small town in the Gulf Coast state of Veracruz, the state government said on Saturday.

The eight bodies were found on Friday afternoon in the town of Alto Lucero, and appeared to have been victims of a criminal gang, the state general prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Military troops had been pursuing a convoy of 12 automobiles believed to belong to a criminal gang when they arrived at the site, the agency said.

The criminals had abandoned the vehicles and the bodies and fled the scene, the agency said, adding forensics experts were working to identify the victims.

Several of the 12 abandoned vehicles have no registry, and others carried license plates for Veracruz and central Mexico State, officials said.

"They (the vehicles) are being tested for clues that might clear up the incident," the agency said.

Veracruz has been gripped by a wave of violence in recent months amid turf wars between rival criminal gangs for control of local drug trafficking and extortion, according to officials. Enditem