Mexico City: Mexican authorities are investigating whether a general in charge of security in a drug violence-plagued northern region was among two people killed in a roadside shooting, officials said Monday.
The bodies of a man and a woman were found Monday in a car on a road in Nuevo Leon, said the state`s chief prosecutor Adrian de la Garza.
Authorities are checking whether the man is General Ricardo Cesar Nino Villareal, who in May was named public safety chief of the northern zone of the neighboring state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas.
"He has not been formally identified, but we have very precise information indicating that it could be him," Garza said.
The prosecutor said the general usually travels in an armored vehicle with a security detail, but the victim was unarmed and in a civilian car.
The national government is also investigating whether the general was killed on the road linking the cities of Monterrey and Nuevo Laredo, a federal official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Nino Villareal survived a previous attack on October 9 when unidentified gunmen shot at his armored vehicle in Linares, also in Nuevo Leon state.
The military took full control of security in Tamaulipas in May to tame an upsurge of deadly gunfights in the state plagued by turf wars between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.
The federal government put military officers in charge of four zones, with Nino Villareal overseeing the border city of Nuevo Laredo, a major transit point for illegal drugs.
