Bodies found in Guatemala after drug plane crashes

The bodies of three men have been discovered in the jungle of northern Guatemala after the crash of a light plane carrying drugs, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The bodies were discovered floating in a lagoon in the Peten jungle, about 600 kilometers (370 miles) north of the capital, said a prosecutor's office spokesman, Juan Luis Pantaleon.

Six packages, believed to contain cocaine, were discovered in the airplane wreckage, the prosecutor's office said.

The Peten jungle, on the border with Mexico and Belize, is a known drug trafficking route.

In September, a plane carrying drugs from Venezuela crashed near an indigenous community at Chisec, around 70 miles north of the capital. Four people were killed, including Jeankarlo Meneses, a drug trafficker who had escaped from a Guatemalan prison in 2019.

Since the beginning of the year police have located around 30 planes used for transporting drugs, most of them in remote areas in the north and south of the country.