Five people were killed in an arson attack on a strip club in Puebla city early Tuesday.
The victims were reportedly two female dancers and three male waiters.
According to local media, armed men set the Lacoss Night Club on fire in the early hours of Tuesday morning. They also reportedly set alight a vehicle parked outside the “table dance” venue, located in Popular Coatepec, a neighborhood in the south of Puebla city.
The Puebla state government said in a statement that preliminary reports indicated that the five victims died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The government said that firefighters “immediately” responded to a report of a fire at an establishment in the Popular Coatepec neighborhood. It said that nine people were rescued and “immediately” assisted by paramedics.
The Puebla government said that firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze in the establishment, and a fire in a white Toyota. It said that the Puebla Attorney General’s Office was conducting investigations at the scene and working to determine the motive “of these events.”
According to El Sol de Puebla, the arson attack occurred at around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday.
The newspaper reported that witnesses told police that the alleged culprits were four armed men who arrived at the club on motorbikes and were carrying bottles of gasoline.
El Sol de Puebla reported that the employees of the club were about to leave when the arson attack occurred. It also reported that the aggressors fired their weapons to intimidate the workers, “who returned to the bar to hide.”
After setting the club and vehicle on fire, the aggressors fled the scene and residents called 911, El Sol de Puebla reported.
Arson attacks on bars in Mexico have occurred previously, including in San Luis Río Colorado, Sonora, in 2023 and in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, in 2019. A total of 37 people were killed in those two attacks.
El Heraldo de San Luis Potosí reported that the attack in Puebla city on Tuesday morning may have been related to extortion or a “settling of scores” between criminal groups.
With reports from El Sol de Puebla, López-Dóriga Digital, El Universal and Milenio
