MEXICO CITY -- The state of Veracruz's Attorney General's Office reported on Tuesday that police discovered 14 bodies packed into a van that had been abandoned along the Alamo-Potrero del Llano Highway close to the border with Tamaulipas state. Officials from the Mexican Army and Navy assisted the General Attorney's Office in removing the bodies and transporting them to a forensic facility and later to the state capital. According to local media agencies, the bodies had been mutilated and then packed in bags, making it difficult to count and identify the victims. Authorities believe that the latest massacre is linked to the escalating turf war between the Los Zetas and the Gulf and Pacific cartels.