Mexican cops find seven bodies, including five decapitated and one completely dismembered, in a car abandoned in traffic each with a handwritten message explaining the reason for their gruesome murder

Seven bodies, including five that were decapitated and another that was completely chopped in pieces, were found inside a car that was abandoned on a highway Mexican highway Friday.

The Puebla State Attorney General's Office said all of the bodies contained messages that were signed off by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and outlined the reasons behind their murders.

Each victim was accused of having been involved in criminal activities, ranging from street-level drug dealing to robbing freight trucks and extortion. 

A video uploaded to social media showed five heads strewn on the road pavement next to the vehicle. 

'On each of the bodies, we found hand-written messages written on paper, each one detailing the reason they were killed,' said Puebla state chief prosecutor Gilberto Higuera.

Former police José 'The Shark' Vega is one of seven people whose remains were found in an abandoned vehicle in the central Mexican city of Puebla last Friday

Five of the bodies were dismembered and another was completely chopped in pieces, according to the Puebla State Attorney General's Office. Each victim had a note on their bodies detailing the reason why they were killed

One of the victims was identified as José 'The Shark' Vega, 37, a former police officer who was kidnapped with one of his carwash employees on February 24.

Vega was fired from the Puebla state police force in 2013 over a shooting and was arrested in 2014 for illegal possession of police equipment.

A second victim was identified as a Colombian loan shark, nicknamed 'El Kevin,' who was kidnapped on March 24.

While vigilantes have sometimes left such messages on corpses, similar signs are far more frequently left on victims' bodies by drug cartels seeking to threaten their rivals or punish behavior they claim violates their rules. 

Five heads were left lying outside a car that was found abandoned on a highway in the central Mexico city of Puebla last Friday

Higuera was extremely guarded in describing the evidence, but suggested it involved 'not only a dispute (between gangs) but also something related to dominance over certain people, aimed at not only domination, but recruitment.'

He did not further clarify that comment. But some cartels in Mexico, when seeking to establish a territory as their own, will kill off rivals or any petty thieves or drug dealers they find, and leave messages to convince local residents that such activities will not be tolerated under the new cartel.

The grisly killings were striking because they occurred in the relatively affluent and large city of the state of Puebla, just east of Mexico City.

Puebla is Mexico's 5th largest city and had largely been spared the drug cartel violence affecting surrounding areas.

Leaving the bodies in the middle of an expressway was also unusual. Police were quickly alerted to the cadaver-laden car because it was blocking traffic on the city's main ring road.