IN VERACRUZ state, police found a decapitated body and severed head miles apart on Wednesday.

Residents in Boca del Rio discovered a man's beheaded body with its hands and feet bound. The body also showed signs of torture - trademarks of drug-related homicides, authorities said.

Police refused to make public a note from the killers attached to the body.

Authorities in a nearby city later said that they had found a severed head, presumably belonging to the body in Boca del Rio.

Earlier this month, gunmen kidnapped a top customs official who had launched a new system to check shipping containers at the port. He remains missing. -- AP