Traffickers’ spat ends with 17 dead

Mexican and Guatemalan drug traffickers arguing about bets on a horse race in a rural border town fought a series of gun battles in which 17 people died, police said.

Guatemala’s National Police spokesman, Donald Gonzalez, said the traffickers were drinking in Santa Ana Huista on Sunday afternoon when the argument broke out, leading to a pursuit in which the men shot at one another with automatic weapons from racing trucks.

Gonzalez said police found grenade launchers at the scene of the final shootout, along with hundreds of bullet cartridges and a truck with license plates from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.