A 27-year-old Irish tourist has been shot dead in Mexico after looking for directions at a petrol station.

A mayor in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan was detained for allegedly ordering the killing of a friend and extorting her employees and street vendors in her city on behalf of a drug cartel, authorities said.

Mexican marines have detained one of the leaders of the La Familia drug gang which controlled Mexico State, near Mexico City, a senior security official said.

Mexico’s military has taken control of one of the country’s biggest seaports in an effort to bring drug-cartel activity under control in the western state of Michoacan.

Police have found the bodies of three women who were shot dead with assault rifles on a roadside in a central Mexico state.