Armed men burst into a restaurant in the Mexican beach resort of Puerto Vallarta and abducted as many as 16 customers early on Monday, according to local authorities.

Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco said that around 1am local time, the gunmen entered a restaurant called La Leche on the resort city’s main boulevard, bundled the victims into SUVs and sped away.



At a news conference, Jalisco state prosecutor Eduardo Almaguer said the preliminary results of the investigation indicated that all the victims were members of “criminal organizations”.

“They were not tourists or residents who work in legal activities,” Almaguer said. “They were people tied to a criminal group we can very clearly presume.”



He said authorities believe they know which groups were involved, but declined to name them.

Witnesses reported that four women in the targeted group were not taken by the gunmen, he said. He said authorities were looking for those women.

All of those abducted were from the western states of Sinaloa, Nayarit and Jalisco, Almaguer said.

Five vehicles, including a Jeep, Land Rover and a Cadillac Escalade, were left at the restaurant, but it was unknown if any belonged to the victims or attackers.



In a message on Twitter, Jalisco governor Aristoteles Sandoval said such violence would not be tolerated and a search was under way for the victims and the kidnappers.



“To the residents and tourists of Puerto Vallarta, I inform you that we have reinforced security so that you can go on as usual,” Sandoval wrote.

Puerto Vallarta became a destination for American tourists in the 1950s after it was visited by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and nowadays it is especially popular among gay and lesbian travellers.

Until recently, it had only suffered brief brushes with violence attributed to the turf wars in the illegal drugs business, though Jalisco has experienced intense flare-ups in recent years, with cartel thugs commandeering more than two dozen vehicles at a time and burning them throughout the state, including in Puerto Vallarta, in acts known as narcobloqueos to thwart police and military mobilizations.

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel has also carried out brazen attacks on security forces, including an April 2015 ambush killing 15 state police officers travelling in a convoy on a secondary highway between Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara. The cartel is also credited with shooting down one of the government’s Black Hawk helicopters with a rocket launcher.