Mexico is being swept by a wave of satanic ritual killings with exorcists saying there is an unprecedented demand for their services.

Father José Antonio Fortea, a leading Mexican exorcist, who once ordered the mass exorcism of the whole country, has warned of an increase in satanic ritual killings.

He said that “devil worship” stemmed from the so-called cult of Santa Muerte, depicted as a human corpse with all the flesh picked off the bones, and dressed like a bride for her wedding.

The name means “Holy Death” – and it harks back to the days when to be sacrificed to the Aztec gods was considered the greatest honor.

"The vampire fad is something that's very close to Satanism," Father Fortea stated.

Edwin Juarez Palma, a 24-year-old restaurant worker, was beaten, strangled and had his neck slashed with a broken bottle by the proponents of the vampire cult during a ceremony intended to turn him into a vampire, the Sun wrote.

Police said that the young man was killed after being fooled into taking part in an initiation ceremony to become part of a satanic cult called the Sons of Baphomet 1.

Instead he was tortured after having his hands tied behind his back after one of the alleged killers persuaded the others that their victim should be sacrificed so he could return to life as a vampire. Two men and one woman, later arrested in connection with the killing, admitted that they belonged to the Sons of Bahomet 1 cult.

Police Chief Pablo Rocha said: “This crime took place during an initiation ceremony led by a satanic sect called Sons of Baphomet 1 during which the victim was supposed to become a vampire.”

The Mexican drug cartels reportedly pray to Santa Muerte for protection from the police and from death. They ask the skeletal saint to watch over their shipments of drugs and offer up human sacrifices to her.

Father Fortea linked the rise of satanic cults to secularism.

"The more a society abandons the ways of God, the more cases of Satanism. The more a nation is Christian, the fewer the cases of devil worship," he said.