Australian brothers killed while surfing in Mexico were targeted for their tyres, prosecutor says

Mexican prosecutors will argue in court this week that the execution-style deaths of two Australian brothers last year was a robbery gone wrong, with no indication local drug cartels were involved.

The bodies of Callum Robinson, 33, his brother Jake, 30, and their American friend Jack Carter Rhoad, 30 were found dumped in a well with gunshot wounds to the head in early May last year near Santo Tomas, in Baja California, one of Mexico’s most violent states.

About a week earlier, on April 27, the trio had travelled south from Ensenada to a remote beach, Punta San José, which is popular with local surfers during the summer months.

The friends set up camp that afternoon in the area, which has limited electricity and phone signal, and the state attorney-general’s office says they were robbed the same day, by a criminal gang that wanted the tyres on their pick-up truck. The vehicle was also later found burnt-out in Santo Tomás.

Three Mexican men – identified as Jesús Gerardo, aka “El Kekas”, Irineo Francisco, and Ángel Jesús – have been arrested over the deaths and charged with aggravated homicide and robbery, robbery with violence and car theft.

The attorney-general’s office says the men do not have any affiliation with local drug cartels. They will appear before a judge in Baja California State Court in Ensenada on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the attorney-general said there was sufficient evidence to proceed with legal action against all three men on the homicide and robbery charges, as well as on a charge of forced disappearance, which is similar to kidnapping.

Chief prosecutor Miguel Ángel Gaxiola Rodríguez told the ABC that he would pursue the theory that the deaths were a robbery gone wrong when the men appear in court.