Australians vanished in Mexico's 'Bermuda Triangle'

The northwestern Mexican region where the burnt-out van of two missing Australian surfers was found last weekend is like a "Bermuda Triangle" of crime, a mayor said Wednesday.

The area of Sinaloa state where the van was found with two unidentified and charred bodies inside is known for robberies, murders and kidnappings carried out by criminal groups, said Navolato Mayor Miguel Calderon.

"It's like a Bermuda Triangle where criminal acts occur quite frequently, which we must deal with as a government," Calderon said, referring to a region where Navolato meets the municipalities of Mocorito and Angostura.

Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, both 33, were last reported in the Sinaloa town of Topolobampo on November 20 after arriving on a ferry from the Baja California peninsula.

The two men had been living and working in Edmonton, Canada and drove from there to Mexico for a surfing trip and to join Coleman's Mexican girlfriend in Guadalajara, according to the Australian Associated Press.

Fears about their fate surged last weekend when their van was found on a rural road in Navolato.

The federal attorney general's office will conduct DNA tests on the bodies to determine whether they are those of the two surfers.

Sinaloa's chief prosecutor, Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez, said a murder investigation was opened following the discovery of the bodies.

The prosecutor said investigators know the reasons for the surfers' disappearance but that "they won't be disclosed because they are part of the investigation."