Skullduggery has gone on for a long time in Mexico, the difference is, it was a lot less than today and more hidden... but it was there.
My logic was, I'm not going to go somewhere, Juarez specifically, where styrofoam ice chests are left outside of the police station with the severed heads of police officers inside. That may be morbid and grotesque to say but that has happened.
And even then, this stuff was happening, I'm repeating myself but not nearly at the same scale. I don't want to be 10 miles within where this stuff is happening... okay, being on the US side might be tolerable but you get the picture. And this was done against Police officers who fought against the cartel. Nothing more though, there is a possibility they sided with an opposite cartel, truth be told, there is no real justice there.
Yucatan has resorts, Playa del Carmen, that's on the Travel Warning list. Some of those resorts now are basically enclosed compounds, separated somewhat from the outside world.
I read some article, the worse that could have happened in the past was having your pocket picked, that's an exaggeration but not a bad comparison all the same.
Remember Mark Kilroy? Slave marijuana plantations in Northern Mexico? Santeria, this stuff happened well before the troubles of today, which started I believe in about 2007.