MEXICO CITY – Four bodies were dumped on the shoulder of the Mexico City-Acapulco highway in the central state of Morelos, state prosecutors said.

The bodies, which were inside trash bags, were found around 6:30 a.m. Saturday at kilometer 98.2 of the heavily traveled highway that links the capital and the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, the Morelos Attorney General’s Office said.

The victims, who were gagged and bound, had ropes around their necks and no apparent wounds, the AG’s office said.

The four bodies were discovered near the Burgos subdivision in the town of Temixco.

State police and army troops cordoned off the area where the bodies were found.

The victims ranged in age from 16 to 30 and two of them had criminal records for robbery, the AG’s office said.

The bodies of five young men were found last Wednesday in Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos.

Mexico’s drug war death toll stood at 47,515 from December 2006 to Sept. 30.

The murder total has grown every year of President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive against the well-funded, heavily armed drug cartels.

Unofficial tallies published in December by independent daily La Jornada put the death toll from Mexico’s drug war at more than 50,000.