A burnt-out van that was discovered in an area of Mexico renowned for its violent drug wars has been confirmed as belonging to one of two Australian men who vanished while on a surfing holiday in the country.
Mexican authorities are yet to determine whether two charred bodies found inside the van are those of missing Australian surfers Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, originally from Golden Bay in Perth's south.
Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez, the Attorney General of the state Sinaloa, said the Chevrolet truck that was found in farmland in Navolato, in Sinaloa in north-western Mexico, had Canadian licence plates and was registered to Mr Coleman, according to Mexico's Excelsior newspaper.
Mr Coleman and Mr Lucas had been living in Edmonton, Canada, before embarking on their road trip across the US and Mexico.
Mr Gomez said the two bodies found inside the vehicle were undergoing DNA testing to determine the identities of the victims. The bodies were so badly burnt they could not immediately be identified. The girlfriends of the two Australian men are supplying hair samples and dental records in a bid to determine whether the bodies are those of their loved ones.
The torched van was discovered on November 21 by the side of an irrigation channel in Navolato, about 200 kilometres south of the port of Topolobampo, where Mr Coleman and Mr Lucas had disembarked a ferry on November 20.
The men were due to travel south to Guadalajarra, where they were scheduled to meet up with Mr Coleman's Mexican girlfriend Andrea Gomez the following day.
The location where the burnt-out van was discovered was on the route the men would have taken on their road trip south to Guadalajara. When they did not arrive, Ms Gomez reported them missing.
The state Sinaloa in north-western Mexico is home to the powerful and violent Sinaloa drug cartel, thought to be responsible for as much as half of the narcotics smuggled into the US from Mexico each year.
Mr Gomez told Excelsior that a police task force was attempting to track down those responsible for torching the vehicle and killing the unidentified victims.
The Australian men's families are travelling to Mexico as the investigation continues.
