The Mexican government has deployed 300 army troops to the Quintana Roo area - which includes holiday hotspots such as Cancun, Tulum and Riviera Maya - to keep their booming number of visitors safe from crime and assist in investigations into criminal gangs.

Mexico - which is widely considered to be a safe country despite the US State Department issuing a travel alert in 2018 - has seen the crime waves spill out from the back streets and into the resorts, prompting the government to act. Two tourists died following a shooting at a swanky hotel in Playa Del Carmen.

The country - which relies on tourism for 10 per cent of their annual GDP - is battling their bad reputation coming back, which permeated for years before their tourism levels hit record levels during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic travel restrictions as they did not lock down in the same way as other popular holiday spots.

The army has assisted with criminal gangs recently, such as a “historic” raid at a Culiacan warehouse that saw 1,224 pounds of methamphetamines, 15 pounds of heroin, 68 pounds of coke and 156,526 of processing materials last month, worth an estimated $200 million.

At a press conference, Ricardo Meja, Assistant Public Safety Secretary said: “This is the largest seizure in history of this lethal drug”.

10 people were arrested in connection to the raid by the Mexican Army and National Guard.