The bodies of five strangled men were found Saturday inside an auto-repair shop on the southeast side of the Guatemalan capital, emergency workers said.
The victims were discovered with their hands and feet bound and with signs of having been tortured, a Volunteer Firefighters spokesman told local radio.
The slain men included the shop owner, identified as 50-year-old Walter Rolando Valle Castillo, the spokesman said, adding that the other four unidentified individuals were apparently his employees.
The federal Attorney General’s Office and the National Police have launched an investigation to determine the circumstances of the multiple homicide and who was responsible.
An average of 14 people are murdered every day in Guatemala, most by gunfire, according to official figures.
President Otto Perez Molina, a retired army general who was inaugurated on Jan. 14 for a four-year term, came to power on pledge to reduce soaring violent crime rates.
