Mexican security officials said that a recent shooting at the world-famous Teotihuacan pyramids that left one person dead and 13 others wounded "wasn't spontaneous".
As authorities grappled with the security breach that occurred just weeks before Mexico hosts several World Cup football matches beginning in June, President Claudia Sheinbaum called for tighter gun controls at tourist areas.
The Mexican attacker shot dead a Canadian tourist and then died by suicide on the pyramid - less than an hour's drive from Mexico City - after military operatives approached and began to engage him.
The shooting occurred on the Pyramid of the Moon, a 45-metre high monument visitors are allowed to climb using steep steps carved of volcanic rock.
Six people were wounded by gunfire and taken to local hospitals, including a Canadian woman, a Colombian woman and child, a Brazilian and two Americans.
Seven other people were injured in the scramble for safety and were treated at the scene.
The suspect, identified as 27-year-old Mexico City resident Julio Cesar Jasso Ramirez, "made preliminary visits on multiple occasions to the archaeological site, stayed in hotels near the site ahead of time, and from there planned his violent acts," Mexico State Prosecutor Jose Luis Cervantes Martinez told reporters.
State authorities at the scene seized a firearm, a knife and unused ammunition and evacuated tourists from the premises.
Videos on social media showed the gunman firing periodic shots from a pistol about halfway up the Pyramid of the Moon while some tourists took cover behind stairs below and others fled.
Other videos show authorities examining the pyramid in a complex cordoned off with crime-scene tape.
More than 2,000 years old, the pyramid city near Mexico City attracted over 1.8 million visitors in 2025, tourism officials said.
Located about 50km from the capital Mexico City, Teotihuacan draws domestic and foreign tourists to see its pyramids and its Avenue of the Dead.
Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand, in a post on X, called the attack "a horrific act of gun violence".
Following the shooting, Ms Sheinbaum urged that gun controls be tightened at tourist sites.
"We need to have better security to make sure someone can't enter an archaeological site, a tourist site, with a firearm," she said at her morning press conference, barely seven weeks before Mexico City hosts the World Cup's opening match on 11 June.
Designated as a World Heritage site of "outstanding universal value" by the United Nations, the monuments at Teotihuacan were built in the pre-Hispanic Classic period - a golden age of Mesoamerican history - between the first and seventh centuries.
Mexico's nearly 200 archaeological sites are popular with tourists, and although accidents have been reported, this is the first reported case of armed violence in decades.
While Mexico continues to struggle with frequent drug gang-related violence, untargeted mass shootings are relatively rare.
Mexico expects over 5.5 million visitors for the World Cup in June.
