Some 45 bags containing human remains were discovered in a ravine in the western Mexican state of Jalisco during the search for eight young call center workers who had been missing for ten days, according to local authorities.
“Forty-five bags containing human remains matching males and females were extracted,” State Attorney Luis Joaquin Mendez’s office said in a statement. “I want to clarify that the number of bags does not correspond to the number of victims that have been found,” the prosecutor said in an interview with reporters at the site of the discovery.
The discovery was made Tuesday at the bottom of a 40-meter ravine in Zapopan, on the outskirts of Guadalajara, capital of the state of Jalisco. The authorities had launched an operation to find two women and six men, aged around 30 and missing between May 20 and 22. On Thursday, prosecutors said the limbs found in the bags matched the characteristics of some of the missing.
Luis Joaquin Mendez confirmed on Friday that there were physical and anthropometric matches with some of the victims. “I can’t give the exact number because we need the medical examiners’ reports,” he added. All of the missing worked in the same call center, located in the same area where the human remains were discovered. Federal authorities have suggested that this call center is involved in real estate fraud and phone extortion. A hypothesis however rejected by the relatives of the disappeared, who accused the authorities of criminalizing the victims.
In recent years, human remains have been found in bags or in clandestine graves in different areas of the state of Jalisco, where more than 15,000 people have disappeared since 1962. Thus in 2021, some 70 bags containing the human remains belonging to 11 people were discovered in Tonala, near Guadalajara.
Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders and some 100,000 disappearances, mainly attributed to criminal organizations, since the launch in December 2006 of a vast and controversial military operation aimed at combating drug trafficking.
