In a shocking discovery, Mexican police stumbled upon bags containing human body parts in a ravine outside the western city of Guadalajara. As many as 45 bags with human remains were found by the police.
An investigation was launched by the police officials on missing complaints filed by parents of seven young call center workers. It was during the search operations for the missing persons that police received a tip-off. Later, the search was carried out at Mirador del Bosque ravine, where they found the bags with human body parts.
Due to the difficult terrain in the region, it was not easy for the forensic team and the officials to investigate. Firefighters and civil defence team was working with the police and a helicopter crew to recover the remains.
Though the first bag was found on Tuesday, it took few more days for the officials to find all 45 bags.
The preliminary findings on the recovered human remains appear to resemble the features of several missing call center employees.
"According to preliminary information, the findings...in the Mirador Escondido neighbourhood in Zapopan coincided with the physical characteristics of some of the young people being searched for," said the statement issued by the Jalisco Prosecutor's Office.
The remains found in the municipality of Zapopan were subject to forensic tests to formally identify the bodies.
Earlier, security minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez told reporters that initial investigations showed that the call center workers "were carrying out some type of real estate fraud and some type of telephone extortion".
However, investigation is still ongoing to identify the body and their cause of death.
Meanwhile, shocking discoveries and deaths are not new in Mexico. Crimes of disappearance are quite common in the country.
Over 1,00,000 people are missing with many being the victims of organised crime, said the official government figures. Though most of them are men, around one fifth of those missing are under the age of 18.
Since 2018, over 1,500 bodies have been found in Jalisco state. According to Jalisco special prosecutor's office, 291 bodies were discovered in 2019, 544 bodies were found in 2020, 280 bodies in 2021 and 301 in 2022. So far this year, 147 bodies have been found.
Since a “war on drugs” was launched in 2007 by the then President Felipe Calderon, the incidents of disappearances were commonly reported in the country.
The United Nations has called it "a human tragedy of enormous proportions".
Back in 2019, around 44 bodies were recovered buried in a well in Jalisco, which is known for its violent drug wars. It was after the local residents complained of foul smell that the officials recovered of the bodies.
Also, the locals in the region criticised the police and the government for their inaction. Even when missing complaints are filed, police won't take proper action, they said.
