A group of volunteers looking for missing relatives first received tips last week about large-scale graves hidden in western Mexico.
When they arrived at an abandoned ranch outside La Estanzuela, a small countryside outside Guadalajara, they found three underground cremation ovens, burning human remains, hundreds of bone fragments and discarded personal belongings, and statues of Santa Muerte.
Mexican authorities were notified of the horrific discovery of the discovery, and he said in several statements that they later found 96 shells on the ranch, including 96 shells and metal clamping rings. By Friday, the discovery was mainly local newspapers and television reports, and the search team called the website “Extinction Camp.”
It is not clear how many people died at the site, and no remains have been confirmed. Authorities have not yet said who runs the camp, what crimes were committed there and how long it lasts. But this week, President Claudia Sheinbaum’s request, the Attorney General’s Office took over the investigation.
Photos taken by authorities and volunteer groups, searching for Jalisco warriors on an abandoned ranch, showed more than 200 shoes piled up with shoes and other personal items: a blue summer dress, a small pink backpack, notebook, notebook, underwear. More than 700 personal items are shocking hints about the number of people who may die there.
Secret graves appear monthly in a country that appears to be brutal violence by drug cartels, the images shocked Mexicans and prompted angry human rights groups to demand that the government end the violence that has undermined the country for years.
“We immediately tied them to the Nazi concentration camps,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City. “Perhaps the number of victims that could be buried was huge, it resurfaced, a nightmare reminder that Mexico was haunted by the mass graves.”
According to official data, more than 120,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since the record was set in 1962. Human rights groups and volunteers collectively search for their missing relatives, warning that the number may be higher.
The discovery at the ranch was when Ms. Sheinbaum was under intense pressure to combat organized crime under President Trump’s tremendous pressure to avoid tariffs on U.S. exports, and even U.S. military intervention in pursuit of cartel members.
Experts and analysts say that partly because of Trump’s threat, Ms. Sheinbaum shifted security issues to the center stage of her agenda and took a more aggressive approach to combating crime than her former and analysts said. But her government faces major challenges when she resolves a powerful criminal group that controls the country’s large areas.
One of Mexico’s most violent criminal organizations is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which emerged in the early 2010s, now the main producer and trafficker of synthetic drugs, especially fentanyl and methamphetamine. The group operates in Jalisco and across the country and has spread it into other criminal activities such as illegal logging, human trafficking and ransomware.
Authorities say the ranch could have been run by Jalisco Cartel. The group’s dominance and its rapid expansion in recent years are associated with an increasing number of homicides, forced disappearances and mass grave discoveries in Jalisco State.
Indira Navarro, the head of the Jalisco search warriors who found the site, said in an interview with local news outlets this week that several people have contacted the organization saying they have been recruited and trained on site to use weapons and torture techniques. But they say ranches are also used as a killing site, and criminals often deal with victims.
Ms. Navarro was unable to contact him, telling the news media that, according to the testimony, young people from other states were recruited through fake job offers posted on social media. Once they accepted the job, they were called to a bus station in the state capital Guadalajara and taken from there to the ranch, she said.
Ms. Navarro tells how a young man told her that young recruits were sometimes forced to burn victims as part of their training. She said recruits are sometimes fed to wild animals, such as lions, if they object to their coach’s orders.
“This is not a horror movie; it’s our reality, and people should know that.
The New York Times cannot independently verify the account.
Officials reported that local authorities first found the ranch last September, where weapons, shells and bone fragments were found, but further investigations were stopped for unknown reasons. During the same inspection, officials found and rescued two people who were abducted and kidnapped on the ranch, and a body wrapped in plastic was found.
State Attorney General Salvador González has since told local news outlets that it is impossible to search the entire ranch in September “because there are many hectares in the area.”
Ms. Sheinbaum suggested in a press conference this week that local authorities may have missed in the preliminary investigation.
She said the Attorney General “is correct, saying that the municipality and the state’s authorities do not know that this nature is unreliable.” “But the first thing we have to do is investigate.”
