MEXICO CITY (AFP) – At least 45 bags with human remains were found in a ravine in the western Mexican state of Jalisco during a search for eight people reported missing last week, local authorities said on Thursday.
“Forty-five bags with human remains have been extracted that belong to both male and female,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The gruesome discovery was made on Tuesday at the bottom of a 40-metre ravine in the municipality of Zapopan, a suburb of Guadalajara, a large industrial hub.
The authorities had launched a search for two women and six men, all aged around 30, who had been reported missing since around May 20. The missing person reports for each one had been made separately on different days, but investigators found that they all worked at the same call centre.
The call centre was in the same area where the human remains were discovered. Forensic experts have yet to determine the number of victims or their identities.
Initial inquiries suggested the call centre could have been involved in illegal activities, and local media reported that the authorities had found illegal substance, a cloth and a cleaning rag with apparent blood stains as well as documents on possible commercial activities.

But relatives of the missing accused the authorities of seeking to portray the victims as criminals.
In recent years, human remains have been found in bags or unmarked graves in different areas of Jalisco.
In 2021, in the municipality of Tonala, in Jalisco, about 70 bags with the remains of 11 people were found.
And in 2019, the bodies of 29 people were found in 119 bags in an unpopulated area of Zapopan.
Another case that sparked numerous protests in Jalisco was the disappearance in March 2018 of three film students, whose remains were dissolved in acid.