During their search for seven missing contact centre employees, police have found 45 bags containing human body parts.
After staff at two distinct contact centres went missing over the course of two days last week, the horrifying revelation was uncovered.
Police were tipped off that they would find evidence in a hard-to-reach location in the city of Zapopan while searching for the missing workers.
A search and rescue team from the Zapopan Civil Protection and Fire Department used a helicopter to approach the ravine, which was roughly 40 metres deep.
They found about 45 plastic bags in the ravine containing human body parts. Forensic scientists and medical examiners are currently working on determining exactly how many individuals were disposed of in the bags.
‘At the moment it cannot be specified that the remains located in this area correspond to the seven workers of a call center who disappeared last week in Zapopan,’ the Jalisco State Prosecutor’s Office said on Wednesday.
The next day, investigators did note that the bodies ‘coincided with the physical characteristics of some of the young people’ missing from the call center.
The seven call center employees disappeared between May 20 and May 22 from Jardines Vallarta and La Estancia neighborhoods in Guadalajara.
All the missing workers were in their 20s or 30s, authorities said. An eighth missing person was also reported missing days later who police in Jalisco believe is associated with the group.
Among them was one American citizen – Carlos Valladolid, a 23-year-old Arizona native who worked at one of the call centers, the Daily Mail reported.
Valladolid lived in Jalisco with his sister, Mexican citizen Itzel Valladolid, 27, who is also among the missing employees.
While searching for the call centers for the missing employees, investigators stumbled upon an operation they believe targeted elderly Americans, Mexican newspaper El Pais reported.
At the call centers, police seized hard drives, marijuana, a blackboard with a list of foreign names, and a red-stained mop they believe was used to clean up blood.
Locals near the call center also told investigators they occasionally saw armed men at the building.
The operation had ‘all the characteristics of organized crime,’ Jalisco Prosecutor Luis Joaquín Méndez said.