Mexico was shocked last year when volunteer search teams discovered an abandoned ranch filled with piles of shoes— too many to be left behind by the owners. To many observers, it was an unmistakable sign of a drug cartel’s extermination camp.
Mexican authorities denied it, even after charred human remains were found. They insisted instead that the so-called Izaguirre ranch in the western state of Jalisco was merely a training camp for new recruits of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Mexico’s most powerful criminal organization.
Last week, as volunteers remained unsatisfied with the investigation, they returned to keep looking for answers. They made another disturbing discovery: a septic pit full of human teeth and bone fragments.
That finding was another painful reminder of a grim challenge in Mexico that does not go away. No matter how hard its leaders have tried to solve it, minimize it or hide it: more than 133,000 people have vanished across the country. Nearly all disappeared in the past two decades, many at the hands of organized crime or colluding officials.
The crisis has hung over the administration of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has repeatedly vowed to pursue truth and justice until every missing person is found, but is now under increasing pressure to make more progress.
“What we want is to find the disappeared,” she told reporters last month. “And we are reinforcing the institutions of the Mexican State to better prevent and respond to this tragic crime.”
While government statistics show homicides have dropped by 41 percent under Ms. Sheinbaum, the number of missing people has more than doubled since 2016, climbing steadily over the years.
Some analysts see progress. Ms. Sheinbaum has pushed changes mandating prosecutors to open an investigation after receiving a disappearance report. She has launched a nationwide emergency system that alerts authorities after someone is reported missing.
She pledged to bolster forensic and search teams. Last year, about 22,000 missing people were found alive — the highest annual number on record.
The actions signal that the Sheinbaum administration seems to be “on the right track,” said Carlos Pérez Ricart, a Mexican security expert.
“Things had been done very poorly in recent years, but in the last year they have started to be corrected, to be done better,” he added, “and that should be recognized.”
But Ms. Sheinbaum’s methods have also stirred controversy.
Following the discovery at the Izaguirre ranch, she ordered an audit to review the national disappearance registry. The goal was to ensure that the authorities had accurate data, Marcela Figueroa, a top security official coordinating the effort, said in an interview.
The registry, created in 2018 by merging disparate lists from state prosecutors, search commissions and volunteer collectives, turned out to be a Frankenstein-like creature, difficult to comb through, Ms. Figueroa said.
“It was very chaotic,” she added. “There were no standards, no methodology in the beginning.”
After reviewing the data, Ms. Figueroa and her team divided the more than 130,000 entries into roughly three groups.
Searching for one set of the missing, authorities say, would essentially be impossible because of a lack of information.
Another third of the entries were people who, after their reported disappearance, had married, filed taxes or received vaccinations, suggesting they were alive. (Officials have reclassified more than 5,300 people in this group as found after seeing them in person, Ms. Figueroa said.)
The remaining 43,600 people have never been heard of after being reported missing, but there is enough information to mount searches. That figure, however, would be an undercount, human rights groups say, because more than 72,100 bodies lie unclaimed across Mexico’s morgues and many disappearances go unreported.
The results of the review, announced last month, drew mixed reactions. Some researchers said the government had failed to publicize its data and methodology, making it impossible to verify the audit’s accuracy.
“I want to give a vote of confidence,” said Fernando Escobar, a researcher monitoring disappearances for Common Cause, a Mexican organization focused on security. “The problem is they can show whatever figures they want, but if there’s no evidence to back them up, it’s going to be really hard to defend what they’re doing.”
For those looking for their loved ones, the recent audit resembles previous efforts to tackle the crisis , but falls short of helping them in their search.
“It’s an attempt to contain the crisis by lowering the numbers,” said Jorge Verástegui González, an expert on Mexico’s disappearance crisis whose brother and nephew were abducted by police officers in 2009. “We’ve been at this for many years, 17 in my case, and we’ve seen many governments do exactly the same thing.”
But having clearer categories, the authorities say, has helped better direct search efforts.
“Data is important, as is ensuring that it is clear and reliable,” said Ms. Figueroa. “But at the end of the day, what we want is to find the missing.”
Ms. Sheinbaum has sown further frustration by sparring with the Committee on Enforced Disappearances, a United Nations body of independent experts that this month issued a scathing report concluding that disappearances in Mexico were widespread and systematic — and often involved the complicity of authorities.
“They cannot accuse a government that fought against forced disappearances committed by the state of committing the same crime,” she said, accusing experts of ignoring the recent progress made by her administration.
The government’s reaction reflects a lack of self-criticism, analysts say. “It’s a shame,” Mr. Pérez Ricart said. “It should not be afraid to recognize the great challenges and limitations it faces.”
After months of pressing authorities for answers, volunteer searchers were allowed back at the Izaguirre ranch last week.
DNA samples collected from clothing and bone fragments recovered last year matched two missing men. Volunteers thought more human remains were yet to be unearthed. They were right.
For some, the teeth and bones found in the septic pit pointed to a continuing failure by Mexican authorities to end the country’s disappearances.
“Many of our missing sons could be in that or any other recruitment camps,” said Héctor Flores González, whose son vanished in 2021. “I feel such rage that the government does nothing to stop this, and here we are, still pulling out bodies and unearthing remains.”
Jack Nicas contributed reporting.
Emiliano Rodríguez Mega is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Mexico City, covering Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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