Mexico authorities confirm human remains belong to eight missing coworkers

MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities said Tuesday that human remains discovered in bags in a ravine in the western state of Jalisco last week belong to eight call centre employees reported missing.

The gruesome discovery was made last week at the bottom of a 40-meter (120-foot) 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 years, who had been reported missing since around May 20.

Forensic evidence "confirms that (the remains) correspond to the young people who... had been reported missing," the Jalisco state government said in a statement Tuesday.

Authorities did not indicate how the victims may have died.

The missing person reports for each one of the employees had been made separately on different days, but investigators found that they all worked at the same call center.

Initial inquiries suggested the call center could have been involved in illegal activities.

Relatives of the missing have criticized authorities, saying they had been to slow to find their loved ones and to investigate the call center.

In recent years, human remains have been found in bags or unmarked graves in different areas of Jalisco.

The Jalisco New Generation cartel operates in the state and is one of the most powerful organized crime groups in Mexico, and is embroiled in disputes with other drug syndicates.

Mexico has recorded more than 340,000 murders and some 100,000 disappearances, the majority attributed to criminal organizations, since the launch of a controversial military anti-drug offensive in December 2006. - AFP