Last month, a group of cartel gunmen stormed a mining camp, kidnapped ten employees of a Canadian mining company, and are believed to have murdered them. So far, authorities have been able to identify five of the bodies found in a clandestine mass grave.
Rather than explain how a cartel was able to mobilize dozens of gunmen and operate with complete impunity to kidnap and murder innocent workers, Mexico’s top security official, Omar Garcia Harfuch, claimed that gunmen from the Sinaloa Cartel had killed the mining employees after confusing them for rival gunmen. The employees were Mexican nationals working for a Canadian mining company operating in Mexico. In a news conference on Tuesday morning, Harfuch claimed that the mining company had not been the target of extortion or threats prior to the kidnapping of their employees.
Harfuch said that the crime was carried out by the Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel and that their investigation pointed to a case of mistaken identity where the gunmen believed that the employees of the Canadian mining company were gunmen from the Los Mayos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.
As Breitbart Texas reported, soon after the initial kidnapping in late January, Mexico’s government deployed more than 1,000 military troops in an attempt to locate the victims. The handling of the case has sparked widespread criticism due to the soft approach that Mexico’s government has had with cartels in the past. In recent months, key members of Mexico’s political elite have been implicated in dealings or for providing protection to criminal organizations and cartels.
Despite the mass killing, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum praised her government for a decrease in murder statistics, claiming that under her term, Mexico has seen a 42 percent decrease in homicides from 86.9 daily killings in September 2024 to 50.9 daily killings in January 2026. The use of statistics has earned little support for Sheinbaum, where cartel mass graves are constantly being discovered.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at [email protected].
Read the full article here