Mexico (AFP) – Mexico's Attorney General's Office confirmed on Monday the death of five of the ten Canadian mine workers kidnapped two weeks ago in northwest Mexico, in an area disputed between criminals for its mining wealth.

First modification: 02/10/2026 - 01:13 Last modification: 02/10/2026 - 13:10

In a statement, the prosecutor's office detailed that it "carried out the identification of five bodies located on a property" in the municipality of Concordia, state of Sinaloa, and added that it is working on the identification of "five other bodies."

The ten workers of the Canadian firm Vizsla Silver were kidnapped on January 23 in Concordia, in the south of Sinaloa.

According to testimonies from family members, an armed commando forcibly removed them from a camp located at the project headquarters in the town of Pánuco.

The authorities deployed more than a thousand troops to search for him, in an unusual operation. Equally unusual is the kidnapping of such a large group of workers from an international company.

The Attorney General's Office had reported on Friday the location of several bodies on a property in the same municipality of Concordia. According to local media, those kidnapped are all Mexicans, some are engineers and at least one is a geologist.

In a separate statement, the Canadian firm announced the death of its workers, based on information it obtained from relatives, but without specifying figures and clarified that it is "waiting for confirmation from the Mexican authorities."

Silver, gold, lead and zinc

The Canadian firm's complex is located in Pánuco, a community of a few hundred inhabitants in the municipality of Concordia, which according to testimonies from residents of the area gathered by AFP has been suffering numerous kidnappings for months. The case of workers from an international company triggered the reaction of the authorities.

However, disputes in this town have occurred since 2024 due to the internal war of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

The opposing factions are Los Mayos and Los Chapitos, the second of which is the one that has control in the gold and silver mine area, according to the Mexican government.

Until 2015, the southern region of Sinaloa was home to 215 mining concessions, some in exploration and others in exploitation.

The state is shaken by daily murders and kidnappings within the framework of these internal struggles of the Sinaloa cartel, which leave more than 1,700 people murdered and almost 2,000 missing in just over a year.

© 2026 AFP

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