Authorities in Mexico recently uncovered the remains of 11 individuals, two of whom were minors, in a forsaken pickup truck near a highway in Chilpancingo, the capital of Guerrero state. The victims comprised of nine males and two females, and the case is being probed as a series of homicides.
The gruesome discovery was made on November 7, 2024, subsequent to a report from a local citizen about an unattended pickup truck. Several sources report that the bodies were dismembered and disposed of in plastic bags, however, these details are yet to be officially confirmed by the prosecutors. According to officials, two victims were female and two were underage.
One of the victims, 14-year-old Angel Barrera Millan, was last seen in a hostage video in October after he was kidnapped along with family members.
Members of the Ardillos drug cartel kidnapped about 13 people from the boy’s family on October 21, 2024. The family had been traveling to Chilapa to sell plastic household items at a market.
Four additional family members, who went searching for their missing relatives on October 27, were themselves kidnapped and hadn’t been seen since. Two people from the original group of 13 remain unaccounted for. According to local human rights activists, the kidnappings may have been triggered by someone taking a photograph of the wrong person in town.
In a separate event near the popular resort city of Acapulco, four more bodies were discovered in a vehicle, each showing evidence of strangulation. The highway where these bodies were found is a main artery connecting Mexico City and Acapulco.
The acts of violence are believed to be related to an ongoing turf war between the Ardillos and the Tlacos, rival narco factions vying for control of the drug trade and extortion rackets in Chilpancingo. The dispute intensified in 2023, when one gang orchestrated a large protest, commandeered a government vehicle, blocked a major highway, and took law enforcement officers hostage to demand the release of their detained members.
The escalating violence in the region was brought into sharp focus last month with the brutal murder of Chilpancingo’s mayor, Alejandro Arcos, who was found beheaded less than a week after his inauguration. Ahead of Mexico’s elections on June 2, at least six aspiring political candidates have also been killed in the state.
Guerrero, located on the Pacific coast, is a strategic hub for organized crime and reported 1,890 murders in the previous year. Several criminal organizations, such as the Jalisco Cartel New Generation, Guerreros Unidos, and Familia Michoacana, are known to operate in the area.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s recently inaugurated president, has deviated from her predecessor’s policy of “hugs, not bullets” in dealing with cartel violence. Her newly proposed security plan emphasizes improved intelligence cooperation among government agencies and the augmentation of the National Guard. It also includes social support initiatives for the youth to offer alternatives to participation in organized crime.
Since Sheinbaum assumed office on October 1, the country has logged 2,638 homicides nationwide. Since 2006, when the government initially deployed the army to fight drug trafficking, Mexico has seen over 450,000 murders and tens of thousands of disappearances.