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LatinNews Daily - 24 April 2018

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Mexican authorities fear missing students murdered

Development: On 23 April, the attorney general’s office of Mexico’s Jalisco state said that it believes that the three cinematography students kidnapped in the state last month have been murdered by the Cártel Nueva Plaza drug trafficking organisation (DTO).

Significance: The announcement will heighten tensions in Mexico, where the disappearance of the three students had led to the staging of mass public demonstrations in Jalisco’s capital, Guadalajara, as well as in Mexico City (CDMX), calling for the students to be found alive. The Mexican authorities will now be under increased pressure to fully clear up the case or risk facing social unrest.

  • Jalisco’s attorney general, Raúl Sánchez, made the latest announcement during a press conference yesterday in which he provided an update of the investigation into the kidnapping of the three Universidad de Medios Audiovisuales (Caav) students reported missing on 19 March. Sánchez said that after tracking the students’ last known movements, and colleting evidence in the municipality of Tonalá, investigators now believed that the students had been taken by Cártel Nueva Plaza members, murdered, and their bodies dissolved in acid.
  • According to Sánchez, this hypothesis is consistent with the discovery by investigators of three containers containing dissolved human remains made in a ranch in Tonalá last week. The remains have not yet been identified, with the authorities waiting for DNA testing results. But Sánchez said that investigators believe that they belong to the three Caav students following the arrest of two unidentified individuals that said that they were members of the Cártel Nueva Plaza and were involved in the kidnapping.
  • Sánchez said that investigators believe that the Caav students were filming in Tonalá unware that this is a Cártel Nueva Plaza stronghold and that their presence was not welcomed by the criminal group, which saw them as a threat. Sánchez added that the authorities have identified six other individuals who they want to question in relation to the case, but he again refused to identify them.

Looking Ahead: Sánchez failed to clear up if the students were abducted by individuals who pretended to be Jalisco attorney general’s office officials or even rogue officials as has been suggested by eyewitnesses. This has only fuelled speculation in Mexico that local government officials may have been involved in the kidnapping which, if confirmed, could spark a national outcry similar to that produced by the September 2014 Iguala mass abduction case.

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