EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Authorities in Chihuahua, Mexico, say they have found six clandestine graves with 10 bodies in them in a town 70 miles south of Columbus, New Mexico.
Eight of the bodies were dismembered prior to burial in a forested area known as “El Willi” in Casas Grandes, the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office said in a statement Wednesday.
The bodies taken out of the ground by state forensic anthropologists were transported to a coroner’s office for autopsies.
The Attorney General’s Office said state police officers assigned to a task force for missing persons located the graves and began digging on Tuesday with the help of members of Mexico’s National Guard.
The task force investigates anonymous tips in a region known for its agriculture and ranching and for being a drug corridor to the United States disputed by two transnational criminal organizations.
Casas Grandes is 40 miles east of Bavispe, Sonora, where members of La Linea shot nine Americans dead on Nov. 4, 2019, mistaking their vehicles for those of rivals from the Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican authorities arrested more than 20 individuals in connection to the killings. A federal judge in North Dakota in 2022 awarded relatives of the victims $4.6 billion in damages. La Linea, allegedly led by Jesus Venzor Salas Aguayo, aka El Chuyin, has not paid.
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