When Rubi Cruz recognized her husband’s personal effects among the personal objects found in a Mexican drug training campShe feared the worst – that he became a victim of forced recruitment.
The discovery of Os, shoes and clothes In a ranch of the western state of Jalisco, highlighted the ruthless tactics of violent criminal groups in a country where more than 120,000 people are missing.
Cruz’s husband, Fermin Hernandez, then 33, was kidnapped in 2021 from his home in the town of Tala near Izaguirre Ranch by armed men who pulled him in the leg.
She spotted what she believes to be her personal objects, including a portfolio and a t-shirt, in images published by a civil society group which went to seek the remains of missing persons to the site last month.
Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images
“I felt a lot of pain, a lot of sadness,” said the 31-year-old restaurant at AFP, the image of her husband and the words “Your wife is looking for you” printed on her long sleeve t-shirt.
According to the government, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, One of the drug trafficking groups designated a terrorist organization of President Trump, attracted recruits with false advertisements.
They received firearms and other training courses at Ranch Izaguirre, the Minister of Security, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said last month, on the basis of the testimony of an alleged Cartel recruiter who was arrested.
“They even took the lives of people who resisted the training or tried to escape,” he said.
“I’m going to watch you about paradise”
Disappearances skyrocketed in Mexico since the government said war on drug trafficking groups in 2006.
Since then, around 480,000 people have been murdered in a spiral of violence.
Veronica Cruz – Without a relationship with Rubi Cruz – fears that her son Robert Reyes is also the victim of a forced recruitment by a drug cartel.
The teenager disappeared a year ago after having traveled to Jalisco, attracted by an offer of work painting houses.
Veronica Cruz, 42, thinks that her son was also at Ranch Izaguirre because he sent a message from the region.
She had tried to keep her away from the neighborhood gangs and drugs, but said that she had never imagined that her son would be forced to join a cartel.
At the age of 16, the school traveled from his home in a suburbs near Mexico City in Jalisco a year ago to earn money to buy a motorcycle, disobedient to his mother.
A few weeks later, he called his sister crying.
“I am a hitman. My friend has just been killed … If I do not go out from here, I will watch you from heaven,” he said, according to his mother.
Later, a man who said that he was Robert’s friend wrote to his sister via social media to tell him that he died during a shooting.
“I thought Hitmen wanted to do this job. I never thought that the cartels took people,” said his mother.
More than 120,000 people are missing in Mexico
The government says it has shot down dozens of social media pages recruiting for criminal groups.
But on the Tiktok video sharing application, jobs are always offered to Jalisco with “meal and hodging”, featuring nicknames for the cartel of Jalisco New Generation. The cartel is led by Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” daresgue CervantesFor whom the American government has offered a $ 15 million award For more information leading to his capture.
The state of Jalisco represents 12% of the approximately 127,000 people who disappeared in Mexico, mainly young men.
Many disappearances are linked to forced recruitment because gangs need armies to control their territory and generate illicit income, according to Jorge Ramirez, researcher at the University of Guadalajara.
Victims are often young poor without access to education, he said.
In 2024, around thirty young people would have disappeared after attending what they thought were job interviews in Guadalajara, the capital of the State of Jalisco.
Despite her fears, Rubi Cruz still hopes to find her living husband.
Ulises Ruiz / AFP via Getty Images
Veronica Cruz’s optimism has decreased, but she still wants answers.
“Maybe I’m not looking for justice, but I want to know where my son is-whatever it takes,” she said.
Several graves have been found in recent months in Mexico. In January, at least 56 bodies were discovered In not marked mass pits in northern Mexico, not far from the border with the United States.
A mass grave Discovered in December 2024 in a suburbs of Guadalajara with dozens of bodies of dismembered body parts contained the remains of 24 people, the authorities said. This same month, the Mexican authorities said they had recovered a total of 31 body Chiapas pits, a state tormented by the violence of the cartel.
Collective seeking missing people Say that drug trafficking cartels and other organized crime gangs sometimes use ovens to incine their victims and leave no trace.