Two marines were found alive in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, on Saturday, 320 kilometers from where they had been kidnapped on November 15 in a Guadalajara metropolitan area parking lot.

An unidentified navy captain’s secretary and driver were awaiting the captain in the shopping center parking lot in Zapopan when they were surrounded by an armed convoy. The vehicle in which they had been traveling, a white Jeep, was found abandoned days later.  

They were discovered Saturday blindfolded and kneeling on the ground by a police patrol in the resort city.   

They identified themselves to authorities as Ángela y Jorge but didn’t give details on their treatment or where they had been taken. They were reported to be in good health but were still taken to a hospital. 

The Navy Ministry said that Jorge had been beaten and that Ángela “was found intact.”

The Jalisco New Generation Cartel is suspected of their abduction in retaliation for the arrest of the wife of the cartel’s leader, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes.

Rosalinda González Valencia was captured in Zapopan on November 15 by soldiers working in conjunction with the federal Attorney General’s Office and the National Intelligence Center.

Federal forces have since carried out an operation in Zapopan to locate and capture El Mencho’s daughter Laisha Michelle Oseguera González and her partner Christian Fernando Gutiérrez Ochoa, but neither was found.

Federal forces also searched for El Mencho in Jalisco, Nayarit, Michoacán and Guanajuato without success, according to military sources cited by Reforma. 

With reports from Informador and El Sol de México