The disappearance of at least eight men in Oaxaca is linked to the sale of illicit drugs, state Security Minister Iván García Álvarez said Thursday.

The men, ranging in age from 17 to 44, disappeared earlier this month while traveling in the southern state.

Many reports said they were traveling to the Pacific coast town of Puerto Escondido when they disappeared, but Oaxaca Attorney General José Bernardo Rodríguez Alamilla said Wednesday that they had been summoned to a “work meeting” in the town of Río Grande, located about 50 kilometers northwest of Puerto Escondido.

Various reports said that a total of 14 people disappeared, but the head of the Oaxaca Search Commission, Michel Julián López, said in a radio interview that only eight people are confirmed as missing. The Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office has said that missing person reports have only been filed for seven men.

García, the Oaxaca security minister, said Thursday that authorities had established that the disappearance of the men is related to “narcomenudeo,” or street-level drug dealing.

“The background is a drug-related issue. I can only say that,” he told reporters.

Rodríguez said Wednesday that six of the missing men had criminal records for crimes that included weapons possession, vehicle theft and making threats. He said that the men knew each other but didn’t all travel together after being called to a “work meeting” in Oaxaca’s coastal region. It was unclear whether they all disappeared at the same time.

Authorities had obtained information that allowed them to identify the alleged perpetrators of the abductions, García said. He mentioned the involvement of organized crime but didn’t identify any particular criminal organization.

More than 100 people searching for the missing men

The Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office (FGEO) said in a statement on Wednesday that it had expanded search efforts to locate seven people reported as missing in the Central Valleys region of Oaxaca.

Search operations in the Central Valleys and Costa regions of Oaxaca in which over 100 people are participating are underway, the FGEO said.

It said that state and federal personnel, including members of the National Guard, the army and the navy were contributing to the search efforts.

The FGEO said it received reports of the missing people between Jan. 11 and 14. “The families of the victims indicated that they were seen for the last time at different points of the Central Valleys region,” it said.

The case, like others in Mexico, is murky 

The disappearance of the young men in Oaxaca is reminiscent of the abduction and presumed murder of 43 young men in Guerrero in 2014. The case involving the 43 Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College students remains murky and unresolved despite former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pledge to get to the bottom of it and hold those responsible to account.

Regarding the case in Oaxaca, there has been — and there continues to be — uncertainty about how many people are missing and the circumstances of their disappearance.

In a statement on Tuesday, Oaxaca human rights agency DDHPO referred to the disappearance of 14 people in the Costa region of Oaxaca.

The El Universal newspaper reported on Thursday that the families of seven of the missing people have not filed missing persons reports, but have sought help to locate them in social media posts.

López, the head of the Oaxaca Search Commission, told El Heraldo radio that three of the missing men had made contact with family members from Río Grande, indicating that they made it to coastal region of Oaxaca. He denied that a total of 14 people were missing.

While many media outlets reported that the men were heading to the beach in Puerto Escondido, including in reports published on Thursday, the state attorney general said Wednesday that “what we know” from “some telephones and chats” to which authorities had access is that “someone had summoned them to a work meeting” in Río Grande.

He didn’t say what kind of work the men did, but the state security minister’s remarks on Thursday indicated that they were involved in criminal activities.

Rodríguez said that authorities were still trying to establish how many vehicles the missing men traveled in. He said that authorities so far had knowledge of one pickup truck and two motorcycles.

Who are the missing men?

Rodríguez said Wednesday that most of the missing men lived in the southern suburbs of Oaxaca city. He said they used to go to bars and nightclubs in the state capital.

Seven of the missing men have been identified. They are:

• Luis Alberto Contreras Zúñiga, 44, last seen in a black pick-up truck in the municipality of Santa María Atzompa (near Oaxaca city) on Jan. 7.
• Yurem de Jesús Barrios Martínez, 17, last seen in Oaxaca city on Jan. 7.
• Omar Edwin García Gutiérrez, 30, last seen in the Central de Abastos market in Oaxaca city on Jan. 6.
• Julio Alberto Quiroz González, 18, last seen in San Martín Mexicapam (near Oaxaca city) on Dec. 31.
• Yair Morales Matias, 19, last seen in San Martín Mexicapam on Jan. 7.
• Hugo Alberto Sierra Basilio, 33, last seen in Oaxaca city on Jan. 7.
• Rafael Velasco Hernández, 19.

With reports from El Universal, El Heraldo de México, La Silla Rota, Milenio, El País, Animal Político and Quadratín