The Pacific coast of the southern state of Oaxaca is known as an idyllic part of Mexico, a region where domestic and foreign tourists alike frolic on the beautiful beaches and enjoy the laidback lifestyle with nary a care in the world.
But that image has been damaged, if not shattered, in early 2025, due to the occurrence of crimes that are sadly all too common in Mexico: mass kidnappings and murder.
In January, seven young men disappeared near the popular tourist town of Puerto Escondido and haven’t been seen since. Authorities linked the abduction and probable murders to drug trafficking, but almost two months later the details of the case remain murky.
More recently, 10 young people from the central Mexican state of Tlaxcala were abducted in separate incidents in Zipolite, where Mexico’s only official nudist beach is located, and in the resort region of Huatulco, also situated on Oaxaca’s Pacific coast. They were on vacation in Oaxaca when they disappeared, according to various media reports.
The dismembered bodies of nine of those people — four women and five men aged 19 to 29 — were found on March 2 in and near an abandoned vehicle located hundreds of kilometers away in a municipality in Puebla on that state’s border with Oaxaca.
A motive for the abduction and murder of the young people — reportedly students — has not been disclosed by government officials, but authorities are investigating the possible involvement of municipal police. Authorities have also said that the abduction of some of the victims could be related to a dispute between rival criminal groups. There is speculation that the victims were involved in criminal activities.
One person has been arrested in connection with the abduction and murder of the young people from Tlaxcala.
The lone survivor of the most recent kidnappings in coastal Oaxaca, Brenda Salas, was located in the state of Puebla early last week. She reportedly told authorities that she and her friend Angie Pérez were abducted by municipal police.
What is the timeline of the disappearances in Oaxaca?
On the final day of February, 21-year-old Lesly Noya and 23-year-old Jacqueline Meza disappeared in Zipolite. On the same day, Raul González and his girlfriend Noemí Yamileth López, both 29, also vanished in the small, bohemian beach town.
Meza was dining at a restaurant near the beach when she was abducted, according to the young woman’s mother.
⛓️🚓 #MañaneraDelPueblo| Omar García Harfuch, secretario de Seguridad, afirma que la Fiscalía de Oaxaca está llevando “una buena investigación” sobre la desaparición de jóvenes de Tlaxcala, cuyos cuerpos fueron hallados en Puebla, tras la captura de un presunto implicado pic.twitter.com/rBDVdBcTM5
— La Jornada Tlaxcala (@JOrienteTlax) March 11, 2025
Security Minister Omar García Harfuch told reporters on Tuesday that if state authorities were found to be uncooperative or colluding with criminals, the federal Attorney General’s Office would assume the investigation, however, in this case, Oaxaca authorities are carrying out “a good investigation.”
“Please, I’m asking for your help, my daughter disappeared last night, she was kidnapped and until now we don’t know anything,” Andrea Cazares said on social media, according to a report published by the newspaper El País on Monday.
Cazares added that “two little ones aged five and three” are waiting for Meza, presumably the mother of the young children.
At around the same time, two other families were “screaming in desperation” due to the disappearance of two young women in Huatulco, El País reported.
Those families accused municipal police of taking 19-year-old Brenda Salas and 29-year-old Angie Pérez to an unknown location. The two women were allegedly beaten before their enforced disappearance.
Four other young people from Tlaxcala — Guillermo Cortés, Jonathan Uriel Calva, Marco Antonio Flores and Rolando Armando Evaristo — also recently disappeared in coastal Oaxaca. Exactly where they were abducted and where they were subsequently taken to is unknown, El País reported.
A grisly discovery across state lines
On Sunday, March 2, the remains of nine people were discovered in or near an abandoned vehicle in the municipality of San José Miahuatlán, located in southeastern Puebla on that state’s border with Oaxaca. The municipality is located around 400 kilometers from the coastal region of Oaxaca where the 10 young people from Tlaxcala disappeared.
El País and other media outlets reported that the remains belong to nine of the ten young people abducted in coastal Oaxaca. The newspaper El Imparcial reported that authorities identified the nine victims and confirmed they were from Tlaxcala. The bodies reportedly had bullet wounds and showed signs of torture.
El País said that “no one has confirmed” that all of the victims previously knew each other, but “their lives came together in the end.”
Gracias a su apoyo y colaboración la ciudadana BRENDA MARIEL SALAS MOYA, ha sido localizada. @FISCALIA_GobOax @AEI_Oaxaca @PolVial_GobOax@Policia_GobOax @089Oaxaca @Oaxaca_9_1_1@cruzrojaoaxaca @Bomberos_GobOax @DIF_Oaxaca@GN_Carreteras @SIDISSPC_GobOax pic.twitter.com/vnyKHdVhSn
— Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas No Localizadas (@FGEO_DNOL) March 1, 2025
A social media post on March 1 confirmed that Brenda Salas had been found alive, making her the sole survivor of the event.
The newspaper noted that the victims came from four municipalities in Tlaxcala that are in close proximity to each other.
“… In a strange event that no authority has yet explained, the attackers left one survivor: Brenda Salas,” El País said.
El País also reported that it was not a “coincidence” that the bodies were dumped in Puebla, just across the border from Oaxaca. By leaving the bodies there, “attention was diverted from the Oaxacan coast and also from its authorities,” the newspaper said.
The newspaper El Universal reported that five of the victims were buried immediately after their bodies were returned to their families in Tlaxcala last week. El Universal said that the relatives of the victims all declined requests for interviews.
Were municipal police involved?
Last Thursday, the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office (FGEO) announced that it was investigating the “possible involvement” of municipal police officers in the disappearance of four of the young people from Tlaxcala: Angie Pérez, Brenda Salas, Raul González and Noemí Yamileth López.
The FGEO said it had obtained information that suggests that the abduction of the four aforesaid people “could be related to a dispute between criminal cells.”
“With the aim of ensuring that direct and indirect victims have an adequate justice process that allows them to know the truth about what happened, the FGEO is carrying out ministerial work to determine if there is any level of involvement from municipal police officers,” the Attorney General’s Office said.
Authorities announce an arrest
Jesús Romero López, interior minister for the state of Oaxaca, said on Monday that one person had been arrested in connection with the abduction and murder of the young people from Tlaxcala. He didn’t reveal the identity of the person who was detained.
🛜🔴Por la mu3rt3 de nueve personas en los límites de Oaxaca y Puebla, la Fiscalía de Oaxaca ya tiene a una persona detenida, recluida en un penal del Estado confirmó el Secretario de Gobierno Jesús Romero López.
En la conferencia de esta mañana, destacó que hay avances muy… pic.twitter.com/o69itLeTwR
— Red es Oaxaca (@Red_es_Oaxaca) March 10, 2025
On Monday, Jesús Romero López, interior minister for the state of Oaxaca, shared advances in the case and rejected assertions that Huatulco is an unsafe place to visit.
Romero did say that the person had faced a court hearing, and revealed to authorities key information about the crimes committed, including the motive for those offenses. He didn’t disclose that information.
Romero rejected comparisons to the case of the 43 students who disappeared in the state of Guerrero in 2014.
The disappearance and murder of the young people from Tlaxcala didn’t occur within “a context of social struggle,” he said. Romero also rejected assertions that Huatulco is an unsafe place to visit.
The official said that the FGEO would provide a detailed report on the case in the coming hours, but as of midday Tuesday said document had not been made available to the public.
Is the murder of a Huatulco businessman linked to the case?
On the same weekend the young people from Tlaxcala were abducted, Huatulco businessman and former mayoral aspirant José Alfredo Lavariega was murdered while driving his car in coastal Oaxaca. A note accusing him of being a thief was left in his car.
The Reforma newspaper reported last week that authorities are seeking to determine whether there is a link between Lavariega, who was known as “El Jocha,” and the young people whose bodies were found in and near the vehicle located in Puebla.
One theory, Reforma reported, is that the young people from Tlaxcala traveled to Oaxaca to stay in Lavariega’s hotel.
El País noted that there have been attempts to link the murder of Lavariega on March 1 to the disappearance of the young people from Tlaxcala.
The British tabloid newspaper The Daily Mail is the main source of the theory that there is a link between Lavariega and the nine people found dead in Puebla on March 2.
In what was described as an “exclusive” report published last Thursday, The Daily Mail said it was told by an official at the “prosecutor’s office” — presumably the Oaxaca Attorney General’s Office — that “José ‘El Jocha’ Lavariega invited the victims, members of ‘Los Brujos’ [crime gang], to spend time in Oaxaca” at his hotel.
The newspaper described Lavariega as “an aspiring mayor-turned-gang leader” and said he “committed a cardinal sin in the Mexican criminal world that led to the deaths of nine students.”
It quoted the unnamed prosecutor’s office official as saying that Lavariega and the young people from Tlaxcala were “friends.”
“… After the invitation to come to the city, the victims allegedly asked the cartel boss if it would be fine for them to ‘steal’ and engage in other criminal activity while in Oaxaca, according to the source,” reported the newspaper, which published a video purportedly showing Lavariega joking around with some of the young people from Tlaxcala staying at his hotel.
The Daily Mail said that “Lavariega eventually led the young adults to their own carnage by giving them the green light” to commit crimes in coastal Oaxaca, and they subsequently “set out to commit a wave of muggings and thefts.”
“However, it did not sit well with one of the drug-selling criminal groups that operates in Oaxaca,” the newspaper said.
“… ‘And then what happened, happened,’ Daily Mail quoted the official as saying in reference to “the horrific murders and mutilations.”
As of midday Tuesday authorities in Mexico have not publicly said or suggested that the young people from Tlaxcala were involved in criminal activities.
The newspaper Reforma and other Mexican media outlets have also reported on The Daily Mail’s article and video.
El País said that in the wake of the abduction and murders of the young people from Tlaxcala, “an old pattern has been repeated that was created by the government of [former president] Felipe Calderón in the so-called war on drugs: the criminalization of victims of forced disappearance.”
The “justification,” the newspaper said, “is that if they were taken away, they were surely up to something; that if they were killed, they must have done something.”
With reports from El País, CNN en Español, EFE, El Universal, El Sol de Tlaxcala, Reforma and The Daily Mail
