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Vizsla Silver Corp.’s workers laboured in an environment punctured by gunfire, cartel checkpoints and drones, says the brother of a geologist with the Canadian mining company in Mexico, who was among five people found dead after they were kidnapped by a suspected faction of the Sinaloa cartel.
Lawyer Jaime Castañeda said his brother José Manuel Castañeda Hernández told him that gun battles had flared around the company’s exploration sites in the rugged, mountainous interior of the northwestern state of Sinaloa.
Castañeda said his brother also described hearing gunfire during the evening and into the night as he and his co-workers prepared to sleep in a gated residential compound in Concordia, a municipality about 50 kilometres east of the coastal city of Mazatlán, Sinaloa.
“And it always seemed to get closer to Concordia, which was supposed to be a secure place,” said Castañeda in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday. “The whole territory was full of armed people.”
José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, 43, was one of 10 workers, including geologists, engineers and security guards, who were kidnapped on the morning of Jan. 23 in Concordia.
Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has said that the bodies of five of the 10 kidnapped men have been identified.
The FGR said all 10 worked for Vizsla Silver, which is headquartered in Vancouver and has been operating in Sinaloa since around 2019.
An engineer working for a different company was also kidnapped around the same time in Concordia while he waited for his daily ride to a worksite near Vizsla Silver’s operations.
The kidnappings unfolded against a backdrop of surging violence in Sinaloa driven by a nearly 18 month-long civil war within the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful drug trafficking groups in the world.
The conflict has left thousands dead or disappeared across the state.
One of the factions, called Los Chapitos, remains loyal to the sons of now-jailed Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán. They are fighting another faction, known as La Mayiza, that is loyal to the son of Ismael (El Mayo) Zambada, who once co-led the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo.
Mexican authorities believe Los Chapitos were behind the mining company kidnapping.
Two Mexican security experts told CBC News that La Mayiza had recently pushed Los Chapitos out of the area where Vizsla Silver was operating.
It remains unclear why the workers were kidnapped.
Company says it acted with ‘caution’
Vizsla Silver said in a statement on Wednesday evening that it had made “significant investment” in its security operations and had hired “experienced” and “internationally recognized security advisors.”
The company said that it continually assessed “conditions across its operating areas” and always acted “with the highest degree of caution” based on the information it had at any given time.
Vizsla Silver said it was providing “practical and financial assistance” to the impacted families. The company said it had also made grief counselling available to its Mexico and Canadian teams.
“We will continue to support the affected families and our team, remain fully engaged with the relevant authorities and ensure safety continues to guide all decisions,” said Vizsla Silver CEO Michael Konnert.
“We remain committed to safeguarding the long-term value and strength of Vizsla to benefit all stakeholders and the community of Concordia.”
Vizsla Silver is currently developing a silver and gold exploration project called Panuco, which is spread across 35,000 hectares and sits roughly 40 km east of Concordia.
The statement said on-site operations remain suspended but that its engineering-based work, which can be done remotely, continues.
Mexican authorities probe theories
Mexican Security and Citizen Protection Secretary Omar Harfuch said on Tuesday that authorities were investigating whether Los Chapitos mistook the workers, who are all men, as members of La Mayiza.
He said the information was based on the interrogation of four people arrested during the search for the kidnapped mining company workers.
“We are going to gather more information as we arrest more people,” said Harfuch.
He said authorities had no evidence suggesting the kidnapping was linked to extortion attempts of the company.
“We have not had any complaints that [Vizsla Silver] was being extorted or that one of the company officials had been bothered by a criminal group,” said Harfuch.
Jaime Castañeda said he doubted Harfuch’s mistaken identity theory.
“As a lawyer, I have to follow all lines of investigations, and this is one line, but I think it’s unlikely it happened like this,” he said.
Castañeda said the Vizsla Silver workers had been in the area for months, wearing work vests, and going back and forth from the Clementina compound to the Panuco mining operations.
Drones often flew over Vizsla Silver’s exploration sites and sometimes armed men stopped and searched company vehicles at irregular checkpoints, he said.
“[My brother] would say that there were practically no authorities around there, that it was them [armed men] who controlled everything,” said Castañeda.
David Saucedo, a Mexico City-based security consultant, said Mexican authorities were investigating whether Vizsla Silver had dealings with elements from La Mayiza, triggering the kidnapping by Los Chapitos.
La Mayiza had fought Los Chapitos over the Concordia region and slowly took control over the past 10 months, he said.
“Los Chapitos don’t get confused like this. I don’t see them making an error of this magnitude, to kidnap mine workers and assassinate them without verifying their identity,” said Saucedo, who advises corporations on security matters.
Saucedo said he would advise against any company doing business in the region of Sinaloa where Vizsla Silver operates.
“For 50 years, the Sinaloa cartel has had control of that zone and you can’t do business, you can’t do politics, without the positive approval of the narco leaders,” he said.
The Sinaloa cartel is a designated terror organization in Canada.
Vizsla Silver said in its statement that it would only comment on “confirmed information” and would not “engage in unfounded rumours or speculation.”
The company said it follows Mexican and Canadian laws while maintaining “a zero-tolerance approach” to bribery, corruption, extortion “and any form of unlawful or unethical conduct.”
Mother says she’ll do the ‘impossible’ to find son
Maurilio Santiago, a lawyer with the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Council for Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI), said he also doubts that the kidnapping was a case of mistaken identity.
“I think that there were other interests, other complicated, tangled situations there, and that the federal government and the government of Sinaloa knows about it,” said Santiago.
His organization is currently representing the family of Pablo Osorio Sánchez, 26, who was abducted in Concordia on the same morning and around the same time that armed men took the 10 Vizsla Silver workers.
The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has asked the Mexican government for “urgent action” on Osorio Sánchez’s case. The human rights body says his abduction is linked to the 10 kidnapped workers.
Santiago said that Sinaloan state authorities sent the case to the FGR, but the federal agency sent it back to the state, leaving the case in limbo.
“They want to minimize it,” said Santiago. “If it wasn’t for the ‘urgent action’ [from the UN committee] Pablo would be another number … in Sinaloa there are many, many people who’ve disappeared.”
Osorio Sánchez’s mother said her eldest son’s disappearance has left a gaping hole in her family’s life.
“I feel so much sadness. He was the oldest in the family,” said Socorro Osorio Sánchez, 43, who is from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, and has two other sons.
“He told us he was going to work for us, to take care of us, and now we have nothing left.”
Osorio Sánchez says authorities at all levels had failed to take her son’s case seriously.
“I am finding my own strength to search for my son,” she said. “I am going to do up to the impossible to find my son.”
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