The disappearance of 14 mining workers in the municipality of Concordia, Sinaloa, triggered a large deployment of federal and state forces in one of the regions hardest hit by violence in the southern part of the state.
The incident occurred within a context of confrontation between organized crime groups vying for territorial control in the state’s mountainous areas.
Following the case, relatives of the victims and security experts have put forward hypotheses to try to explain what lies behind the multiple kidnapping of the workers, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
The first hypothesis points to an internal war between the two main factions of the Sinaloa Cartel: Los Chapitos and the group led by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias Mayito Flaco.
The Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC), Omar García Harfuch, stated during the morning press conference on January 30: “A cell of Los Chapitos operates in this area. We have identified one of the leaders operating in the zone and we are also searching for him,” he confirmed.
Concordia is the scene of a confrontation for control of routes, territories, and illicit activities, and the disappearance may be an episode in this power struggle.
Hypothesis 2: Extortion and Criminal Reprisals
Another central hypothesis is that the miners’ kidnapping is linked to extortion or protection rackets targeting mining companies. Security expert David Saucedo has pointed out that foreign companies, especially Canadian mining companies, “are very pragmatically collaborating with drug trafficking groups and paying what is known as protection money. That is, in order to carry out their extraction activities, they pay the fee,” he stated on Aristegui Noticias.
Saucedo explained that, in some cases, these companies even “hire criminal groups to contain environmental and social movements, and even to intimidate the press that may report on the destruction of the natural environment, labor lawsuits, or situations where the companies have some conflict in the entities in which they operate.”
