Vizsla Silver Corp. workers. they were working in an environment riddled with gunfire, cartel checkpoints and drones, says the brother of a geologist with a Canadian mining company in Mexico, who was among five people found dead after being kidnapped by a suspected faction of the Sinaloa cartel.

Attorney Jaime Chestnut said his brother José Manuel Castañeda Hernández told him that firefights were raging around the company’s research sites in the rugged, mountainous interior of the northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Castañeda said his brother also described hearing gunfire during the evening and overnight as he and his associates prepared to sleep in a gated apartment complex in Concordia, a municipality about 50 kilometers east of the coastal city of Mazatlán, Sinaloa.

“And it always seemed to be getting closer to Concordia, which was supposed to be a safe place,” Castañeda said in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday. The entire territory was full of armed men.

José Manuel Castañeda Hernández, 43, was one of 10 workers, including geologists, engineers and security guards, who were kidnapped on the morning of January 23 in Concordia.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office (FGR) said the bodies of five of the 10 abducted men had been identified.

FGR said all 10 worked for Vizsla Silver, which is based in Vancouver and has been operating in Sinaloa since about 2019.

An engineer working for another company was also abducted around the same time in Concordia while waiting for his daily commute to a work site near the Vizsla Silver facility.

The kidnappings took place against a backdrop of rising violence in Sinaloa fueled by a nearly 18-month-long civil war within the Sinaloa cartel, one of the world’s most powerful drug-trafficking groups.

The conflict has left thousands dead or missing across the country.

One of the factions, called Los Chapitos, remains loyal to the sons of the now imprisoned Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzman. They fight another faction, known as La Mayiza, which is loyal to the son of Ismael (El Mayo) Zambada, who once led the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo.

Mexican authorities believe that Los Chapitos is behind the mining company kidnapping.

Two Mexican security experts told CBC News that La Mayiza 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 ‘cautiously’

Vizsla Silver said in a statement Wednesday night that it had made “significant investments” in its security operations and had hired “experienced” and “internationally recognized security consultants.”

The company said it continuously assesses “conditions in its areas of operation” and always acts “with the greatest degree of caution” based on the information it has at any given time.

Vizsla Silver said it was providing “practical and financial assistance” to the affected families. The company said it has also provided grief counseling to its Mexican and Canadian teams.

“We will continue to support the affected families and our team, remain fully engaged with the relevant authorities and ensure that safety continues to drive all decisions,” said Vizsla Silver CEO Michael Konnert.

“We remain committed to preserving the long-term value and strength of Vizsla for the benefit of all stakeholders and the Concordia community.”

Vizsla Silver is currently developing a silver and gold exploration project called Panuco, which covers 35,000 hectares and is located approximately 40 km east of Concordia.

The press release says the opera is on the spottions remain suspended, but thon his engineering work, which can be done remotely, he continues.

Mexican authorities are examining the theories

Mexico’s Minister of Security and Civil Protection, Omar Harfuch, said Tuesday that authorities are investigating whether Los Chapitos replaced 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 workers of the mining company.

“We will gather more information as we arrest more people,” Harfuch said.

He said authorities had no evidence to suggest the kidnapping was connected to the company’s extortion efforts.

“We have had no complaints that (Vizsla Silver) was extorted or that any of the company officials were bothered by a criminal group,” Harfuch said.

Jaime Castañeda said he doubts Harfuch’s mistaken identity theory.

“As a lawyer I have to follow all the lines of the investigation, and this is one line, but I think it is unlikely that it happened like this,” he said.

Castañeda said Vizsla Silver workers have been in the area for months, wearing work vests and going back and forth from the Clementina complex to the Panuco mining operations.

Drones often flew over Vizsla Silver’s research sites, and sometimes gunmen stopped and searched the company’s vehicles in irregular locationsckpoints, he said.

“(My brother) would say that there was practically no government there, that they (gunmen) were the ones who controlled everything,” Castañeda said.

David Saucedo, a security consultant based in Mexico City, said Mexican authorities are investigating whether Vizsla Silver had dealings with elements from La Mayiza, which triggered the kidnapping by Los Chapitos.

La Mayiza has been fighting Los Chapitos around the Concordia region and has slowly taken control over the past 10 months, he said.

“Los Chapitos don’t get confused like this. I don’t see them making a mistake of this magnitude, to kidnap mine workers and kill them without verifying their identity,” said Saucedo, who advises corporations on security issues.

Saucedo said he would advise against any company operating in the Sinaloa region where Vizsla Silver operates.

“For 50 years the Sinaloa cartel has been in control of that zone and you can’t do business, you can’t do politics without the positive approval of the drug lords,” he said.

The Sinaloa cartel has been declared a terrorist organization in Canada.

Vizsla Silver said in a statement that it would only comment on “confirmed information” and would not “engage in baseless rumors 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 illegal or unethical behavior.”

The mother says she will do the “impossible” to find her son

Maurilio Santiago, lawyer s The Center for Human Rights and the Legal Council for Indigenous Peoples (CEDHAPI) said it also suspected the abduction was a case of mistaken identity.

I think there were other interests, other complicated, intricate situations and that the federal government and the government of Sinaloa know about it, said Santiago.

His organization is currently representing the family of Pablo Osorio Sánchez, 26, who was kidnapped in Concordia the same morning and around the same time gunmen took 10 Vizsla Silver workers.

The UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances has asked the Mexican government for “urgent action” regarding the case of Osorio Sánchez. The human rights body says his abduction is linked to 10 kidnapped workers.

Santiago said Sinaloan state authorities sent the case to the FGR, but the federal agency returned it to the state, leaving the case in limbo.

“They want to minimize it,” Santiago said. “If there was no ‘urgent action’ (from the UN committee) Pablo would be number two… there are many, many people who have disappeared in Sinaloa.”

Osorio Sánchez’s mother said her eldest son’s disappearance has left a gaping hole in her family’s life.

“I feel great sadness. He was the oldest in the family,” said Socorro Osorio Sánchez, 43, who is from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca and he has two more sons.

– He told us that he would work for us, that he would take care of us, and now we have nothing.

Osorio Sánchez says authorities at all levels did not take her son’s case seriously.

“I find my own strength to look for my son,” she said. “I will do anything impossible to find my son.”