Mexico says it has potentially identified 40,000 of the country's 130,000 disappeared

2026-03-27 16:50:06

MEXICO CITY, March 27 (Reuters) - Mexican authorities said on Friday they have potentially identified more than 40,000 people listed as disappeared by cross-referencing official databases like tax records and marriage registries.

After ‌a year-long review of the national registry of missing persons, officials said that 40,367 entries – 31% of the total – showed some activity across other government records such as tax filings or birth certificates, suggesting those people could be alive and locateable.

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Of those, authorities have so far located and confirmed the identities of 5,338 people, allowing their cases to be reclassified ⁠as ‘found.’

Mexico has over 130,000 missing people, a consequence of decades of drug violence as cartels have expanded their reach and power. But the government said that the figure is also the result of a poorly managed database riddled with errors, missing information, and duplication.

About 46,000 records – roughly 36% – lack basic information such as names, dates or places of disappearance, making searches impossible. Officials said the registry was initially compiled by uploading unverified lists from federal and state prosecutors, search commissions, citizen reports and activist groups, creating duplications and incomplete entries.

A further 43,654 cases do have complete records ‌but ⁠show no activity through the cross-referencing with other government databases. But of that figure, less than 10% have a connected open criminal investigation, a gap officials said reflects years of failure on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement.

Disappearances surged after 2006, when Mexico launched its war on drug cartels. Of those still ⁠missing, 130,613 date from 2006 onwards, while 2,357 are legacy cases from 1952 to 2005, many linked to forced disappearances by state agents.

The public policy group Mexico Evalua found that there has been a 200% percent ⁠increase disappearances over the last decade, a consequence of the growing power of organized crime groups.

Officials on Friday stressed that no records would be removed from the public registry, only reclassified ⁠as people are located, and said new legal reforms now block entries without minimum data.

“We will continue looking for all disappeared people until finding them,” Marcela Figueroa, a top security official, said at the president’s morning press conference.

Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Emily Green

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Stephen Eisenhammer

Thomson Reuters

Stephen Eisenhammer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and the Bureau Chief for Mexico and Central America. He was previously in Brazil and Angola. He was part of the Reuters team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2025 for the series “Fentanyl Express”. Stephen is also a three-time winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award.

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