Kidnappers kill Vizla Mine workers; Mexico makes arrests 

Four suspects linked to the kidnapping of miners from Canada’s Vizsla Silver Corp. The Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that five of Vizsla’s workers had been found dead, after 10 people were abducted from the project, and officials were working to identify another five bodies. Mexico’s Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch said that the miners could have been mistaken for part of a criminal group in Sinaloa State. The four suspects are part of the criminal group Los Chapitos, which has an ongoing feud with another group known as Los Mayos, Garcia Harfuch said.

The Mexican government has been trying to reduce violence in the state since 2024, when a battle between warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel led to an increase in homicides after the capture of the cartel’s co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Last month, as part of efforts to quell the violence, the government deployed 1,600 more members of the military to the state.

Vancouver-based Vizsla had earlier said that the families of the missing employees informed the company that their relatives had been found dead. The developer suspended operations at the project in January, after reporting that 10 people had been taken from the site in Concordia in Sinaloa state. Vizsla said information about the incident was limited, and that it had engaged crisis management and security response teams. Vizsla is preparing to start construction at Panuco later this year, and expects to start producing silver in the second half of 2027. The project has 31.4 million ounces of silver equivalent in proven reserves, according to the company.