Mexican law enforcement officials recently discovered a mass grave where the bodies of over two dozen people were found. 

Investigators have so far extracted the remains of 25 unidentified victims as well as five bags presumed to be carrying human remains in a mass grave in the Mexican state of Jalisco on Thursday. 

According to the prosecutor's office, the burial ground was found after dogs uncovered bones at an abandoned farm in El Sato-a city located southeast of Guadalajara. 

The bodies and the bags will be sent to the labs to undergo forensic analysis. 

This year, local officials have reported finding more than 115 bodies in at least ten unmarked graves in the state. 

Other Graves

In January 2020, authorities uncovered 29 bodies in another mass grave outside the city of Guadalajara. The tomb was near two other burial sites where more than 81 bodies were recovered. 

Most of the victims were thought to have been killed by Mexico's drug cartels. 

The graves were found after the country's Nationa Guards raided a warehouse after spotting armed men guarding the entrance outside. They found eight unnamed people who were being held at gunpoint as well as a vast number of weapons.  

Between December 1, 2018, and the end of December in 2019, officials reported finding more than 1,000 bodies in unmarked pits.

The victims, they say, were either those who were killed by fellow gang members or a rival group. Some were kidnapped and murdered after their families failed to pay the ransom for their freedom. 

Finding Victims in Jalisco

Sinaloa, Jalisco, Colima, Guerrero, and Veracruz have some of the biggest numbers of unmarked burial sites in the nation. While most bodies are found in rural areas, some gang members have resorted to dumping their victims' corpses inside private homes to make it harder for the police to discover. 

Families who have lost their loved ones have banded together to search and dig for remains, hoping one day they'll find their relatives. 

Jalisco Drug Cartel

The state has seen rising violence in the past few years. It now serves as the base of Jalisco New Generation, one of Mexico's most violent and most powerful drug cartels. 

The gang has a reputation for their brutality that is unparalleled since the fall of the Zetas cartel. The Jalisco members once tried to buy belt-fed M-60 machine guns from the U.S. 

In 2015, cartel members used a rocket-propelled grenade to bring down a military chopper. The incident led to the deaths of six Mexican soldiers. The police caught 14 suspected members three years later and collected eight rifles, a machine gun, over 35 magazines, and more than a thousand bullets. They also recovered two vehicles that were modified to mount a machine gun.

The Jalisco cartel was formed in 2010. It was started by former members of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel and led by former policeman Nemesio Oseguera. The group quickly grew and spread across Mexico, challenging El Chapo's cartel and unleashing deadly waves of violence.

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