Guadalajara, Mexico, Jul 16 (EFE).- Organized crime groups in Mexico are targeting increasingly younger individuals and have diversified the ways they lure them through deception and false job offers, civil society organizations in Jalisco (west) reported on Thursday.
“People have been coming to us asking for help because their children are missing; they’re being taken away, they’re being recruited, and unfortunately, they’re very young, between 13 and 16 years old,” Virginia Ponce, a member of “Manos Buscadoras” (Searching Hands), a collective of relatives of missing persons, told EFE.
The cases of three teenagers between the ages of 14 and 16 who went missing in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and three more in Puerto Vallarta in late June serve as an example of how criminal groups are increasingly targeting minors to carry out illegal activities.
“They’re being offered a job that pays a lot of money, and as a parent, you can’t provide them with everything. I don’t know how they sweet-talk them into making such a drastic decision,” said Ponce, who has been searching for his son, Víctor Hugo Meza, since 2020.
Security authorities have detected cases of teenagers between 13 and 16 who have gone missing or who have received invitations to join schemes offering false job promises, Jalisco’s Secretary of Security, Juan Pablo Hernández, admitted a few days ago.
According to data analysis specialist Víctor González Romero, based on statistics compiled by the state’s Commission for the Search for Missing Persons, 165 new missing persons reports were filed between June 11 and July 11, 43 of which involved minors.
The three teenagers who went missing in Guadalajara and were found days later received the invitation to the supposed job from people in their close circle and agreed to leave home after graduating from high school.
A story circulated on social media from a mother who reported that a young woman gained the trust of her son and his group of teenage friends at a shopping mall and convinced them to get into a car whose driver fled upon being discovered, although authorities have not received a report regarding the incident.
The Secretary of Security acknowledged that they have determined that young people are not only lured through social media and approached at bus terminals, but also meet recruiters at shopping malls, restaurants, or department stores.
The danger also comes from their family circle, friends, or neighbors, where someone approaches them to try to convince them.
“It could involve a close friend or a close relative who encourages them to explore this type of recruitment; obviously, they’re told they can go, and if they don’t like it, they can come back,” he said.
Jonathan Ávila, coordinator of the disappearance task force at the Center for Justice, Peace, and Development, told EFE that these new forms of recruitment show just how deeply organized crime has penetrated Jalisco.
“It also shows us the level of penetration that criminal groups have achieved at the social level, especially in the Guadalajara metropolitan area. The level of social acceptance, social fear, and coexistence (with criminal groups) within the neighborhoods themselves has grown significantly,” he said. EFE
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