EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Police in the Mexican border state of Chihuahua on Monday revised the total number of victims found in clandestine graves in the northwest portion of the state since mid-December to 87.

Chihuahua Public Safety Director Gilberto Loya also revealed that numerous individuals reported as missing in the region since 2020 – presumed dead and whose remains likely ended up in mass graves – may have been abducted by police officers in league with a drug cartel.

“There were a series of reports of missing persons in the area, abductions. In the majority of the cases, relatives would mention that their loved one had called them to say he had been stopped by the police,” Loya said. “After that, they would never hear again from their relative.”

Police located most of the mass graves southeast of Casas Grandes, but it was the town’s larger neighbor, the city of Nuevo Casas Grandes, where most family members went to look for the missing persons. They were told they were never in custody.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the May 2, 2023, discovery of a mutilated body hung from the town arch at the entrance of Casas Grandes. A sign identified him as an alleged rapist and warned what of what could happen to other lawbreakers.

The state dismissed the entire 86-member Nuevo Casas Grandes police force after establishing its officers disconnected surveillance cameras placed on the arches. And on Monday, Loya revealed that 63-year-old Aurelio D.R., the alleged rapist, had been arrested on a sex assault charge hours before his death.

“That exposed a serious probable involvement of the police agency with organized criminal groups,” the state police chief said. “In that sense, we see the finding of these (mass) graves as something we would run into because of the large number of disappeared persons.”

Earlier this month, Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui told reporters the bodies, skeletal remains and chopped up body parts found at the mass graves are likely the work of La Linea, a transnational criminal organization known to operate in the area and that has long been at war with cells of the Sinaloa cartel at the Chihuahua-Sonora border.

A federal judge in North Dakota also ordered La Linea to pay a $4.6 billion judgement on a civil case in connection with the wrongful death of nine Americans — including six children — who were gunned down inside three vehicles near the Chihuahua-Sonora border on Nov. 4, 2019.