45 bags of human remains found during search for missing Mexican workers

June 2 (UPI) -- Mexican investigators discovered 45 bags containing human remains in a ravine near Guadalajara in Jalisco state.

The bodies were discovered in the Mirador del Bosque ravine as police searched for seven call-center employees who went missing in Zapopan last month.

"Personnel from the different areas of the prosecutor's office carry out various operations to locate and search for the young people reported missing," the prosecutor's office said in a press statement Friday. "The investigative police managed to obtain information on the possible location of evidence in an area of difficult access."

The prosecutor's office for Jalisco state said authorities had received a tip about the missing employees, which lead them to the location of the body parts, none of which have been identified as belonging to the missing seven so far.

The prosecutor's office said the search for the missing seven employees is ongoing as teams work to determine how many body parts were left in the ravine and who they belonged to.

"In coordination with elements of the Zapopan Civil Protection and Fire Department, rescue work has been carried out since yesterday afternoon to extract the bags with the evidence," officials said.

Kidnappings in Jalisco are common, as cartels, including the Jalisco New Generation cartel, frequently engage in inter-cartel violence and attacks on civilians.

U.S. officials have called the JNGC "the most technologically advanced, sophisticated, heavily-armed, dangerous, and feared criminal organization in the world."

About 100,000 people have gone missing in Mexico since 1964, with an overwhelming majority of the disappearances happening after 2007.