Veracruz: Tipster Leads Authorities to 36 Mass Graves with Múltiple Corpse in Each

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: dailymail.oc.uk

                                        Mexican State of Veracruz: ''Strewn with corpses''

Suspect with ties to criminal gang leads Mexican authorities to cartel's secret grave site where DOZENS of their victims are buried. The state government of Veracruz was tipped off to the location of a clandestine grave site.

On Wednesday, police, military and a missing persons group began digging at the site which has at least 36 different 'graves'. Each of the grave sites can contain multiple people. So far, at least four craniums and other body parts have been recovered.

State Attorney General Jorge Winckler said they learned of the secret burial site following the arrest of a suspect with ties to a criminal organization.

On Wednesday, police, military and a missing persons group began digging at the site which has at least 36 different 'graves'. Each of the grave sites can contain multiple people. So far, at least four craniums and other body parts have been recovered.

As of last year the 342 graves of Veracruz are distributed in 102 sites throughout 44 municipalities . The State, which has 212 municipalities, has an area similar to that of Ireland or Panama. The municipality of Veracruz, the largest city in the state, registers 173 graves. The towns of Agua Dulce, Pueblo Viejo (Misantla), Tres Valles and Alvarado have 16 pits each.

''It shows what we already know,'' says Lucía Diaz, founder of a missing people's group, Solecito, told AP.  ''That Veracruz is strewn with corpses that is the reality of the state and of Mexico.'' 

Secret burial sites burial sites have often been used by drug cartels in Mexico to hide the bodies of executed rivals or kidnap victims. There are over 40,000 missing persons reported in Mexico .

The cartel members, who has not been identified, tipped off police to the desolate area in Veracruz - a Mexican state which has been ravaged by gang violence in recent years.

At least four craniums and other body parts have already been recovered from the site near the city of Tlaltetela, and officials expect to find many more.

None of the bodies have been identified yet. But there are over 40,180 missing persons reported in Mexico, according to a January report released by the National Commission for the Search of Missing Persons.  

The finding comes just days after the National Search Commissioner found at least 100 clandestine burials in other states. 

A law enforcement agent searches an area in Veracruz, Mexico, where at least 36 clandestine burial sites were located on Wednesday after a suspect with alleged ties to a criminal organization alerted government officials

Searchers in Mexico recovered four human craniums as well as body parts that were placed inside bags and dug underground. Pictured are some of the evidence that law enforcement officials located during the investigation

There are over 40,180 missing persons reported in Mexico, according to a January report released by the National Commission for the Search of Missing Persons.

Jorge Winckler, the Veracruz State Attorney General, said they learned of the secret burial site following the arrest of a suspect with ties to a criminal organization, wanted for a series of crimes committed in 2014. Winckler at first kept the location private before the government relented and transported members of several news outlets to the site of the the shocking discovery in the central city of Tlaltetela.