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A Vancouver-based mining company says 10 of its employees were abducted from one of its project sites in the city of Concordia in the western Mexican state of Sinaloa, which has been gripped by a cartel civil war since 2024.
Vizsla Silver said in a statement posted on its website that “ten individuals have been taken” and that the “incident is currently under investigation and information remains limited.”
The company statement said Mexican authorities had been notified and that its “crisis management and security response teams are actively engaged.”
Vizsla Silver said that it had suspended some of its activities at the site.
The company is developing a silver and gold mining project called Panuco in Sinaloa.
Local media reports suggest most of the employees abducted are Mexican nationals.
The Sinaloan attorney general’s office said in a statement that it had opened an investigation into the kidnapping of persons in Concordia.
The statement said the attorney general’s office received a report of the disappearance of 10 individuals on Jan. 24 in a 911 call from a company representative.
The statement said that state authorities had been working with federal authorities, including the military, to launch search operations. State authorities also executed a search warrant on Tuesday as part of the investigation, said the statement.
News organization Latinus reported that the company employees were taken by a group of armed men from a home rented in Concordia by Vizsla on Jan. 23.
Global Affairs Canada could not be immediatly reached for comment.
Mexico’s Security and Citizen Protection Secretariat did not immediatly respond to a request for comment.
An ongoing civil war within the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most powerful international organized crime groups in the world, has left thousands dead and disappeared across the state.
CBC News has reached out to Vizsla Silver for additional information.
