The Way Deceased Pigs Are Assisting in the Quest for Missing Individuals of the Nation's Drug Wars

Six years ago, Guadalupe Ayala was overwhelmed with grief after her son aged 25, Alfredo Campos, was abducted from his residence in Tlajomulco. His disappearance added another name to the list of over fifteen thousand individuals officially listed as disappeared in the western Mexican state of Jalisco. In the capital city, Guadalajara city, a key intersection plastered with posters of the disappeared has been renamed the “roundabout of the disappeared”.

There are more than 100,000 missing people in Mexico – a devastating outcome of the nation’s deadly drug crisis, with the majority of those missing believed to be abducted by criminal organizations and drug cartels. The actual number is probably greater as numerous individuals are not reported missing due to fear of retribution.

One of the things that caused me the most tears was reading that he had been exposed to the elements, particularly to cold conditions

Discovering the fate of missing loved ones can be fraught with danger, with family members intimidated or killed for attempting to locate their relatives. They can also become dependent on interactions with criminal syndicates for leads about locations where opposing factions have buried bodies.

In an effort to speed up the searches and reduce the risks for parents like Ayala, local volunteer groups and state authorities have initiated a new project to help locate grave locations, including employing swine to replicate how vegetation grows on burial sites.

Scores of pig carcasses are being interred in sixteen separate areas on the grounds of the University of Guadalajara – every one replicating a distinct scenario in which a human remains might have been interred, such as covered in fabric, cut into pieces, burned or buried with stones above them. A couple of areas have been left empty for reference purposes.

Swine are employed due to their similarity to humans in terms of anatomy, genetic makeup and physiology. Researchers have already noticed differences in the growth of plants across the grave sites, with plant life emerging quickly above the pigs wrapped in blankets.

“Despite the soil being arid, the blanket retains water,” says a researcher named Tunarui Chávez Gonzalez, from the Jalisco Search Commission, a state agency that coordinates search efforts with family members and is running the Found project with groups of mothers and local and international universities.

At additional research locations, the researchers have found depressed soil functions as a barrier, trapping additional moisture and resulting in enhanced vegetation, with Gonzalez saying they had recorded 15 different plants that are associated with the existence of remains.

In addition to the swine graves, the commission is experimenting with subsurface imaging tools such as electrical resistance mapping, which can produce pictures of the soil below the surface by measuring variations in voltage, and advanced aerial cameras, which can identify compounds in the earth that frequently signal the presence of decomposing remains, such as specific chemical elements.

Last year, during a search of an abandoned house in the city of Zapopan, where crime groups had been reported to deal narcotics, a mothers’ collective had discovered about four bags with remains. The employment of an electrical detection tool enabled the Jalisco Search Commission to locate twenty-nine additional sacks and three full bodies within a short period.

Some mothers’ search groups have discovered that the cartels often dig graves near certain types of trees: sweet acacia trees and mesquite trees. These trees are favored because they provide shade while excavating pits but their taproots grow primarily downward, avoiding thick roots that might obstruct the excavation.

By employing artificial intelligence and aerial surveys, scientists currently think they can use such insights to help prioritise search areas and accelerate the likely finding of clandestine graves.

For the mother, the search for her missing son was brought to a quick but heartbreaking end, aided by the Fundej collective, a group of local mothers and volunteers searching for missing children.

They found four limbs, with forensic tests showing that one belonged to her son, accompanied by additional remains over the following months.

“Upon locating the individual and find them segmented like that, that’s the most terrible dream. You get into your head many things,” says the mother. “You wonder how he was tortured, how was his death?”

The following autopsy document was a distressing perusal. “I never stopped crying when reading it,” she said.

“One of the things that brought the most tears was when it said that he had been exposed to the environment, particularly to low temperatures, because it showed on the internal organs. Before he died, he was very cold.”

While applauding the recent advances speeding up the search for the missing, Víctor Hugo Ávila Barrientos, accepts that it does not solve Mexico’s drug crisis.

“Even if I had a thousand searchers, it’s continuing to increase if we fail to stop the violence. But in the meantime,” he says, “we aim to build the expertise to locate the missing as quickly as we can.”