Mexico mining murders: five suspects arrested

Mexican authorities said Sunday they arrested five men linked to the kidnapping and murder of 10 workers from a Canadian mining company in Sinaloa.

The workers, all Mexicans, were kidnapped at gunpoint on January 23 from a silver mining project belonging to Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver. Their bodies were later found buried in clandestine graves. Two of the victims were engineers and one was a geologist.

Mexico's defense ministry said the suspects belonged to a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. It identified one suspect as Jesus Abraham, alias Taliban.

In June, Mexico announced the arrest of another suspect, identified as Gabriel N., alias Gabito, described by authorities as a hitman for the same faction.

The government said the workers were mistaken for members of a rival Sinaloa cartel faction. It said the suspects worked for a faction controlled by the sons of jailed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States.

Abductions by armed groups are common in Mexico, where more than 120,000 people have vanished since the 1950s, many of them abducted and killed by drug cartels. The Sinaloa cartel has been designated a terrorist organization by Washington.