Mexico City missing persons center speeds searches

Mexico City’s year-old Comprehensive Care Center for the Search for Persons is testing a faster model for missing-person cases in a country where more than 130,000 people are missing.

The center is open 24 hours a day and brings together agents from the missing person commission, specialized prosecutors and police officers as soon as a report is filed. It also has a control room connected to the capital’s official security-camera network and offers social workers and psychologists for families.

Search Commissioner Luis Gomez said the center gives families a single place to start a search, cutting time and making the process simpler. He said the team locates half of the people it is tasked with finding within a day, a 68 percent increase in resolved cases since 2024.

Families have long complained that searches in Mexico can be slow, bureaucratic and insensitive. Pedro Perez, whose 14-year-old daughter Linda was missing, said he was surprised by the center’s efficiency and humane treatment.

Authorities in other parts of Mexico are looking at copying the model. Most disappearance cases are concentrated in Tamaulipas, Jalisco and the State of Mexico, while Mexico City accounts for around 5,000 cases.

President Claudia Sheinbaum has called for digital search records and an expanded DNA database, while critics accuse her government of not doing enough to search for the missing.