The job listings looked legitimate. Security guard positions, weekly pay of four to twelve thousand pesos, pickup at the bus terminal. People who answered the ads in 2024 were driven to a ranch outside Teuchitlan, a quiet municipality in the highlands of Jalisco, about 50 kilometers west of Guadalajara. At Rancho Izaguirre, they surrendered their phones and belongings. Many never contacted their families again. It was not until March 2025, when a collective of volunteer searchers followed an anonymous tip to the property, that the scale of what happened there began to emerge: approximately 200 pairs of abandoned shoes, hundreds of garments, three makeshift cremation structures, and charred human remains scattered across the grounds.
The Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known by its Spanish acronym CJNG, posted fake job advertisements on social media to draw applicants. The listings typically offered security guard roles with weekly salaries ranging from MX$4,000 to MX$12,000 -- roughly US$200 to US$600. Applicants were told to gather at designated bus terminals, where they were transported to the ranch. Some ads openly referenced the cartel; many did not. Survivors later reported they had no idea who was behind the operation until they arrived. Upon reaching Rancho Izaguirre, new arrivals were stripped of their phones and possessions, severing their connection to the outside world. According to federal authorities, those who resisted training for criminal activities or tried to escape were tortured or killed. In March 2025, authorities dismantled 39 websites allegedly used by the CJNG to recruit under false pretenses.
The Guerreros Buscadores de Jalisco Collective -- a volunteer group dedicated to searching for Mexico's tens of thousands of missing persons -- arrived at the ranch on March 5, 2025, acting on an anonymous tip about a possible mass grave. What they found was staggering: roughly 200 pairs of shoes, hundreds of pieces of clothing, three makeshift cremation structures, and charred human remains. The National Guard and Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office had actually raided the same property months earlier, on September 20, 2024, rescuing two kidnapped individuals, arresting ten people, and seizing firearms. But that initial raid made no public mention of training facilities, cremation sites, or mass graves. It took civilian volunteers -- people whose own relatives had disappeared -- to uncover the evidence that authorities had either missed or failed to disclose.
President Claudia Sheinbaum called the findings "terrible" on March 10. Five days later, citizens held vigils in at least 24 public squares across Mexico demanding justice. The political response fractured along party lines. Senate President Gerardo Fernandez Norona questioned whether the evidence was authentic, calling coverage a "vile and infamous coup campaign" against the ruling Morena party. When opposition senator Marko Cortes proposed an interdisciplinary investigation team with international experts, Morena senators walked out of the session; the motion later failed 31 to 61. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a statement on March 27 calling Mexico's search efforts "deficient" and urging the government to identify victims and hold those responsible accountable.
The investigation became a jurisdictional tangle. The Jalisco State Prosecutor's Office initially led the probe after the federal Attorney General's Office declined the case. Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero later catalogued a string of failures in the state investigation: untracked fingerprints, improperly documented evidence, vehicles left unprocessed -- three of which turned out to be stolen -- and no definitive forensic report on the remains, even six months after the initial raid. On March 24, federal Secretary of Security Omar Garcia Harfuch announced the arrest of Jose Gregorio Lastra Hermida, known as "El Comandante Lastra," an alleged CJNG leader accused of overseeing forced recruitment and training at the ranch between May 2024 and March 2025. In May, the mayor of Teuchitlan, Jose Murguia Santiago, was arrested on charges of organized crime and forced disappearance; prosecutors alleged he had known about the ranch, received MX$70,000 monthly, and directed municipal resources to support its operation.
In April 2025, Attorney General Gertz Manero concluded that the ranch served as a recruitment and training site, not a systematic extermination facility. Analyses by the National Autonomous University of Mexico found no evidence of temperatures reaching 200 degrees Celsius in the area -- far below the approximately 800 degrees required for cremation. The distinction mattered legally but offered little comfort to the families of the disappeared. For the volunteer searchers who walked those grounds in early March, what they found among the shoes and the ashes was not a legal category. It was the residue of real people -- sons, brothers, fathers, neighbors -- who answered a job listing and were never heard from again. Across Mexico, more than 100,000 people remain officially missing. At Rancho Izaguirre, some of their shoes were finally found.
Located at 20.66°N, 103.82°W in the municipality of Teuchitlan, Jalisco, roughly 50 km west of Guadalajara in the Jalisco highlands. The ranch sits in rural terrain among agricultural land. Nearest major airport is Guadalajara's Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla International Airport (MMGL/GDL). The nearby Guachimontones archaeological site and the town of Teuchitlan are visible landmarks. The area is approximately 1,300 meters (4,300 feet) above sea level.