Ciudad Juarez – The bodies of four young men reportedly kidnapped by municipal police officers last month in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's murder capital, have been found, prosecutors said.
The bodies were discovered Wednesday afternoon in a ravine on the outskirts of Juarez, the Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office said.
Relatives of the four young men, who were abducted March 26 in Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, went to the site.
A relative identified Dante Castillo, one of the men kidnapped by police.
Municipal police officers Eugenio De los Santos Decuesta, 28, Francisco Javier Campoy Dominguez, 27, and Leonardo Ivan Loya Hernandez, 27, were arrested last week for their alleged roles in the kidnappings.
Investigators believe that the other three bodies found in the ravine are those of Raul Navarro Soprano, 23, Felix Vizcarra Torres, 23, and Juan Carlos Chavira, 28, the AG's office said.
Ciudad Juarez has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.
The murder rate took off in the border city of 1.5 million people in 2007, when 310 people were killed, then it more than tripled to 1,607 in 2008, according to Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office figures, with the number of killings climbing to 2,754 in 2009.
More than 3,100 people were murdered in the border city last year, making 2010 the worst year since a war between rival drug gangs sent the homicide rate skyrocketing in 2008.
The violence is blamed on a war for control of the border city being waged by the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels with backing from hitmen from local street gangs.
A total of 15,270 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year, and more than 35,000 people have died since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country's cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.
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