Mexico’s search for people falsely listed as missing finds some alive, rampant poor record-keeping

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government announced Thursday that its controversial effort to look for people falsely listed as missing has turned up 16,681 individuals who had returned to their homes but not notified the authorities.

The nationwide effort was widely viewed as an attempt by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to pare down the country's politically embarrassing total of 113,000 'disappeared' people, a number that has skyrocketed under his administration.

Instead of looking for the clandestine graves and crematoriums that dot the country, the government sent about 5,000 police and other officials to perform more than 111,000 visits to homes to look for people who might have shown up on tax rolls, hospital or bank records.

Another 17,843 people who appeared to have used a credit card, gotten a vaccine or applied for government benefits while listed as disappeared could not be located.

The government set up a hotline urging people to call in information on them, in what appeared to be an attempt to criminalise them.

“If you have information that would help complete the reports, or know somebody who is on the list, call,” according to a video that accompanied the new report.

It wasn't immediately clear whether authorities considered the fact that kidnappers and other criminals often use missing people's credit cards or make transactions under their names. Criminals also often threaten kidnapping victims with dire consequences if they contact police once released.

Perhaps the most shocking discovery announced by Interior Secretary Luisa Maria Alcalde was that the national registry of missing people had such poor record-keeping that in 62,112 cases, or about 68% of reports, there wasn't enough contact information to even start a search. That means authorities essentially never followed up on those missing-people reports or asked for enough information to do so.

The search effort started in Mexico City more than a year ago, and was launched nationwide in August. Alcalde said 12,377 people — about 11% of the missing people cases as of August — had been confirmed as missing.

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