The bodies of six young men were discovered by authorities at a remote ranch in Zacatecas, a north-central state in Mexico, on September 27th. A critically injured young man was also found at the location. This vast region was the scene of the recent kidnapping of seven teenagers, and officials are going under the assumption that these bodies are tied to those victims.

Anonymously, a government official confirmed that there is a connection between the bodies found and the teenage boys gone missing last weekend. The boys, aged 14 to 18, had been on a family vacation at the ranch where they were kidnapped in the pre-dawn hours of September 24th. The households were forcibly entered by groups of armed men in several vehicles, taking the teens with them.

In response, the government deployed a large search operation involving 300 soldiers. The forces included local law enforcement, the National Guard, and the Secretariat of National Defense. The search centered in and around Villanueva, the municipality where the abduction happened.

Meanwhile, the distraught families of the victims took to public protest, denouncing the plight of their children and pressuring the government to invest more resources in the search operation. They collectively blocked a critical highway, Zacatecas-Malpaso, on Tuesday. Zacatecas has been infamous for the continuous and concerning surge in violent acts, marking it as one of Mexico’s most dangerous areas. Open combat between rival criminal factions is commonplace over control of lucrative smuggling channels.

From January to August, official data reported over 500 murders in Zacatecas. The same pattern of violence can be witnessed in Jalisco, a neighboring state, where in a previous month, five men were murdered by a local drug cartel. They were duped by fake job offers. The link between the kidnappings and this continuing regional gang conflict is being suspected by locals, but there’s yet to be any official confirmation of motives.