Five rideshare drivers missing after trip to border

Families urge police to step up searches in city where rival cartels battle for control of migrant smuggling

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Relatives of five rideshare drivers are demanding answers five days after their loved ones disappeared in the border town of Ojinaga, Mexico.

The five men left the city of Chihuahua early last Thursday in different vehicles and their relatives have lost contact with them.

The Chihuahua Attorney General's Office identified them as Abigael Ramos Gonzalez, Abigael Ramos Torres, Fabian Ramos Torres, Sandra Salais Calzadillas and Francisco Ivan Flores Hernandez. The attorney general's office said the cars left the state capital at 11 a.m. Some called, texted or used phone apps at 4 p.m. to tell loved ones they were leaving Ojinaga but never returned to Chihuahua.

Relatives say they located four of the five rental cars in a vacant lot in Ojinaga, about a three-hour drive (172 miles) northeast of the state capital. The last GPS location of the fifth vehicle, still missing, was near a ranch called Alamo El Chapo.

On Monday, the families staged a protest in a park in front of the Government Palace in Chihuahua, saying they are the ones leading the investigation because authorities were slow to respond.

“We went to see the prosecutor's office on Saturday to see if they had any information, but they told us that they did not work on weekends and that the elections (on Sunday) prevented them,” said Pablo Martinez, Jr. by Sandra Salais, during the demonstration broadcast on social networks. “We are here to ask them to speed up the search, take note of what we have learned and check the cars' GPS and the Sentinel platform (security cameras). »

The attorney general's office said it has assigned state police officers as well as specialists from the Missing Persons Unit to investigate the case.

Deputy Attorney General Heliodoro Araiza told Mexican media on Monday that the four vehicles had been impounded and that “all relevant investigations” were underway. He told the newspaper El Sol de Ojinaga that authorities did not rule out that the drivers were transporting migrants to the border.

Ojinaga is located across the Rio Grande from Presidio, Texas. The city gained international media attention in October 2021, when 13 Mexican migrants were kidnapped and killed as part of rival drug cartels' fight for control of migrant smuggling in the Chihuahua-Ojinaga corridor. Ten of the bodies were found two years later in a clandestine grave in the nearby town of Coyame.

In a Facebook group made up of Mexican entrepreneurs from the Uber and DiDi platforms, members published numerous messages of solidarity with the families of the missing. One of them, however, issued a warning: “These are the consequences of transporting undocumented people. It's a federal crime and with the mafia, it's a beating, minimum. »