A volunteer group led by a former Mexican congresswoman says it recovered roughly 1,600 baby teeth from a mass grave site in western Mexico and is accusing federal and state officials of denying knowledge of the discovery.
Margarita López, whose daughter vanished in 2011 and whose remains were found two years later, founded the group Buscando Cuerpos en Todo México to search for missing people across the country. The organization spent the past two weeks demonstrating outside Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office in Mexico City to demand genetic testing and identification of the teeth.
The Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office rejected the claims in a statement Thursday. “From 2021 to the present, no complaint, referral to authorities, or request for forensic intervention related to these events has been received,” the office said, adding that Mexico’s AG’s Office had not received any reports either.
López, 47, fired back on Facebook the same day. “They want to downplay the incident, but the operation to recover the 1,600 baby teeth involved officers from the Michoacán State Attorney General’s Office — acting under an official assignment order to provide perimeter security — and everything is documented in the preliminary investigation,” she wrote.
She continued, “(They handled) the chain of custody for the recovered remains – I am not lying.”
López told Mexican news outlet Milenio that her group was accompanied by an investigator from Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, identified only as “Braulio,” during a 2021 search in Zacapu, Michoacán. The group spotted smoke rising from a hill and made their way to a property allegedly owned by a drug trafficker from Sinaloa, where they discovered what appeared to be human remains.
The official cleaned one of the teeth and determined it belonged to a child, according to López. She continued canvassing the grounds over the years and said she unearthed human bone fragments there during that time.
On Wednesday, the group found what appeared to be sets of baby teeth.
López has suggested without evidence that the teeth belonged to children between ages 1 and 12 who may have been victims of organ trafficking or sexual exploitation. The discovery has not been independently confirmed through forensic testing, and authorities have not linked the teeth to specific victims.
Mexico has over 130,000 people officially missing, including 18,104 children.
López also slammed Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for remaining silent. “Ever since the story about the ‘1,600 little teeth’ broke, they’ve either stayed silent or denied the discovery,” she said.
The former congresswoman has requested intervention from the International Committee of the Red Cross to help with the investigation. She also said a federal prosecutor and forensic personnel were present during the recovery operation.