The Nayarit Public Ministry said the journalist disappeared on Wednesday and issued a call to find him. Sánchez Íñiguez’s wife said that her husband was missing along with his computer and mobile phone. The last time she was seen in the state of Jalisco, in the city of Nayarit, near Tepic. One of the most brutal drug cartels in the country, Jalisco, operates here, trafficking drugs into the United States.
Sánchez Iñiguez became at least the second journalist to be killed in Mexico this year. 2022 has been one of the deadliest for Mexican media workers, with 15 deaths. In February, news photographer José Ramiro Araujo was stabbed to death and beaten in the northern border state of Baja California. Police later arrested two young men on a beach near the scene of the attack, who said they had a knife and blood stains on their clothes. The suspects have been charged with murder and robbery.
Less than two weeks ago, Hipólito Mora, a fighter against Mexican drug cartels, was killed in an ambush in the violent state of Michoacán. Video footage posted on social media shows the burning wreckage of what has been identified as Maura’s car in La Ruane, the rural area where he lived, The Guardian reports.
In late June, explosives were thrown at a police station in the southern state of Chiapas after 14 police officers were kidnapped at gunpoint on a local highway. The cartels are locked in a bitter fight in the border state with Guatemala for control of drug trafficking and immigrant smuggling.
