--- title: "Families Plan R.C.M.P. Complaint Over Kidnapping of Canadian Miner’s Workers" description: "A lawyer accuses Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver of coordinating with a Sinaloa cartel faction before 10 workers were taken" author: "rews desk" published: 2026-10-01T08:00:00Z modified: 2026-10-01T22:17:05Z url: https://rews.cc/a/families-plan-r-c-m-p-complaint-over-kidnapping-of-canadian--fc4c94 language: en tags: ["kidnapping", "mexico", "crime", "security", "mining", "us", "latam"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Families Plan R.C.M.P. Complaint Over Kidnapping of Canadian Miner’s Workers *A lawyer accuses Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver of coordinating with a Sinaloa cartel faction before 10 workers were taken* By rews desk · October 1, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/families-plan-r-c-m-p-complaint-over-kidnapping-of-canadian--fc4c94 ## In brief - Ten Vizsla Silver workers were kidnapped Jan. 23 in Concordia, Sinaloa; nine were found dead and one is missing - Their families plan to ask the R.C.M.P. to investigate alleged coordination between company managers and a cartel - Vizsla Silver says it continues to cooperate fully and has provided all information Mexican authorities requested - The families are seeking security footage, GPS data, corporate phones and internal records, plus official testimony - A cartel boss and 13 others described as members of the La Chapiza cell have been arrested in the case The families of workers kidnapped from a Canadian mining compound in Mexico plan to ask the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to investigate whether the company’s managers had coordinated with a cartel faction before the attack, their lawyer said this week. The lawyer, Odracir Ricardo Espinoza, represents the families of seven of the 10 workers seized on Jan. 23, when armed men stormed a gated compound in Concordia, Sinaloa, where the Vancouver-based Vizsla Silver Corp. housed employees and parked vehicles. “One of the fronts we plan to open is a complaint with the Mounted Police in Canada,” he told CBC News, adding that the families also intend to take the case to American authorities. Two weeks after the kidnapping, Mexican authorities found the bodies of nine of the workers in clandestine graves at El Verde, a village about 19 kilometers northwest of Concordia. The 10th, Francisco Antonio Esparza Yáñez, who handled community relations for the company, has never been found. Mexican authorities say one faction of the Sinaloa cartel, a designated terrorist organization in Canada, carried out the kidnapping. The motive is still unclear. According to family testimony, Mr. Espinoza said, every Vizsla Silver worker was instructed to wear a specific color of vest so the armed group controlling the area could identify them as company employees. Two former workers previously told CBC News that on-site management ordered them to switch from orange to yellow vests and helmets so the gunmen patrolling the territory would know who they worked for. “Someone had to tell them, ‘Put that on so we don’t do anything to you,’” Mr. Espinoza said. “And that wasn’t an intermediary. That had to be one of their \[organized crime group\] members. So those conversations, those acts should have been denounced.” “Imagine a puzzle, and you’re getting piece, after piece, after piece,” he said. “But we don’t have the most complicated, darkest pieces. The company has those pieces.” The families say Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office has not compelled Vizsla Silver to hand over the evidence they believe it holds on the kidnapping. Unless it does, they plan to seek a judicial order from a Mexican court and to press for testimony from top company officials, including the chief executive. On the families’ list: security camera footage from the compound, GPS data from company vehicles, corporate cellphones and records, and internal communications from around Jan. 23. They also want testimony from a company legal representative who alerted the authorities and who, in the days before the bodies were found, told families a hospital in Mazatlan was preparing to receive a kidnapped worker. “We need to know her testimony,” Mr. Espinoza said. “Where did this \[information\] about the hospital come from? Was it just to calm the families? Or did she have some other type of information?” In an emailed statement, Vizsla Silver said it was limited in what it could say because the matter was under an “active investigation,” but that it “continues to co-operate fully” with Mexican authorities and has provided all requested information. “We fully understand and share the families’ desire for answers, and we appreciate how extraordinarily difficult the continued uncertainty is, particularly for the family of our colleague who remains missing,” the company said. The Attorney General’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. The company, which trades on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, never filed a formal complaint after the kidnapping, CBC News reported. But in a podcast last month, Michael Konnert, the chief executive, said Vizsla had “endeavoured to support the families substantially” and planned a foundation “to support the families of our lost colleagues and coworkers.” He said a military installation would soon be placed on the project site, with “other kinds of supporting infrastructure for the security apparatus.” Vizsla is exploring 35,000 hectares of silver-rich land around its Panuco Project, about 25 kilometers east of Concordia, in one of the areas hardest hit by a two-year war between factions of what was once one of the world’s biggest drug smuggling organizations. The fighting has killed thousands, displaced hundreds of families from the Concordia area and left thousands more missing, according to a July report by the International Crisis Group. The company paused work in April 2025 over security concerns, then resumed. Some workers sent their families phone recordings of gunbattles. “They kept working because they had to provide for their children,” Mr. Espinoza said. Alan Esparza, the missing worker’s son, last saw his father on Jan. 3, after the family spent New Year’s together; he was planning to retire soon. “It’s like the earth swallowed him,” Mr. Esparza said in an interview with CBC News. “It’s incredible, really, that I know absolutely nothing.” He said the company had done little to help the search. “What has Vizsla done for its employees to prevent what happened, to fix what happened? And now, what is it doing to help find the 10th?” Arrests have come slowly. In June, a cartel boss aligned with the La Chapiza faction, Gabriel Nicolás Martínez Larios, known as El Gabito or El 80, was taken into custody in connection with the case. Last month, Mexican authorities said they had arrested two more men, identified as Angel Gabriel and Milton Yair, along with 11 others described as members of the La Chapiza cell linked to the kidnapping.