Mexico’s search for people falsely listed as missing finds some alive, rampant poor record-keeping

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican government’s controversial effort to look for people falsely listed as missing has turned up 16,681 who had returned to their homes but not notified the authorities. The massive effort was widely viewed as a government attempt to pare down the country’s horrifying total of 113,000 so-called disappeared people. Instead of looking for the clandestine graves and crematoriums that dot the country, the government sent police and other officials house-to-house looking for those who might have shown up on tax roles or bank records. Perhaps the most shocking discovery was that the national registry of missing people had such poor record-keeping that in 62,112 cases, there wasn’t enough contact information to even start a search.