MEXICO CITY (BNO NEWS) — A total of 77 bodies have been found in an abandoned silver mine in southern Mexico, according to local media reports on Monday.

The bodies were removed by forensic experts at a clandestine grave located in the vent of the La Concha mine in Taxco, a municipality in the southern state of Guerrero.

“Our staff reviewed all the pit and we found no more bodies,” the Reforma newspaper quoted Guerrero Under Secretary of Civil Protection, Nubia Sayago Gonzalez, as saying. According to rescue officials, many of the corpses were blindfolded and had hands and feet tied.

The newspaper report said that a federal prosecutor charged 15 individuals tied with drug cartels, whose arrest in the town of Iguala led to the discovery of the clandestine grave.

The clandestine grave was first discovered on May 29, but the process to remove and count the bodies took more than a week to complete.

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