Watchdog says tragedy fits 'all too common pattern' and highlights security risks of operating in dangerous regions
When ten workers were abducted at gunpoint from a Canadian‑owned silver project on Jan. 24, it looked like another grim chapter in Mexico’s struggle with organized crime. Last week, some of those workers were found dead near Vizsla Silver Corp.’s Panuco project site outside Concordia in the western state of Sinaloa.
Vizsla, a Vancouver-based compay, confirmed the news in a statement, saying it had been told by “a number of families that their relatives, our colleagues, who were taken from the Company’s project site in Concordia, Mexico, have been found deceased,” and that it is awaiting formal confirmation from Mexican authorities.
“We are devastated by this outcome and the tragic loss of life,” said president and CEO Michael Konnert. “Our deepest condolences are with our colleagues’ families, friends and co workers, and the entire community of Concordia. Our focus remains on the safe recovery of those who remain missing and on supporting all affected families and our people during this incredibly difficult time.”
For health and safety leaders, the incident is more than a heartbreaking crime story. It is a case study in how security risk, political context and corporate decision making intersect – and how quickly things can go catastrophically wrong when a project sits in territory where control is contested.
‘These things don’t need to happen’
Jamie Kneen, national program co‑lead with MiningWatch Canada, says his first reaction is human, not technical.
“This is very tragic… it’s just… deeply tragic…also in the sense that these things don’t need to happen.”
But he stresses tragedies like this are inseparable from choices and systems that mining companies – and their safety leadership – control. The starting point, he argues, is whether security is treated as a core element of occupational health and safety, not a bolt‑on response once violence has already occurred.
In practice, Kneen says, that often exposes stark inequalities. At some sites, “local workers are not treated with the same kind of priority as the mine management or the international workers,” with protected fly‑in management contrasted against local employees bused through far less controlled environments. If your security architecture cannot offer comparable protection to host‑country workers, it is a systemic risk.
When the context itself is unsafe
Kneen argues that in regions like Sinaloa, the key question is not only whether a company has enough guards, cameras or protocols – it is whether there is any way to operate safely at all.
He points out that some mine districts in Mexico are “basically under the control of the cartels,” making it difficult to see how security can be guaranteed. In those conditions, conventional risk matrices may simply be inadequate.
There are established international frameworks meant to govern security risks in high‑risk environments, including the UN Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights. These call for structured assessments of the potential for violence and the human rights records of local actors. Yet Kneen says he has seen “no evidence” that such tools are being used in this case – or in many similar ones. If he were a mining executive investing in a dangerous area, he says, he would want to show the public and shareholders that he was doing his utmost to ensure safety and would be explicit about using those tools.
One reason companies may avoid these frameworks, he suggests, is that “they might provide inconvenient answers” – including a conclusion “that this is super risky, maybe we shouldn’t be here,” which can clash with “spectacular” projected returns. For H&S leaders, that is a crucial pressure point: when robust security analysis and attractive economics diverge, whose voice carries the day?
Cartels, ‘arrangements’ and ethical lines
The Concordia case is still under investigation, and Mexican authorities have not publicly attributed the crime to a specific group. But in many resource‑rich regions controlled by armed actors, mines are seen as lucrative sources of leverage.
Kneen describes not only straightforward extortion or kidnapping, but long‑term protection schemes in which criminal groups run “a sort of protection racket” around industrial operations. Behind the scenes, “there may be arrangements being made to make payments and to acknowledge the criminal element’s control of the territory so that you can operate safely. And that’s really risky,” he warns. If those arrangements break down, “there may be consequences.”
While Kneen is careful not to accuse any specific company of such deals in the Vizsla case, he stresses that “in general terms… there’s a pattern that is all too common,” and that “there are parts of the world where you simply can’t operate without making that kind of arrangement.” For safety leaders, that raises a blunt ethical and strategic question: if safe, lawful operation requires tacit or explicit accommodation with organized crime, should the company be there at all?
Lessons for health and safety leaders
In a 2023 promotional video, a senior Vizsla executive described the firm as “a very well capitalized, aggressive explorer — arguably the most aggressive junior explorer in the entire silver industry.” Kneen says language like that should also be examined through a safety lens, because “aggressive” growth can translate into regulatory, environmental, health or security risks – “any or all of the above.”
The Concordia case is still evolving. Mexican prosecutors say they have made several arrests, and Vizsla says its priority is supporting affected families and locating those still missing. But the core lessons for H&S leaders are already visible: security risk is not ancillary to safety; equal protection for local and expatriate workers is a litmus test of a company’s real values; and where safety depends on “arrangements” with criminal actors, the only defensible safety decision may be not to operate.
