Edward Murillo
Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, May 23, 2022, p. eleven
For 10 years, the Forensic Genetics Laboratory of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has managed to identify 895 bodies and safeguards the genetic profiles of 32,281 relatives of the disappeared who are still looking for their loved ones.
The National Genetic Information Base of the Prosecutor’s Office has compiled 15,177 genetic profiles of unidentified corpses; This information is kept in anticipation that their relatives appear and, through laboratory tests, a biological link is verified that allows the search for one of the more than 100,000 disappeared persons in the country to be completed.
In response to a request for information, the FGR made public some data from the genetic base, which has its legal basis in article 32 of the Organic Law of the dependency whose purpose is to collect data from relatives or victims of disappearance to use them as a investigation method in the resolution of cases.
One tool for investigations is Codis (acronym for the National DNA Database of the United States –Combined DNA lndex System–), which allows the exchange of information between forensic laboratories with data and standardized processes to confront genetic samples.
The FGR explained that in recent years it has received 35,174 genetic profiles to be incorporated into Codis.
According to the guidelines for the installation and operation of the national prosecutor’s office, when a body or remains of an unidentified person is received, it is registered with the number of the investigation folder, place and date of discovery, data on its chain of custody , part of the body from which the biological sample is obtained, code and date, what was the final disposition of the corpse – to achieve its location – and when it was entered into the database.
The FGR also maintains records of the fingerprints of 777 thousand 57 people, but not only of unidentified bodies or relatives of the disappeared, but also of alleged criminals or sentenced for various crimes.
Last Monday it was reported that the number of missing persons in the country exceeded 100,000.
