Gruesome Video Circulating on Social Media Recalls Darkest Days of Mexico’s Drug Cartel Brutality

Members of the Mexican Army work at the site of an explosive attack against a police patrol in Tlajomulco de Zuñiga, a suburb at the city of Guadalajara, Jalisco State, Mexico, on July 12, 2023. Ulises Ruiz/AFP via Getty Images

MEXICO CITY—A gruesome video circulated Wednesday on social media may have recorded the last moments of five kidnapped young men, and has transported Mexico back to the darkest days of drug cartel brutality in the 2000s.

Prosecutors in the western state of Jalisco say they are investigating the video, and relatives of the missing group of young friends told local media that their clothing resembled that worn by the men in the video.