The sisters of a miner who was found dead embrace as they take part in a march with miners and relatives of the missing Vizsla Silver workers.Edgar Chavez/Reuters
Vizsla Silver Corp. VZLA-T says that nine of 10 workers abducted from its mining project in Mexico in late January have been confirmed dead.
Vancouver-based Vizsla operates the Panuco silver project in the state of Sinaloa, an area known for cartel violence.
“This is a devastating outcome,” Vizsla chief executive officer Michael Konnert said in a statement on Monday evening. “Our heartfelt condolences are with all the families impacted.”
A few weeks after the abductions, Mexico’s Security Secretary, Omar Garcia Harfuch, said the area where Vizsla operates is under the control of the Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. And based on evidence obtained from arrests of suspects, he said it appeared that the abducted Vizsla workers were mistaken for members of a rival group.
Mexican authorities on Feb. 9 said they found 10 bodies in the municipality of Concordia where the project is located and five had been identified. On the same day, Vizsla said an unspecified number of the workers had been confirmed dead, citing accounts from family members.
On March 5, Vizsla said that three of the 10 missing had yet to be accounted for. The company had 77 full-time employees in Mexico, according to its annual information form filed in July of last year.
After the abductions, the company suspended work on its silver project and its share price has since lost about half of its value.
Vizsla had been expecting to obtain permits to build the Panuco mine this year and hoped to be in production by the end of next year.
Miner Vizsla Silver continues remote work on Panuco project after deadly abduction
In an investment conference in January, shortly before the company reported the abductions, Mr. Konnert said he saw an opportunity for a “significant rerating” for the company, effectively implying the stock was set to go materially higher.
“We believe the market is not capturing the value that we have here,” he said.
Well before the January abductions, Vizsla had concerns about safety in the region. In April, 2025, the company said it was pausing field work “due to current security conditions in the area.” It resumed the work a month later, stating that security conditions had “normalized in the region.”
In its annual report filed in July, Vizsla said that Sinaloa has experienced outbreaks of localized violence, threats, thefts, kidnappings and extortion associated with drug cartels and other criminal organizations in various regions.
Vizsla did not provide the nationalities of those taken captive in January and did not respond to an interview request on Tuesday.
Global Affairs Canada told The Globe and Mail that it was not aware of any Canadian citizens who were affected by the abductions.
According to S&P Capital IQ, Vizsla’s biggest shareholders are Sprott Inc., Tidal Investments LLC and Franklin Resources Inc.
Canadian mining financier Eric Sprott, the founder and former chair of Sprott, is also a long-time shareholder of Vizsla. He holds a 2.7-per-cent stake, according to S&P Capital IQ.
Vizsla is in close contact with the family of the one worker who remains missing, and it is supporting the authorities in their continuing investigation, the company said in a Monday statement.
Vizsla shares fell by 2.8 per cent on Tuesday to close at $4.48 apiece on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
In the Fraser Institute’s widely followed annual survey of mining companies, Mexico was ranked 36th for investment attractiveness out of the 68 jurisdictions it evaluated in 2025. All of the respondents on Mexico said that security was a major deterrent to investing in the country.
With a report from Jeffrey Jones