Three teenagers who disappeared on April 20 after responding to a fake job offer were found buried in a clandestine grave in Tecate’s Bicentenario neighborhood on Wednesday, June 10. Edgar Jovani Pelayo Cenicero, 16, Jeremy Alexander Robinson Cañedo, 15, and Brian Samuel Jiménez Hernández, 16, had been missing for 51 days. A family-led search collective located the Tecate clandestine grave site in the hills near the Mexicali-Tijuana highway, ending weeks of anguish for three families who never stopped looking.
Jeremy Alexander’s father confirmed the discovery on social media. “The waiting is over. The anguish is over,” he wrote on Facebook. Family members present at the scene identified clothing that matched what the boys wore the night they vanished. The FGE (Baja California’s state attorney general’s office) has taken control of the site. DNA testing at the state forensic medical service will formally confirm identities. No arrests have been reported.
Fake Job Offer Lured Teens to Cuchumá Plaza on April 20
The three boys left their homes around 7:30 p.m. on April 20 and took an Uber to Plaza Cuchumá, a shopping center in Tecate’s Colonia Benito Juárez. Surveillance cameras captured them arriving at the plaza. They had been contacted about an employment opportunity in Tijuana’s Sánchez Taboada neighborhood, a densely populated colonia roughly 50 kilometers west of Tecate. They were never seen alive again.
This recruitment method is well documented in Baja California. Criminal groups use social media messages, word-of-mouth referrals, and messaging apps to offer teenagers work as lookouts, drivers, or warehouse laborers. The job descriptions sound legitimate: packaging, security, delivery. Pay is pitched at 2,000 to 5,000 pesos per week (roughly $110 to $275 USD), well above what most teens could earn in formal employment. Once recruited, young people face coercion, and those who resist or try to leave are at extreme risk.
Baja California’s Local Search Commission documented over 1,800 active missing-person cases statewide as of early 2025. The Tijuana-Tecate-Mexicali corridor has been a persistent hotspot. Between 2020 and 2024, citizen search collectives in Baja California located more than 400 clandestine burial sites across the state, many of them in the scrubby hillsides and ravines that surround fast-growing colonias on city peripheries. The Bicentenario neighborhood where the boys were found sits on the eastern edge of Tecate, surrounded by undeveloped terrain near a major highway.
Citizen Collectives Led the Search After 51 Days
The search that found the three bodies was organized by Unión y Fuerza por Nuestros Desaparecidos, one of dozens of volunteer collectives in Baja California formed by families of the missing. These groups conduct physical searches using metal probes, shovels, and cadaver-detecting chemicals. They work in terrain that formal authorities often lack the resources or the personnel to cover systematically.
On Wednesday morning, members of the collective went into the hills near Colonia Lomas de Santa Anita alongside officers from Mexico’s National Guard, the FESC (Baja California’s state security force), and the Local Search Commission. The collaboration between civilian volunteers and security forces has become a standard model in Baja California. Families provide local knowledge and persistence. Authorities provide security escorts in areas where searchers face threats from the same groups responsible for the graves.
The parents of all three teenagers were present during the search. They identified specific articles of clothing on the remains. “There are many characteristics that match, and family members who came with us confirmed it,” a source close to the search told local media. Still, formal identification awaits DNA results from the FGE’s forensic laboratory.
Tecate’s Growing Population and Limited Security Resources
Tecate is a city of roughly 110,000 people, far smaller than neighboring Tijuana (population 1.9 million) but growing steadily. Its position along the border corridor between Tijuana and Mexicali makes it a transit point for drug trafficking routes. The city has fewer municipal police per capita than Tijuana or Mexicali, and its hilly periphery offers concealment for criminal activity.
If you live in or travel through the Tecate area, this case is a grim reminder that job solicitations targeting young people through informal channels remain a serious danger. Families in the region have circulated warnings on social media urging parents to verify any employment offers, especially those directed at minors through messaging platforms or social media.
The FGE has not announced suspects or a motive. DNA confirmation from the state forensic lab is expected in the coming days. The original reporting on this story was published by Punto Norte.