At a glance, you wouldn't see anything wrong in La Estancia, a leafy suburb of Guadalajara, in the Jalisco state of Mexico. None, except the dozens of "for sale" signs posted outside the houses.

According to an article by the BBC, residents began to exodus in May, after the local police found a decomposed body in a home on a quiet side street. In the same road, authorities found a corpse and three severed heads after they were informed by a kidnap victim who escaped from one of the houses last month.

In 2019, more than 15 murder and mass burial sites have been discovered within homes in Guadalajara. Meanwhile, in 2018, Jalisco recorded 2,420 killings which is more than five times the figure for 2008. In general, there have been 40,000 people reported missing in Mexico since 2006.

The most recent discovery was on Tuesday, January 14, on the outskirts of the city of Guadalajara where bodies of at least 29 people have been found in a mass grave.

In another BBC report, Mexico revised the figure of people who had disappeared since 2006 from 40,000 to 60,000 last week.

Private properties create legal barriers which is taken advantage by criminals as a burying site for their victims. This makes it even harder for search parties to locate the victims as they can no longer rely on shovels and instead require diggers and drills to bore through concrete.

What also made the searching difficult as well as the rise in statistics of missing victims is the lack of coordination from the residents of Guadalajara who are often too afraid to report suspicious activity to the police. While there are some locals who reported hearing screams or smelling decaying flesh, most haven't tried to call the police.

"You can feel the fear...it's palpable," said one La Estancia resident who asked not to be named due to safety concerns.

Despite the efforts of Mexico's government in deploying troops to combat drug cartels since 2006, the frequency of mass graves being uncovered continue to rise.

A study led by journalists Alejandra Guillén, Mago Torres and Marcela Turati found at least 1,978 clandestine burial sites were unearthed between 2006 and 2016. In 2016, an anonymous individual has tipped the authorities about wooded area in the eastern state of Veracruz where at least 298 bodies and thousands of bone fragments were eventually recovered.

Across Mexico, informal investigations conducted by desperate parents who have taken up the task of digging for the remains of their missing children have led to shocking discoveries.

According to The Outline, in 2010, gang culture in Mexico transformed after the rise of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG) which came to dominance amid a shocking wave of violence in Jalisco. It was reportedly behind massacres, deadly ambushes of security forces and a rocket launcher attack on a military helicopter in 2015.

Aside from CJNG, the Nueva Plaza, a rival group which split from the CJNG in 2017, have also sparked violence across the city.

"[These gangs] rent from landlords who have no idea what the property is being used for," a police official said.

The police official also warned the burial tactic could soon spread to other cities, as gangs from Jalisco continue to strengthen their grip across Mexico.