A dead infant found in the dumpster at a notorious Mexican prison may have been used as a drug mule, authorities said.
The horrifying discovery was made by an inmate looking for plastic bottles at the overcrowded Puebla prison last week, Mexico News Daily reported.
Local authorities said the baby boy had a surgical incision in his abdomen, suggesting that the infant had been used to smuggle drugs into the prison, the outlet reported.
Authorities are working to determine the baby’s identity.
“The investigation will be handled with the secrecy necessary to uncover the truth, first determining where the child was born,” Puebla Gov. Miguel Barbosa Huerta said. “Because he was not born in the prison.”
The prison, the Center for Social Reinsertion in Puebla’s San Miguel neighborhood, has been the subject of past human rights investigations and is notorious for a history of gang violence, rioting, and allegations of official corruption.
A local nonprofit group has also cited instances of prostitutes being smuggled into the facility and rampant drug trafficking behind the walls.
The prison has a capacity of 2,100 but houses more than 3,000 inmates.
The story was first reported by Spanish-language outlets Milenio and El Universal, which reported that the baby was found on Jan. 11.