MEXICO CITY -- More than a hundred police have fanned out in the northern Mexico state of Chihuahua to search for a missing American hiker.
Patrick Braxton-Andrew, a 34-year-old Spanish teacher from North Carolina, was last seen six days ago, on Sunday, by personnel at a hotel he was staying at in Urique, a former mining village at the base of one of the many canyons that make up the Copper Canyon National Park.
The Chihuahua state prosecutors' office shared pictures of police and volunteers on Saturday searching for the missing hiker along rocky paths and steep gorges.
The picturesque network of canyons is also plagued by violent conflicts over illegal logging, which locals accuse of being fronts for money laundering by Mexican drug cartels.
According to a Facebook page set up to disseminate information about the case, the Davidson College graduate was last in contact with his parents last Sunday afternoon and was supposed to meet his brother in Mexico City on Tuesday, but never showed up.
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