ENSENADA, Mexico (AFP) — Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence.

Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific, AFP journalists observed.

“We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims.

Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter have not been seen since April 27.

They were on vacation near the coastal city of Ensenada in the northwestern state of Baja California but the brothers’ mother, Debra Robinson, said they never arrived at their planned accommodation.

“Reaching out to anyone who has seen my two sons. They have not contacted us,” she wrote on a Facebook page for Baja California tourists before Friday’s discovery.

Santo Tomas, where the FBI reported the discovery of the three bodies, is about 30 miles (45 kilometers) southeast of Ensenada.

More than a dozen responders, including federal agents, state police, forensic experts and military personnel, were at work Friday on the difficult-to-access cliff area.

Navy personnel and officials from the state prosecutor’s office searched a cliff area in Ensenada earlier on Friday, according to city hall.

Baja California state authorities said Thursday that three Mexican nationals were being questioned in connection with the disappearances.

“A white pickup vehicle was located, as well as other evidence,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The investigation was being coordinated with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Australian and US consulates, it said.

A spokesperson for Australia’s foreign ministry said the ministry was in regular contact with the family of the missing Australians and that it “recognises this is a very distressing time.”

“The Australian Embassy in Mexico City is working closely with the Australian Federal Police and local authorities regarding the two Australians reported missing in Mexico,” the spokesperson said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had said “there is real concern about the fact that they’ve gone missing.”

Baja California is known for its inviting beaches but is also one of Mexico’s most violent states because of organised crime groups.

Two other Australian surfers, Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman, were murdered and their bodies burned while traveling in the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa in November 2015.

In March 2023, alleged members of the Gulf Cartel kidnapped four Americans in the northeastern city of Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas. Two of them were killed.

The spiral of criminal violence engulfing Mexico has killed more than 450,000 and left more than 100,000 missing since the federal government launched a controversial anti-drug operation in 2006.