A member of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon's administration disputes that there is a list of 27,000 missing people as announced by the current government of President Enrique Pena Nieto.
Jose Vega was Calderon's coordinator of the National Security System, an entity responsible for collecting and analyzing security data. He says in a letter sent to Mexican media that the only registry on disappeared people includes 5,319 names.
Vega says in the letter publicized Friday that some of the missing people are those whose disappearances are blamed on organized crime, but others include those who may have voluntarily stopped contacting their families.
Current Interior Department deputy secretary Lia Limon told reporters earlier this week that the government plans to unveil a database with more than 27,000 records of missing people.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.