I would find it hard to believe that the students are still alive if they were handed over to the drug cartel. If these students were on a trip to hijack vehicles, then law enforcement should not use their time and resources to search for them, especially after 2 years. Their time should be spent on non-criminals.  But if they believe the police are the ones who handed them over to a drug cartel, then they should probably look into that then using these same people to locate them.