Mexico, Jan 13 (Agencies) : Aspiring Mexican actress Carmen Yarira Noriega Esparza, 27, disappeared last February.

Her family and friends feared she was kidnapped by human traffickers and sold for flesh trade.

But now, after a year her body has been recovered from a water tank when resident in a building complained that their drinking water tasted funny.

Ms Esparza's severely decayed body was discovered and it appears her body had been in the water tank since February, reports DailyMail.

Ms Esparza, who had graduated as a psychologist and dreamed of an acting career, was last seen leaving her gym in the Mexican capital in February last year.

Police are now focusing their enquiries on Ms Esparza's former partner, a wealthy businessman.

Ms Esparza had recently ended the relationship after meeting a wealthy lawyer, and disappeared just one week before she was supposed to move out of the flat, local news reports.

The discovery of the body has stunned Ms Esparza's friends and family who are demanding to know how it could have escaped notice for so long.

It has also shocked her neighbours, whose drinking water from the tank had long had a strange taste, which has now been found to have stemmed from Ms Esparza's slowly decaying body.

The body has been taken to the Institute of Forensic Sciences where a postmortem will be carried out to determine the exact cause of death.