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Monday, February 24, 2025

2 Americans dead, 2 rescued after violent Mexico kidnapping

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719 days ago
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A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes, at the crime scene where gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas, Friday, March 3, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the four Americans were going to buy medicine and were caught in the crossfire between two armed groups after they had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday. (AP Photo)

A member of the Mexican security forces stands next to a white minivan with North Carolina plates and several bullet holes, at the crime scene where gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas, Friday, March 3, 2023. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the four Americans were going to buy medicine and were caught in the crossfire between two armed groups after they had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday. (AP Photo)

A road trip to Mex­i­co for cos­met­ic surgery end­ed with two Amer­i­cans dead — and two oth­ers found alive in a rur­al area near the Gulf coast — af­ter a vi­o­lent shootout and ab­duc­tion that was cap­tured on video, of­fi­cials said Tues­day.

The sur­viv­ing Amer­i­cans were back on U.S. soil af­ter be­ing sped to the bor­der near Brownsville, the south­ern­most tip of Texas, in a con­voy of am­bu­lances and SU­Vs es­cort­ed by Mex­i­can mil­i­tary Humvees and Na­tion­al Guard trucks with mount­ed .50-cal­iber ma­chine guns.

A rel­a­tive of one of the vic­tims said Mon­day that the four had trav­elled to­geth­er from the Car­oli­nas so one of them could get a tum­my tuck from a doc­tor in the Mex­i­can bor­der city of Mata­moros, where Fri­day’s kid­nap­ping took place.

Irv­ing Bar­rios, Tamauli­pas state’s top pros­e­cu­tor, con­firmed the two Amer­i­cans were turned over to U.S. au­thor­i­ties at the in­ter­na­tion­al bridge to Brownsville, Texas. They were then tak­en to Val­ley Re­gion­al Med­ical Cen­ter with an FBI es­cort, ac­cord­ing to the Brownsville Her­ald. A spokesper­son for the hos­pi­tal re­ferred all in­quiries to the FBI.

The U.S. cit­i­zens were found in a rur­al area east of Mata­moros called Eji­do Lon­goreño on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bag­dad Beach,” ac­cord­ing to a Mex­i­can state law en­force­ment of­fi­cial. He spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause he was not au­tho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the case. Word of their lo­ca­tion came to au­thor­i­ties be­fore dawn Tues­day.

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear if the two bod­ies were al­so be­ing re­turned to the U.S. In an­nounc­ing the Amer­i­cans had been found, Tamauli­pas Gov. Améri­co Vil­lar­real did not pro­vide de­tails on the ex­tent of the wound­ed per­son’s in­juries.

Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine and got caught in a shootout. [Map courtesy Associated Press]

Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine and got caught in a shootout. [Map courtesy Associated Press]

Short­ly af­ter en­ter­ing Mex­i­co, the four were caught amid fight­ing be­tween ri­val car­tel groups in the city. Video and pho­tographs tak­en dur­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the ab­duc­tion show the Amer­i­cans’ white mini­van sit­ting be­side an­oth­er ve­hi­cle, with at least one bul­let hole in the dri­ver’s side win­dow. A wit­ness said the two ve­hi­cles had col­lid­ed. Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly, sev­er­al men in tac­ti­cal vests and tot­ing as­sault ri­fles ar­rived in an­oth­er ve­hi­cle to sur­round the scene.

The gun­men walked one of the Amer­i­cans in­to the bed of a white pick­up, then dragged and loaded the three oth­ers. Ter­ri­fied dri­vers sat silent­ly in their cars, hop­ing not to draw their at­ten­tion. Two of the vic­tims ap­peared to be mo­tion­less.

Of­fi­cials said a Mex­i­can woman al­so died in Fri­day’s cross­fire.

The shoot­ings il­lus­trate the ter­ror that has pre­vailed for years in Mata­moros, a city dom­i­nat­ed by fac­tions of the pow­er­ful Gulf drug car­tel who of­ten fight among them­selves. Amid the vi­o­lence, thou­sands of Mex­i­cans have dis­ap­peared in Tamauli­pas state alone.

Vil­lar­real con­firmed the deaths by phone dur­ing a morn­ing news con­fer­ence by Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent An­drés Manuel López Obrador, say­ing de­tails about the four ab­duct­ed Amer­i­cans had been con­firmed by pros­e­cu­tors.

López Obrador said one per­son was in cus­tody.

“Those re­spon­si­ble will be found and they are go­ing to be pun­ished,” the pres­i­dent said. He ref­er­enced ar­rests made in the 2019 killings of nine U.S.-Mex­i­can dual cit­i­zens in Sono­ra near the U.S. bor­der.

He com­plained about the U.S. me­dia’s cov­er­age of the miss­ing Amer­i­cans, ac­cus­ing them of sen­sa­tion­al­ism. “It’s not like that when they kill Mex­i­cans in the Unit­ed States, they go qui­et, like mum­mies.”

“It’s very un­for­tu­nate, they (the U.S. gov­ern­ment) has the right to protest like they have,” López Obrador said. “We re­al­ly re­gret that this hap­pens in our coun­try.”

U.S. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Mer­rick Gar­land ex­pressed his sym­pa­thy for the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims.

“The car­tels are re­spon­si­ble for the deaths of Amer­i­cans,” Gar­land said. “The DEA and the FBI are do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to dis­man­tle and dis­rupt and ul­ti­mate­ly pros­e­cute the lead­ers of the car­tels and the en­tire net­works that they de­pend on.”

He would not con­firm the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment’s re­ports that the two U.S. cit­i­zens had died.

White House Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil spokesper­son John Kir­by said the U.S. is work­ing with Mex­i­can of­fi­cials to learn more about the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the killings.

“At­tacks on U.S cit­i­zens are un­ac­cept­able, no mat­ter where, un­der what cir­cum­stances they oc­cur,” Kir­by said.

The FBI had of­fered a $50,000 re­ward for the vic­tims’ re­turn and the ar­rest of the kid­nap­pers.

Robert Williams said in a tele­phone in­ter­view that his broth­er, 38-year-old Er­ic Williams, was among the kid­napped Amer­i­cans. The broth­ers are from South Car­oli­na but now live in the Win­ston-Salem area of North Car­oli­na, he said.

Williams de­scribed his broth­er as “easy-go­ing” and “fun-spir­it­ed.”

He didn’t know his broth­er was trav­el­ing to Mex­i­co un­til af­ter the ab­duc­tion hit the news. But from look­ing at his broth­er’s Face­book posts, he thinks his broth­er did not con­sid­er the trip dan­ger­ous.

“He thought it would be fun,” Williams said. He hadn’t heard any­thing about his broth­er’s where­abouts, he said. —CIU­DAD VIC­TO­RIA, Mex­i­co (AP)

_____

Sto­ry by AL­FRE­DO PEÑA | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. AP writ­ers Lind­say White­hurst and Aamer Mad­hani in Wash­ing­ton and Travis Loller in Nashville con­tributed to this re­port.

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