Calay News
Two of the four US citizens who were kidnapped last Friday in the city of Matamoros, Mexico, were found dead, while the other two were found alive, one of them injured, according to the governor of the state of Tamaulipas, Americo Villarreal.
The Mexican authorities deployed an operation to repatriate the victims and have arrested a suspect. The Americans were abducted after crossing the border to buy medicine in a white van with North Carolina license plates. The unidentified gunmen shot at the passengers in the vehicle and took the four Americans. A Mexican national was also killed during the kidnapping.
Organized crime activity in Matamoros, one of the towns hardest hit by violence linked to drug trafficking and other forms of organized crime, includes shootings, murders, robberies, kidnappings, forced disappearances, extortion, and sexual assaults. For several months, the United States has maintained an alert for its citizens to refrain from traveling to Tamaulipas due to kidnappings and other crimes.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador lamented the deaths of the hostages and promised punishment for those responsible, as was done when they murdered women and children of the LeBaron, Miller, and Langford families in 2019. Mexico has accumulated some 350,000 homicides and tens of thousands of missing persons since an anti-drug offensive was deployed in 2006 with military involvement and support from the United States.
