Americans dead, two rescued after violent Mexico kidnapping

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico — 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 US 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 machine guns.

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

The survivors crossed the border Tuesday afternoon and the US government was working to repatriate the two bodies, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters. The Americans were taken to Valley Regional Medical Center with an FBI escort, the Brownsville Herald reported. A spokesperson for the hospital referred all inquiries to the FBI.

The US citizens were located 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 US. In announcing the Americans had been found, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal did not provide details on the extent of the wounded person’s injuries.

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 US-Mexican dual citizens in Sonora near the US border.

He complained about the US 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.”