Abducted Americans went to Mexico to buy medicine
CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico – Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine but were caught in a shootout that killed at least one Mexican citizen, U.S. and Mexican officials said Monday.
The four were in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. They came under fire on Friday shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.
“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI said. The bureau is offering a $50,000 reward for the victims’ return and the arrest of the kidnappers.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday the four were going to buy medicine, “there was a confrontation between groups, and they were detained,” without offering details.
A woman driving in Matamoros witnessed what appeared to be the shooting and abduction in broad daylight. She asked not to be identified.
The scene illustrates the terror that has prevailed for years in Matamoros, a city dominated by factions of the Gulf cartel.
The woman said she saw the white minivan get hit by another vehicle near an intersection, then gunfire rang out.
Another SUV rolled up and several armed men hopped out.
She said the gunmen forced a woman, who was able to walk, into the back of a pickup truck. Another person was carried to the truck.
“The other two they dragged across the pavement; we don’t know if they were alive or dead,” she said.
Mexican authorities arrived minutes later.
A video posted to social media Friday shows men with assault rifles and tan body armor loading the four people into the bed of a white pickup. One is
alive and sitting up, but the others seem either dead or wounded.
Shootouts in Matamoros were so bad on Friday that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger. Local authorities warned people to shelter in place.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement Monday the Americans were kidnapped at gunpoint and an “innocent” Mexican citizen died in the attack. He said U.S. justice agencies were working with their Mexican counterparts to recover the missing persons.
Authorities have provided no other details about who the victims are or where they were from.
Tamaulipas’ chief prosecutor, Irving Barrios, told reporters that a Mexican woman died in Friday’s shootings. He gave no details about her death and did not specify whether she was killed in the same gunfight where the kidnapping took place.
Tamaulipas state police said on social media there were “two armed incidents between unidentified civilians” on Friday.
Photographs from the scene viewed by The Associated Press show a white minivan with the driver’s side window shot out and all of the doors open, sitting on the side of a street after apparently colliding with a red SUV.