Mexican law enforcement officials have officially arrested a suspect as of this past Tuesday that is allegedly connected to the kidnapping of a group of four Americans this past weekend, which resulted in two dead after passing over the U.S.-Mexico Border.
As a Mexican national that happens to be in his early 20s, Jose Guadalupe N. was guarding a tiny wooden shack just outside of the city of Matamoros in which cartel members have been holding American citizens when authorities officially detained him, read a report from The Los Angeles Times.
Area officials have not yet issued a confirmation about if Guadalupe was actually involved with the cartel that is suspected of kidnapping the U.S. nationals Latavia “Tay” McGee, Eric James Williams, Shaeed Woodard, and Zindell Brown.
According to officials in the Tamaulipas state of Mexico, once Mexican officials discovered the victims that had been kidnapped by the gunmen, Woodard and Brown had already been killed.
The announcement was issued across social media, highlighting that the investigation and efforts to bring in those responsible are still ongoing.
The New York Post reported that Mexican officials are still searching for a reason for the kidnapping, with one possibility being that the cartels confused the American Nationals with Haitian drug smugglers.
The four citizens of the United States were attacked before being kidnapped this past Friday in the wake of crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Matamoros, Tamaulipas while traveling inside of a white minivan sporting a North Carolina license plate, explained the FBI in a recently released statement sent out via the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
“Shortly after crossing into Mexico, unidentified gunmen fired upon the passengers in the vehicle,” the statement claimed. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men.”
In the wake of the kidnapping, law enforcement officials initiated a rescue operation to save the group of friends that had made the trip down from South Carolina to buy medicines.
The family members of the kidnapped people explained to The Post that the group of four traveled to Mexico for McGee to undergo medical treatment to get rid of abdominal fat. After crossing over the border into the Matamoros, they were caught in a shootout between rival gangs of cartels and eventually forced into the back of a pickup truck at gunpoint.
The group of kidnappers allegedly transported the victims all over Tamaulipas in an effort to confuse and avoid efforts from police officials to rescue them, stated Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal.
“This tragic incident only highlights a rising preoccupation in the United States about Mexico’s lack of interest in facing down organized crime,” expressed the director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute, Tony Payan, as reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Payan explained that the kidnapping “has become a symbol of impunity in Mexico.”
