Four American tourists disappeared in the border area of Matamoros (Mexico) where they would have crossed to undergo cosmetic surgery. Two were found dead.
Last Friday, as reported by the US press, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, Eric James Williams and Latavia McGee crossed into Mexico because one of them planned to undergo a plastic surgery. However, the plan did not go as expected.
As confirmed by the agency AFP, Americans to Mexico at 09:18 on March 3 in a white van with North Carolina state plates. At 11:12 a.m., video surveillance images recorded the truck’s route through downtown Matamoros when a sedan car began to chase them, shortly after three other trucks joined.
The camera clock indicated 11:45 when the American vehicle was intercepted by the three trucks. Four armed men descend from one of them. Seconds later, two other cars and a white van that, according to images posted on social networks, were brought in by the Americans by their captors.
“The line (investigative) is being strengthened that it was a confusion (of the criminals), it was not a direct aggression” against the visitors, commented state prosecutor Irving Barrios, clarifying that all hypotheses remain open.
Flight and death in Mexico
After being forced into the truck and in a moment of confusion that the prosecution could not specify, the four Americans got out and tried to flee. To the surprise, the kidnappers shot them making them fall to the ground, according to the state prosecutor’s office in a printed and illustrated presentation with some video captures.
In the same document, it expands that a 33-year-old Mexican woman died near the place, possibly the victim of a lost bulletas published by the agency AFP.
After the attack, the captors approached and dragged the wounded, put them back in the truck and left quickly, while another vehicle guarded the attackers.
The captivity of the four Americans
The governor of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal, stressed that during the three days after the kidnapping, the hostages were transferred to various places in the city, including a clinic, to “create confusion and avoid rescue efforts.”
After a sterile search from Friday to Monday, as a result of false information that would have been intended to “mislead the work of the authorities,” according to the prosecutor Barrios. And after the FBI offered a reward of $50,000 to anyone who provides information, it was possible to reach US citizens.
The final discovery, derived from an operation in a peripheral neighborhood, occurred in a wooden house located near a lagoon. In that place, the policemen found the bodies of two men (Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown) and two survivors (Latavia McGee and Eric James Williams, wounded in one leg). All four were immediately repatriated.
During the operation that involved some 20 vehicles including ambulances and vans from security agencies, a 24-year-old man identified as José Guadalupe “N” was arrested, who was guarding the captives.
Prosecutor Barrios insisted that there are still no elements to determine which criminal organization it belongs to, but indicated that “the criminal group that is known to operate there is the Gulf cartel.”
“The (investigative) line that it was a confusion, it was not a direct assault. That is the line that we now have as the most viable and surely it is the most correct,” said the Tamaulipas prosecutor, Irving Barrios, in the same conference.
Government Alert
The US government sent an alert for its citizens to refrain from traveling to the state of Tamaulipas, considered one of the hardest hit by organized crime in Mexico.
NT / ED
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