Four Americans who traveled to Mexico last week to seek health care got caught in a deadly drug-related shootout and were kidnapped by heavily armed men who threw them in the back of a pickup truck, officials from both countries said.
The case has raised concerns among some North Texas families preparing to travel to Mexico, as well as among Texas-based aid workers serving migrants in the region.
The four U.S. citizens had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday and were traveling in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.
The FBI San Antonio Division office said the vehicle came under fire shortly after it entered Mexico. “All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for the return of the victims and the arrest of the culprits.
A former U.S. law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to The Dallas Morning News that both U.S. and Mexican officials are examining the possibility that the assailants mistook the Americans for Haitian smugglers.
U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said Monday that the Americans were kidnapped at gunpoint and that an “innocent” Mexican citizen died in the attack. He did not offer any additional details, but said various U.S. justice agencies were working with their Mexican counterparts to recover the missing U.S. citizens.
Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador initially said Monday that the Americans had crossed the border to buy medicine and ended up caught in the crossfire between two armed groups.
Zalandria Brown of Florence, S.C., said she has been in contact with the FBI and local officials after learning that her younger brother, Zindell Brown, is one of the four victims. “This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” she said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”
Zalandria Brown said her brother, who lives in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and two friends had accompanied a third friend who was going to Mexico for a tummy tuck surgery. A doctor who advertises such surgeries in Matamoros did not answer calls seeking comment.
Brown said the group was extremely close and they all made the trip in part to help split up the driving duties. They were aware of the dangers in Mexico, she added, and her brother had expressed some misgivings. “Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’” Brown said.
A video posted to social media Friday showed men with assault rifles and tan body armor loading the four people into the bed of a white pickup in broad daylight. One was alive and sitting up, but the others seemed either dead or wounded. At least one person appeared to lift his head from the pavement before being dragged to the truck.
Warring factions
Matamoros is home to warring factions of the Gulf drug cartel. Shootouts there on Friday were so bad that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger, and local authorities warned people to shelter in place. It was not immediately clear how the abductions could have been connected to that violence Friday.
“We ... remind Americans about the existing travel guidance when it comes to this particular part of Mexico,” said a U.S. State Department spokesperson. “Do not travel [to Tamaulipas state].”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday President Joe Biden had been informed of the situation. She called the attacks “unacceptable.”
Near Brownsville, across the border from Matamoros, immigration attorney Charlene D’Cruz told The News that cartel dangers have long been an issue in Matamoros and nearby Reynosa for migrant families and those seeking asylum.
D’Cruz crossed into Matamoros a few weeks ago to help migrants with new processing for asylum.
“It is almost like you assume the risk of going across, and that is on you,” D’Cruz said. The Biden administration is “different than the previous one, but I don’t know how much things will change. Juxtapose the security with U.S. citizens and the failure of security for refugees. … If we are not safe, how can refugees be safe? It should highlight that for everybody.”
Human Rights First has tracked more than 13,000 reports of murder, torture, kidnapping, rape and other violent attacks on migrants and asylum seekers since Biden took office.
Brendon Tucker, an aid worker with Global Response Medicine, said kidnappings of U.S. citizens within Mexico are unusual. The nonprofit, which uses U.S. and Mexican medical crews, has worked in Matamoros and Reynosa for several years. The group recently left Matamoros, because of funding scarcity.
“I would be surprised if those kidnapped were from a church or an aid group,” Tucker said. It’s more likely that the group included a U.S. citizen of Mexican descent who traveled to see family in that region. “I would have a heightened sense of awareness in Matamoros right now … The overall security situation is deteriorating.”
Felicia Rangel-Samponaro, a co-director of the Sidewalk School aid group, said about 100 Haitian asylum-seekers fled one of the Matamoros camps over the weekend after the kidnapping. About 600 mostly Latin-American asylum-seekers remained in another camp, closest to the international bridges, over the weekend, she said.
“The American public should know that [kidnapping] is not rare. This happens on a daily basis. The only difference is they did this to Americans instead of the asylum-seekers,” said Rangel-Samponaro, a U.S. citizen who works with Black asylum-seekers targeted for violence.
“Cartels would shy away from targeting Americans and, in this instance, you either have one or two things going on: A case of mistaken identity, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, or one of the four people could have been linked to someone from a rival cartel and they were being targeted,” said Arturo Fontes, a former FBI investigator and president of Fontes International Solutions, a security consulting firm.
“Because it’s very odd that you have four Americans coming across the border from North Carolina and kidnapped like that,” he said. Tens of thousands of Americans head for Mexico during spring break.
“In my experience, it’s very rare that Americans would be targeted,” he said. “Something else may be going on.”
North Texas concerns
News of the kidnapping reverberated across North Texas. Miguel Huerta visits his mother several times a year in Zacatecas, about 400 miles south of Laredo. He always travels by road, but five years ago, he changed his route when he was attacked by an armed group in Nuevo Laredo on his way back to the U.S.
“There is no security at the border,” said Huerta, who is president of the Federation of Zacatecan Clubs in Fort Worth. “One goes with fear, but we can’t stop going for our family.”
The armed group forced Huerta to hand over money in exchange for being allowed to continue on his way. The Huertas now cross the border through Eagle Pass, which increases their trip by two hours. “I would tell people who are going to travel by road to bless themselves,” Huerta said. “And if they have the opportunity to travel by air, they better do it that way.”
Huerta will be traveling back to Zacatecas with his family next week and hopes for a safe trip.
Impact on migrant services
Others, like Cassie Stewart, the executive director of the Dallas-based Rio Valley Relief Project, are worried that the violence and kidnappings may hinder the ability of charity groups to help migrants.
She travels frequently to the Rio Grande Valley and was at a Matamoros migrant camp a week ago. “It felt safe in Matamoros serving the asylum-seekers in the camp,” she said. “But I know this is going to deter people from going to serve. It makes me heartbroken for the [migrant] families. They are at the mercy of what people can do for them.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance advised migrants to be vigilant. The group viewed a video and photo on social media and believes some of those kidnapped were Black.
“We strongly advise the migrant populations in the Matamoros area, including many Black asylum-seekers, to be extremely cautious,” said Guerline Jozef, executive director. “These cruel acts of violence show that whether you are seeking asylum or U.S. citizens of African descent just visiting the Matamoros area, there is no safe place for Black people at the U.S.-Mexico border. "
Growing violence
Fontes, who said he is looking into the case, added that in recent weeks, warring factions of the Gulf drug cartel and the paramilitary group known as Los Zetas have fought battles in daylight, forcing residents to shelter inside their homes and businesses to shut down.
The renewed attacks come as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, along with the Sinaloa Cartel, have become responsible for the primary flow of fentanyl to the U.S.
Based on his years as an investigator, Fontes said U.S. states like North Carolina and Tennessee have been linked to cartels in the Reynosa and Matamoros areas, across the border from the Texas cities of Brownsville and McAllen.
The two U.S. states have traditionally been important transshipment points for the Atlanta region and East Coast, said Fontes.
Advocating use of U.S. military
The kidnapping of the four Americans comes as Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas and Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida, both Republicans, have introduced legislation that would give the president “authority to use the U.S. military against these cartels in Mexico.”
Last Thursday, former U.S. Attorney General William Barr wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal endorsing the legislation and advocating for the use of the U.S. military to attack cartels within Mexico.
Barr says the Mexican government under López Obrador has not done enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into U.S. cities, including Dallas. He argued that the U.S. has the right to defend itself.
“Almost all illicit drugs coming into the U.S. are controlled by the Mexican cartels, principally those based in the states of Sinaloa and Jalisco,” Barr wrote. “These paramilitary organizations use bribery and terror tactics to entrench themselves as essentially states within the state, controlling large areas of Mexico.”
Staff writer María Ramos Pacheco and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
