Advertisement

News

Matamoros kidnapping updates: Cartel apology and Texas GOP’s call for force

A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemns the violence

A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemns the violence and says the gang turned its own members who were responsible over to authorities.

Meanwhile, Texas Republicans want to green-light military force against drug cartels with the same legal approach used to hunt down terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. Here’s what we know about the case.

Advertisement

Can you summarize what happened in the attack?

Breaking News

Get the latest breaking news from North Texas and beyond.

Or with:

A relative of one of the victims said that the four Americans had traveled together from the Carolinas so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a doctor in the northern border city of Matamoros.

The Americans’ minivan crashed and was fired on after they crossed from Brownsville into Matamoros on Friday as drug cartel factions tore through the streets, the region’s governor said. A stray bullet also killed a Mexican woman about a block and a half away.

Advertisement

The Americans were hauled off in a pickup truck, and Mexican authorities frantically searched as the cartel moved them around — even taking them to a medical clinic — “to create confusion and avoid efforts to rescue them,” Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said.

They were found Tuesday in a wooden shack, guarded by a man who was arrested, in a rural area east of Matamoros called Ejido Tecolote on the way to the Gulf called “Bagdad Beach,” according to the state’s chief prosecutor, Irving Barrios.

Advertisement

The survivors — identified as Latavia McGee and Eric Williams — were taken to Valley Regional Medical Center with an FBI escort. On Thursday, two hearses carrying the bodies of Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown crossed the international bridge to Brownsville, where the remains were handed over to U.S. authorities.

Did the drug cartel apologize?

A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemned the violence and said the gang turned over to authorities its own members who were responsible.

In a letter obtained by the Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement source, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros where the Americans were kidnapped, the Mexican woman who died in the cartel shootout, and the four Americans and their families.

Drug cartels have been known to issue communiques to intimidate rivals and authorities, but also at times like these to do some public relations work to try to smooth over situations that could affect their business.

How are Texas Republicans responding to the attack?

The kidnapping has amplified calls from some Texas Republicans to green light military force against drug cartels with the same legal approach used to hunt down terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Advertisement

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has responded angrily to the idea of U.S. military intervention and blasted leading proponent Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Humble, for seeking to undermine his country’s sovereignty.

“Mexico will not allow any foreign government, even less if they intervene with weapons, in our territory,” López Obrador said Thursday.

López Obrador said he was starting a campaign to inform Mexicans abroad and Hispanics in general to oppose Crenshaw and Republicans who take similar positions. “Besides being irresponsible, this is also a lack of respect for Mexico, our independence and sovereignty,” he said. He referred to Republicans as “hypocrites” and said, “We’re not a colony of the U.S.A.”

Advertisement

In an interview with The News, Crenshaw said he’s getting more traction on what is called an Authorization for Use of Military Force against the cartels that would terminate after five years. Nine other Texas Republicans have co-sponsored it.

Are there greater dangers for Black people in Matamoros?

The kidnapping of the four Black Americans — and the killing of two of them — has sparked fear among Black migrants and raised concerns among aid workers who say Black asylum-seekers have long been targeted by drug cartels.

Advertisement

Aid workers say Black migrants have been targeted by drug cartels with rape, extortion, kidnapping and violence. So much so that, as news spread of the kidnapping of Americans, many Haitian migrants cleared out of a Matamoros camp last weekend and left for Reynosa.

While it’s not clear that the four Americans were targeted because of their race, 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.

Is it safe to travel to that region?

The U.S. State Department has issued recent multiple travel advisories for Mexico, to help visitors plan their visit. In the case of Tamaulipas, where Matamoros is located, the State Department recommends not to travel to that state due to crime and kidnapping.

Advertisement

“Organized crime activity -- including shootings, murders, armed robberies, carjackings, kidnappings, forced disappearances, extortion, and sexual assaults -- is common along the northern border and in Ciudad Victoria,” said the State Department in its travel alert. “Criminal groups attack public and private passenger buses and private cars traveling through Tamaulipas, often kidnapping passengers and demanding ransom payments.”

Why is there so much violence in Matamoros?

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.

Advertisement

The drug cartel situation in Tamaulipas “is fluid and too often chaotic,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a George Mason University professor with expertise in U.S.-Mexico relations, organized crime and border security.

Two factions of the Gulf drug cartel have off-and-on turf battles. They are the Scorpions on the fringes of Reynosa and the Cyclones in Matamoros. The Cyclones are run by Jose Alberto Garcia Vilano, known as “La Kena” or “Cyclone 19″ in Matamoros. Garcia Vilano is wanted by federal Mexican authorities.

“The level of violence in that part of Tamaulipas has amped up this year because of new dynamics on the ground, which only means much more bloodshed to come,” said Arturo Fontes, former FBI agent and president of Fontes International Solutions, a security consulting firm.

Advertisement

The Associated Press contributed to this report.