The Attorney General of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas announced this Friday the arrest of six people accused of the kidnapping of four young Americans on March 3 in Matamoros and the murder of two of them.
Five of the detainees were identified (only with their first names, without last names, as is customary in Mexico) as Antonio de Jesús V, Luis V, Ever Noel H, Juan Francisco L and Gustavo M, accused of aggravated kidnapping and intentional homicide.
Five of the detainees have been charged with kidnapping and homicide. Tamaulipas Attorney General's Office
Their names match those of the five men, between the ages of 21 and 38, who were found handcuffed in downtown Matamoros on Thursday with a message in which the Gulf Cartel allegedly pointed them out as responsible for the kidnapping.
A faction of the cartel called Grupo Escorpio expressed in a message left with the handcuffed men their "condemnation" and extended their "apology" for the kidnapping.
The Prosecutor's Office did not clarify whether the arrest warrants communicated on Friday are for those people allegedly handed over by the cartel, but it indicates that it has "evidence of their probable participation" in the crime.
The sixth arrest warrant corresponds to José Guadalupe G, accused of aggravated kidnapping, and who could be the person arrested days ago as the alleged guard of the house where the young people were found.
"A period of five months was established for the closure of the complementary investigation [to this defendant] and informal preventive detention for the duration of the process," the statement said.
Military and National Guard vehicles are involved in an operation to transfer two of the four U.S. citizens kidnapped in crime-ridden northeast Mexico back to Brownsville, Texas.
STR / AFP via Getty Images
The four Americans, childhood friends, were abducted on March 3 after crossing from Texas to Matamoros, supposedly for one of them to undergo a cosmetic operation, a type of medical tourism popular for offering Mexico treatments and services at affordable prices. cheaper than in the US.
Two of the youths were found dead days later, one with gunshot wounds and the fourth person unharmed, after an extensive police operation in one of the most violent areas of the country, whose territory is disputed by drug cartels.
During the kidnapping, a Mexican woman also died, killed by a stray bullet in the armed assault.
The alleged apology of the Gulf Cartel would confirm the main line of investigation of the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's Office: that the incident was the result of a confusion, and the four Americans were kidnapped by mistake, as pointed out by the attorney general, Irving Barrios, on Tuesday. in a press conference, reported the newspaper El País.
Gulf Cartel apologizes for the kidnapping of four Americans and the death of two
March 9, 202303:11
This Friday the prosecutor anticipated on Twitter that five people "linked to the events of March 3" had been arrested.
"One more person, arrested in days past, was linked to the process," he said.
The remains of the slain citizens Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown were transported to the United States by land on Thursday.
The two survivors, meanwhile, are already in the United States, one of them hospitalized for gunshot wounds.