Two Americans dead, one injured in Mexico kidnapping: official | Crime News

Mexican official says two Americans abducted in Mexico are dead, two alive after Matomoros kidnapping.

Two of the four US citizens kidnapped after crossing over the border into northeastern Mexico have been found dead, a senior Mexican official has said.

The attorney general’s office confirmed that of the four abductees “two of them are dead, one person is injured and the other is alive”, Tamaulipas state governor Americo Villarreal told the Mexican president by telephone at a news conference Tuesday.

The governor did not share any additional details about where or how the individuals were found.

A Mexican official told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that of the four hostages, two men had been found dead.

A woman and another man were alive, safe and in the hands of authorities, the official said.

Mexican President Manuel Lopez Obrador said one person was in custody in relation to the kidnapping in Tamaulipas, which has long been one of the most violent states in Mexico.

The four US citizens had crossed from Texas into Matamoros, Mexico on Friday, when their white minivan was fired upon in what authorities said was the crossfire of rival cartel groups.

A video later emerged showing the four hostages loaded into the back of a pickup truck by gunmen. Mexican officials said a Mexican woman was also killed in Fridays’ crossfire.

The US Embassy in Mexico had issued a security warning for Matamoros on Friday, saying it was “classified as Level 4: Do Not Travel”.

The city of Matamoros is dominated by factions of the powerful Gulf drug cartel who often fight among themselves.

Amid the violence, thousands of Mexicans have disappeared in the state of Tamaulipas alone, adding to the over 100,000 people reported missing in the country in recent decades, the vast majority after 2007, when Mexico’s government launched a militarised crackdown on drug cartels.

Despite the response, violence has persisted, with cartels jockeying for control in large swathes of the country.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had offered a $50,000 reward “for the return of the victims and the arrest of those involved”.