Mexico kidnapping: Gulf cartel sends apology for attack as three Texas women go missing

An unnamed Tamaulipas state law enforcement official provided a letter believed to be authored by the Gulf drug cartel to the Associated Press. In it, the criminal organisation promised to turn over five men who kidnapped LaTavia “Tay” McGee, Eric James Williams, Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown on 3 March.

“We have decided to turn over those who were directly involved and responsible in the events, who at all times acted under their own decision-making and lack of discipline,” the letter reads, according to the AP.

An extended version of the letter shared by local media also read: “The Gulf drug cartel Scorpion section decries the attack on 3 March, in which a working [Mexican] mother was killed and four American citizens were kidnapped. Two of them were also killed.

“ [The five members] went against the Gulf drug carter’s rules of respecting the life and integrity of innocent people. We apologise to residents of Matamoros ... and the American families affected.”

“The Gulf cartel asks the community to be calm because we’re committed to ensuring that these types of mistakes are not made ever again and making those who are guilty pay.”

Eric James Williams and his friend Latavia ‘Tay’ McGee were rescued from a drug cartel ‘stash house’ on Tuesday – but their friends Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown were found dead.

The Independent’s Rache Sharp has the story:

Almost 34 years after the killing of Mark Kilroy, Matamoros is once again the site of global attention after the kidnapping of four American tourists from South Carolina.

An unnamed Tamaulipas state law enforcement official provided a letter believed to be authored by the Gulf drug cartel to the Associated Press. In it, the criminal organisation promised to turn over five men who kidnapped LaTavia “Tay” McGee, Eric James Williams, Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown on 3 March.

Cheryl Orange was part of the group of American childhood friends who drove from South Carolina to the border so that Latavia ‘Tay’ McGee could get a tummy tuck procedure.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the story:

Mexico’s president said Thursday that his country does not produce or consume fentanyl, despite enormous evidence to the contrary.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador appeared to depict the synthetic opioid epidemic largely as a U.S. problem, and said the United States should use family values to fight drug addiction.

His statement came during a visit to Mexico by Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House Homeland Security Advisor, to discuss the fentanyl crisis. It also comes amid calls by U.S. Republicans to use the U.S. military to attack drug labs in Mexico.

The Mexican government has acknowledged in the past that fentanyl is produced at labs in Mexico using precursor chemicals imported from China. Fentanyl has been blamed for about 70,000 opioid deaths per year in the United States.

“Here, we do not produce fentanyl, and we do not have consumption of fentanyl,” López Obrador said. “Why don’t they (the United States) take care of their problem of social decay?”

Read more.

Aranza Maria Ochoa Lopez was four years old when she was last seen on a supervised visit with her biological mother at the mall in Vancouver, Washington.

Her mother was arrested in 2019 in Puebla, Mexico, but the youngster, who is now 8, had remained missing until she was found in Michoacán, Mexico, in February and has now been returned to the US, say officials.

“For more than four years, the FBI and our partners did not give up on Aranza,” said Richard A Collodi, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office. “Our concern now will be supporting Aranza as she begins her reintegration into the US.”

Mexican authorities confirmed on Tuesday that Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown were the two US nationals found dead nearly four days after they were kidnapped in the Mexican city of Matamoros– an area dominated by the Gulf cartel.

Brown and Woodward travelled to Mexico from South Carolina with their friends Latavia “Tay” McGee and Eric James Williams, who survived the kidnapping.

The group drove from South Carolina and had just entered the border between Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros when they were caught in a shootout and forced out of their van and into the kidnapper’s vehicles.

Brown, Woodward and Mr Williams reportedly tagged along to help Ms McGee share driving duties as she was planning to undergo a tummy tuck procedure she had booked with a local plastic surgeon.

But before embarking on the trip that would prove fatal for him, Brown told his sister Zalandria Brown that he was worried about the dangers of visiting the cartel-dominated area.

“Zindell kept saying, ‘We shouldn’t go down,’” Ms Brown told the Associated Press.

It is a stark warning to the early one million Americans who are estimated to visit Mexico for medical care every year, often in border towns where violence between rival cartels is particularly dire.

“There has been increased violence in the last several months,” Ken Bombace, a former US military intelligence officer who now provides

“The unstable situation with migration and fentanyl transport at the border has created a very dangerous environment... I would avoid travel to Mexico right now if it can in any way be avoided – especially in the north.”

The kidnappings come after a string of other incidents in which foreign travellers were killed or tangled up in conflict between rival gangs, as well as a far greater number of murders and “disappearances” targeting Mexican civilians.

Experts say that specific areas of Mexico remain broadly safe for tourists, with popular travel spots such as Yucatán state, Mexico City, and the city of Monterey posing little danger while states with a heavy cartel presence such as Sinaloa and Jalisco are best avoided.

The US State Department currently warns Americans not to travel to Matamoros and its surrounding state of Tamaulipas due to “crime and kidnapping“, with all but one other border state classified as “reconsider travel”.

Four US citizens were ambushed and taken hostage in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, after crossing into Mexico for a cosmetic surgery procedure.

Four days later, two of them were found dead and two were rescued.