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

Mexican authorities investigating the kidnapping of four American citizens last week are probing the victims’ past criminal history.

Court documents filed by prosecutors and reviewed by Reuters show that among the lines of inquiry pursued by officials is the possibility that the US nationals abducted on 3 March were mistaken for drug smugglers by cartel members.

The group, LaTavia “Tay” McGee, Eric James Williams, Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard, were on their way to a plastic surgeon’s office when they were ambushed by gunmen in broad daylight. Ms McGee and Mr Williams were rescued, while Brown and Woodard were killed before police could locate them.

In the filings on Wednesday, local and state officials flagged Brown and Woodard’s past drug convictions in the US, adding that “it cannot be ruled out that the attack against (the Americans) could be directly linked to drug trafficking operations.”

When four Americans were kidnapped in the border city of Matamoros, authorities rescued the survivors after three days, but thousands of Mexicans remain missing in the state long associated with cartel violence — some in cases dating back more than a decade.

Mexican authorities quickly blamed the local Gulf cartel for shooting up the Americans’ minivan after they crossed the border for cosmetic surgery Friday. Authorities found the Americans — two dead, one injured and one apparently unharmed — early Tuesday after a massive search involving squads of Mexican soldiers and National Guard troops.

By contrast, more than 112,000 Mexicans remain missing nationwide, in many cases years or decades after they disappeared.

Although a convoy of armored Mexican military trucks extracted the Americans, the only ones searching for most of the missing Mexicans are their desperate relatives.

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Two hearses carrying the bodies of Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown crossed the international bridge to Brownsville, Texas, on Thursday where their remains were handed over to the US authorities.

LaTavia McGee, who is Woodard’s cousin and survived the ordeal, had surprised him with the fatal road trip as a birthday getaway, according to his father, James Woodard.

He said he was speechless upon hearing that the cartel had apologised for the violent abduction that killed his son and was captured in footage that quickly spread online.

“Just being helpless – not to be able to do anything, not to be able to go there and just rescue them – it’s real painful,” Mr Woodard said.

A fifth American who had travelled to Mexico with a group that was later kidnapped has claimed they were only planning to be in the country for 15 minutes.

Cheryl Orange had embarked on the trip from South Carolina with her pals Latavia “Tay” McGee, Eric Williams, Zindell Brown, Shaeed Woodard - but when they arrived at the border on 3 March, Ms Orange was denied entry because she didn’t have a photo ID.

She told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her friends drove her back to their hotel in Brownsville, Texas, and told her they would “return in 15 minutes”.

She said she was “worried and in fear because it didn’t seem right”.

That detail could raise questions over an explanation by the victims’ families that the group went to Mexico so Ms McGee could get a tummy tuck.

When asked by Cooper why the group went on the trip, Ms Orange reiterated that it was for Ms McGee to undergo a “cosmetic procedure”.

Shortly after entering Matamoros, the four Americans were ambushed by armed gunmen who held them captive for four days.

When authorities finally tracked the group down on 7 March, Woodard and Brown were dead and Ms McGee and Mr Williams were rescued.

A Mexican official has confirmed the arrests of five suspects in the kidnapping of four Americans.

The announcement from Tamaulipas Attorney General Irving Barrios Mojica came a day after reports that the Gulf cartel had apologised for the deadly ordeal and blamed four rogue members.

Mr Barrios Mojica said the arrest warrants were for the crimes of aggravated kidnapping and intentional simple homicide. The suspects have not been officially named.

The attorney general previously announced that authorities had seized five vehicles in connection with the case, including a Lamborghini stolen on US soil.

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?”

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Irving Barrios Mojica, the attorney general of Tamaulipas, said that the vehicles, which included a Lamborghini stolen in the US, were found as part of a joint operation by Mexican authorities.

Mexican drug cartels have increased their presence on Twitter since Elon Musk bought the social media platform, according to a report.

The cartels are using Twitter to recruit members, post images and videos and send warnings to rival gangs, according to the report by the Alliance to Counter Crime Online.

“Already scant efforts by Twitter to remove violating content and block accounts of high-profile Mexican cartel members appear to have declined further since Elon Musk took over the company and dismantled the platform’s safety team,” the report states.

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.

After the rescue, Mr Williams’ wife Michelle revealed that she hadn’t even known he was going to Mexico.

The Independent’s Rachel Sharp has the story:

“FBI San Antonio announces the creation of a Digital Media Tip Line to aid in the identification of the person(s) responsible for the murder and kidnapping of U.S. Citizens visiting Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico on March 03, 2023,” the agency tweeted on Friday afternoon.