U.S. Envoy to Mexico Ken Salazar met with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico City on Monday as the condition and whereabouts of four Americans who were grabbed at gunpoint stay obscure.
The unidentified U.S. residents were trapped Friday by shooters who terminated the gathering not long after they crossed from Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros, Tamaulipas, as indicated by the FBI. The Americans were driving a white minivan with North Carolina tags.
The ruffians moved every one of the four into one more vehicle before running away from the area.
Salazar noticed that an honest Mexican resident was killed during the assault.
“We have no more prominent need than the security of our residents – this is the US government’s most key job,” the minister said in an explanation.
Salazar said different policing are working with Mexican specialists “at all degrees of government to accomplish the protected return of our comrades.”
The FBI is offering a $50,000 prize for the arrival of the Americans and the captures of those included.
Mexico’s leader offers a hypothesis on the grabbing
López Obrador on Monday told columnists during his day-to-day press preparation that the seized bunch had crossed the boundary to purchase medications in Mexico.
He didn’t say how he or different authorities closed, yet he let correspondents know that he has been in touch with the legislative leader of Tamaulipas.
“There was a showdown among gatherings, and they were confined,” López Obrador said. “The entire government is chipping away at it.”
He added: “I figure it will get settled, that is the very thing I trust.”
An anonymous U.S. official let know that the U.S. residents had “headed out to the boundary city of Matamoros for operations,” referring to receipts tracked down in the unwanted vehicle.
FBI authorities told NPR they wouldn’t remark on López Obrador’s comments nor reports of the receipts.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the U.S. will “push [the Mexican government] to deal with those dependable.”
“We need to be cautious here. There are security concerns, thus I would rather not share a lot of data on how we’re pushing ahead,” Jean-Pierre told columnists.
Neither the White House nor the FBI has uncovered additional data about the conditions of the assault past the FBI’s and the minister’s prior explanations.
Drug cartels informally rule over Matamoros
For a long time, Matamoros has been a fortress for different quarreling criminal associations, especially the Bay Cartel, which has involved the city as a vital pipeline for moving cocaine, meth, and fentanyl across the line into Texas — and from that point across the U.S.
Beginning around 2010, when medication wars initially began to break out between the groups, the city has been under the informal control of the Bay Cartel.
The territory of Tamaulipas is viewed as quite possibly the absolute most brutal spot in Mexico. As of late as October the U.S. State Office gave a “Level 4: Don’t Travel” warning, referring to wrongdoing and grabbing.
