Four Americans were kidnapped on March 3 just south of the US border near Brownsville, Texas in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. Two of the four friends, traveling in a vehicle with North Carolina license plates were found alive and returned to the United States. The group was driving across the border so one in the party—a mother of six—could receive a medical procedure.
According to a source related to the incident, the group got lost while driving to the doctor’s office. Per the FBI, the Americans were confronted with gun fire and then captured by armed perpetrators, after crossing the Texas-Mexico border in a white van. Detectives think it’s likely that a Mexican cartel may have mistaken the friends for Haitian drug smugglers, a US official stated.
Almost one million Americans travel to Mexico for medical care, annually. Various medical services offered south of the border can be a fraction of the cost that one will pay in the United States. Despite the fact these medical tourism destinations are in drug cartel-ridden border towns like Matamoros, the savings and comparable quality are attractive enough for hundreds of thousands of American medical shoppers per year. Those familiar with these dangerous regions sometimes take precautions such as changing a vehicle’s license place from a US to Mexican one, upon crossing the border.
The Americans involved in the March 3 kidnapping have been identified as Latavia ‘Tay’ Washington McGee, Shaeed Woodward, Zindell Brown, and Eric Williams. The FBI has briefed Attorney General Merrick Garland on the case, and the White House stated it is collaborating with the Mexican government to discover further about the incident. US State Department spokesman Ned Price demanded responsibility regarding the four Americans who were kidnapped by gunmen in the Mexico border city this past Friday but would not elaborate on how that will potentially unfold. “We want to see accountability for the violence that has been inflicted on these Americans that tragically led to the death of two of them,” Price said.
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