Mexican authorities have announced that two of the Americans kidnapped last week were found dead and two others alive.
The governor of Tamaulipas, where the group was assaulted at gunpoint on Friday, March 3, Americo Villareal Anaya, confirmed the story in a phone call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Tuesday morning, March 7.
He stated that one of the survivors had been injured and that paramedics were “rushing to the scene to rescue them and provide them with medical attention.”
According to the Associated Press, López Obrador stated later Tuesday that one person was in custody.
“Those responsible will be found and they are going to be punished,” he said.
According to the FBI, the Americans drove into Matamoros, Tamaulipas, from Brownsville, Texas, in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates on Friday.
According to the FBI, a gunman opened fire on the passengers before transferring them to another car and fled the scene, prompting a frenzied hunt by law enforcement organizations in both countries.
According to US Ambassador Ken Salazar, “an innocent Mexican citizen” was slain in the incident.
The FBI announced a $50,000 reward for their capture and the arrest of those responsible for their disappearance.
Zalandria Brown told the Associated Press that her brother, Zindell, and two friends accompanied a third friend to Mexico for a belly tuck cosmetic surgery treatment.
“This is like a bad dream you wish you could wake up from,” she said. “To see a member of your family thrown in the back of a truck and dragged, it is just unbelievable.”
Mexican officials now say the group was caught in the crossfire of rival cartel groups, the AP reports.