A road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery ended with two Americans dead — and two others found alive in a rural area near the Gulf coast — after a violent shootout and abduction that was captured on video, officials said Tuesday.
The surviving Americans were sped to the border near Brownsville, the southernmost tip of Texas, in a convoy of ambulances and SUVs escorted by Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted .50-caliber machine guns.
A relative of one of the victims said Monday that the four had travelled together from the Carolinas so one of them could get a tummy tuck from a doctor in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, where Friday’s kidnapping took place.
The U.S. citizens were found in a rural area east of Matamoros called Ejido Longoreno on the way to the Gulf coast known as “Bagdad Beach,” according to a Mexican state law enforcement official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the case. Word of their location came to authorities before dawn Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear if the two bodies were also being returned to the U.S. In announcing the Americans had been found, Tamaulipas Gov. Americo Villarreal did not provide details on the extent of the wounded person’s injuries.
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ORIGINAL STORY
Gunmen kidnapped four U.S. citizens who crossed into Mexico from Texas last week to buy medicine but were caught in a shootout that killed at least one Mexican citizen, U.S. and Mexican officials said Monday.
The four were in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. They came under fire on Friday shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI San Antonio Division office said in a statement Sunday.
“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the office said. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for the victims’ return and the arrest of the kidnappers.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said Monday the four were going to buy medicine, “there was a confrontation between groups, and they were detained,” without offering details.
A woman driving in Matamoros saw what appeared to be the shooting and abduction. She asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
The scene illustrates the terror that has prevailed for years in Matamoros, a city dominated by factions of the Gulf cartel who often fight among themselves. Amid the violence, thousands of Mexicans have disappeared just in Tamaulipas state, where Matamoros is located.
The woman said she saw the white minivan get hit by another vehicle near an intersection, then gunfire rang out.
Another SUV rolled up and several armed men hopped out.
