- by foxnews
- 15 Nov 2024
Five men who purportedly carried out the attack on four Americans last week have been found dumped on a street in the city of Matamoros, with an apology note claiming to be from the fearsome cartel that controls much of Tamaulipas state.
The discovery is the latest bizarre development in the kidnapping case of four Americans that left at least three people dead and set off a diplomatic firestorm between two neighboring countries.
The kidnapping, which took place last Friday, came to an end on Tuesday when the four US citizens were reportedly found by Mexican authorities, two of them dead, the two survivors shortly returned to US soil.
The Americans had crossed into Mexico, where one of them reportedly planned to have a tummy tuck procedure, before they were confronted by gunmen who detained them and took them away. Mexican authorities said they believe it was a likely case of mistaken identity.
The speed at which the four were found, involving a taskforce including the Mexican military, national guard and state police, was met with indignation among opposition politicians and human rights activists in Mexico, a country where more than 100,000 people are missing and crimes are rarely solved.
The kidnapping also sparked outrage across the border in the US, where some Republican lawmakers went so far as to call for the military to intervene in order to tackle the cartels and the surging violence they have wrought.
South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said he planned to introduce legislation to designate cartels as foreign terrorist organizations and give the US military the authority to confront them.
The proposal has also been met with furor in Mexico, where President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, known popularly as Amlo, has spent much of his presidency railing about the importance of Mexican sovereignty, particularly in terms of national security.
It is not yet clear whether the five men found in Matamoros on Wednesday night have any actual link to the kidnapping, despite the insistence of the typo-riddled note supposedly signed by the Scorpions, the armed wing of the Gulf cartel that dominates Tamaulipas state.
A passenger paid for a first-class ticket on an American Airlines flight, but the seat in front of him trapped him in his chair, which led to the airline posting a public apology on X.
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