(TargetDailyNews.com) – Initial media reports from the first week of January said that the Mexican army and the national guard had “rescued” 31 kidnapped migrants, but it now appears the kidnappers released the hostages. A group of 36 migrants was on a bus traveling north in Mexico, headed for the Texas border over the weekend that straddled 2023 and 2024 when a group of masked men carrying guns abducted 32 of the 36.
Despite early reports from Mexican authorities, which were then amplified by the media, the Mexican army and national guard did not, in fact, rescue the hostages. It turns out instead that the kidnappers released the group themselves. Neither the reason for the kidnapping nor the reason why the abductors released the group is yet known.
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador corrected the earlier reports during a press conference, saying the kidnappers “decided to let them go.” The group was stopped and kidnapped in Mexico near the Texas border, then the hostages were apparently released in a shopping plaza parking lot in Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas. So far, no one responsible for the incident has been arrested.
On December 30th, the group of kidnappers—likely an organized crime cartel, but nothing has been confirmed—stopped the bus on a highway that runs between Reynosa and Matamoros, Mexico. These cities border the U.S. state of Texas. The abductors took the group away in five separate vehicles, according to Federal Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez.
Criminal cartels frequently kidnap migrants in hopes of ransom payments from their families, and apparently that was the likely motivation for the mass kidnapping. Reuters reports that some of the families of the abducted did indeed pay money to the kidnappers, though how many did, and how much they paid, is not known.
Mexico’s security official Rodriguez said the kidnappers “took photos and early in the morning of December 31, the kidnappers called the families to ask for money.” Rodriguez added that some of the families paid “deposits” for the return of their loved ones, with the full “fee” to be paid later.
In a news conference on January 5th, Mexican president Obrador rejected claims made by some abductees that the Mexican police had been involved in the kidnappings.
The migrants were from half a dozen Latin American countries, and the group included nine children.
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