Horrifying moment Four Americans are kidnapped at gunpoint after driving across the US-Mexico border in a minivan to ‘buy medicine’: group ‘accidentally’ kidnapped as they become embroiled in a gang war
- The Americans reportedly drove into the border town of Matamoros, Mexico, on Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates
- Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the victims were visiting the city to buy medicine
- Matamoros is in one of the six Mexican states that the U.S. state currently has in its strictest no-travel category
Shocking video footage captured the horrifying moment when four Americans were loaded onto the bed of a pickup truck after being shot at and kidnapped in Mexico.
The victims, whose names have not yet been released, were attacked by a group of armed men shortly after entering the border town of Matamoros on Friday.
The FBI said the group entered Matamoros via Brownsville, Texas. They had traveled from North Carolina in a white minivan with license plates and were caught in the crossfire between two armed groups while there to buy medicine, according to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar said in a statement Monday that an “innocent” Mexican national was killed in the attack.
He gave no further details but said various US law enforcement agencies were working with their Mexican counterparts to locate the missing US citizens.
The video shows one of the gunmen escorting a woman to the pickup truck and forcing her to sit on the bunk. Meanwhile, his cohort drags a man across the sidewalk before throwing two more male victims into the vehicle.
A gunman is acting as a lookout for his cohorts shortly after they attacked and hijacked a minivan with four American occupants in the northeastern Mexican border town of Matamoros on Friday
An American woman (left) sits on the ground after the vehicle she and three other US citizens were traveling in was shot at by hijackers shortly after they drove into the Mexican border town of Matamoros to buy medicine on Friday. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to her whereabouts
The vehicle came under fire shortly after it entered Mexican territory, according to an investigation by the FBI’s San Antonio office.
“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and removed from the scene by gunmen,” the bureau said.
The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for returning the victims and apprehending the perpetrators.
A map highlighting the six of 32 Mexican states that the U.S. State Department currently has listed under its strictest travel-prohibited category due to local cartels that could rob and/or kidnap American tourists
A white North Carolina minivan carrying four US citizens was shot dead by a group of gunmen in Matamoros, Mexico on Friday. The inmates were kidnapped, according to the FBI
A woman is escorted to a pickup truck after she and three other Americans got caught in the middle of a shootout between rival criminal organizations in the Mexican northern border town of Matamoros, where the group crossed from Brownsville, Texas, to buy drugs
Matamoros is known to be an area partially occupied by warring factions of the Gulf Cartel.
Shootings between gangs in Matamoros have become so treacherous that the US consulate warned of the danger on Friday.
Tamaulipas state police said people were killed and injured Friday but didn’t say how many.
Matamoros is located in one of the six Mexican states currently listed by the US State Department in the strictest “Travel Prohibited” category due to local cartels that could rob and/or kidnap American tourists.
At least 1,271 people were kidnapped in Mexico in 2022, according to Alto al Secuestro, an organization that supports victims of kidnapping.