Four U.S. citizens have been kidnapped after cartel gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in a gang-war hotspot in northern Mexico, the FBI said yesterday.
The four had entered Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, on Friday. They were travelling in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.
The FBI San Antonio Division office said the vehicle came under fire shortly after it entered Mexico.
"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 return of the victims and the arrest of the culprits.
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A video was released claiming to show the moment the Gulf Cartel gangsters dragged the men into a pickup truck after the two groups exchanged gunfire.
A video purports to show the moment the four US citizens were hauled into a pickup truck by cartel gunmen in Mexico (CIRO)Local residents claimed the Americans were committing criminal activity in the area before they were kidnapped, though this hasn't been independently verified and the reason for their visit is currently unknown.
Matamoros is home to warring factions of the Gulf drug cartel.
The shootouts in Matamoros were so bad that the U.S. Consulate issued an alert about the danger Friday.
Tamaulipas state police said people had been killed and injured Friday, but did not say how many.
The town of Matamoros, a cartel-clash hotspot in Mexico (Getty Images/iStockphoto)The FBI has asked for people with information to call its San Antonio office or to submit an anonymous tip online.
Matamoros is a city in Mexico's Tamaulipoas state, which has a "Level 4: Do Not Travel" warning on the US State Department website.
The severe advisory is due to risks of crime and kidnapping, the site says.
At the start of February, two US gang members were arrested after the January "cartel-style" killing of six people including a baby at a California home associated with a rival criminal organisation.
The FBI has offered a $50,000 reward for the return of the kidnapped citizens (Getty Images)Tulare Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said Noah David Beard, 25, was taken into custody and Angel "Nanu" Uriarte, 35, was wounded in the shootout with federal agents and was undergoing surgery, but was stable and expected to survive.
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"I'm happy we were able to put these two men behind bars," the sheriff said.
The suspects and members of the victims' family have a long history of gang violence but the motive for the shooting "is not exactly clear," Boudreaux said at a news conference at the sheriff's headquarters in Visalia.
The Tulare County District Attorney's Office charged both suspects with six counts of murder and other crimes. They face a potential sentence of the death penalty or life in prison without parole, prosecutors said.
The six victims, including a teen mother and her baby, were gunned down on Jan. 16 in rural Goshen, a community of 3,000 in the San Joaquin Valley.
Authorities said both suspects had been under around-the-clock surveillance since Jan. 23 in a massive investigation that culminated in Friday's arrests and involved sheriff's detectives, prosecutors, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and other law enforcement agencies.
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