Two Kidnapped Americans ‘Who Travelled For Tummy Tuck’ Found Dead In Mexico

After a bloody shooting and kidnapping, two Americans on a road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery were found dead, while two more were still alive, according to officials.

After being rushed to the border in Brownsville, Texas’ southernmost tip, in a procession of ambulances and automobiles, escorted by Mexican military Humvees and National Guard trucks with mounted machine guns, the survivors are now back on US land.

The four had traveled from the Carolinas together, according to a relative of one of the victims, so that one of them could have a stomach tuck from a doctor in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, where Friday’s kidnapping took place.

The four were discovered in a wooden shack, where they were being guarded by a man who has been detained, according to Tamaulipas governor Americo Villarreal.

In order to confuse rescue operations and transfer the Americans about, according to Mr. Villarreal, their captors once took them to a hospital.

According to the governor, the two victims would be handed over to American authorities following forensic examination at the Matamoros mortuary in the ensuing hours.

Mr Villareal said the wounded American, Eric Williams, had been shot in the left leg and the wound was not life threatening. According to the Brownsville Herald, an FBI escort was used to transport the survivors to Valley Regional Medical Center. The hospital’s spokesperson directed all questions to the FBI.

According to Tamaulipas state head prosecutor Irving Barrios, the US citizens were discovered in a remote region called Ejido Tecolote, east of Matamoros, on the way to the Gulf coast known as Bagdad Beach.

The four were involved in violence between rival drug organizations in the city on Friday, not long after arriving in Mexico. According to Mr. Barrios, “it was bewilderment, not a frontal attack,” as he put it.

The white minivan belonging to the Americans is seen parked next to another car with at least one bullet hole in the driver’s side window in both video and images obtained during and right after the kidnapping. The two cars, according to a witness, collided. Almost quickly, several guys in tactical vests and toting assault guns appeared in another car to surround the scene.

The shooters walked one of the Americans into the bed of a white pickup, then dragged and loaded the three others. In an effort to avoid drawing their attention, terrified on-the-road civilians sat silently in their vehicles. Two of the victims looked as though they were still.

According to officials, a Mexican woman was also killed in Friday’s crossfire a half-block away.

The shootings underscore the dread that has endured for years in Matamoros, a city governed by groups of the huge Gulf drug gang that often fight among themselves. Thousands of Mexican citizens have vanished in Tamaulipas state alone due to the violence.

Eric Williams, 38, according to Robert Williams, was one of those taken hostage. The brothers reside in Winston-Salem but are from South Carolina but live in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina, he said.

Mr Williams described his brother as “easygoing” and “fun-spirited”.

He did not know his brother was travelling to Mexico until after the abduction hit the news. But from looking at his brother’s Facebook posts, he thinks his brother did not consider the trip dangerous.

“He thought it would be fun,” Mr Williams said. He had not heard anything about his brother’s whereabouts, he said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said the people responsible will be punished. He referenced arrests made in the 2019 killings of nine US-Mexican dual citizens in Sonora near the US border.

He complained about the US media’s coverage of the missing Americans, accusing them of sensationalism. “It’s not like that when they kill Mexicans in the United States, they (the media) go quiet like mummies,” he said.

“It’s very unfortunate, they (the US government) have the right to protest like they have,” Mr Lopez Obrador said.

“We really regret that this happens in our country.”

US attorney general Merrick Garland said: “The cartels are responsible for the deaths of Americans.”

He added: “The DEA and the FBI are doing everything possible to dismantle and disrupt and ultimately prosecute the leaders of the cartels and the entire networks that they depend on.”

John Kirby, a spokesperson for the National Security Council at the White House, stated that the US is collaborating with Mexican authorities to find out more information about the circumstances of the killings.

The FBI had promised a reward of 50,000 US dollars (£42,242.50) for the safe return of the victims and the capture of their captors.