Mexican authorities said they found the four American citizens kidnapped in Mexico on Friday and that two of them are dead. The two people alive – one of whom is reported to be injured – returned to the United States on Tuesday. The four had been kidnapped shortly after crossing the border with Mexico, while they were in the state of Tamaulipas, near the city of Matamoros, an area considered by the US State Department to be “level 4 dangerous”, the highest . The white minivan with North Carolina plates they were traveling in had been shot by a group of people who then kidnapped them. During the attack a Mexican bystander had been shot and killed.
According to various American newspapers, the group of four would have been made up of a woman and three men and the reason for the trip would have been the appointment of one of the four for a cosmetic surgery operation. It is not uncommon for Americans living near the border to go to Mexico to buy medicine or undergo operations for less money than in their own country. The motive for the attack on the minivan has not yet been established, but one of the main suspects is that the group was mistakenly targeted during a Mexican organized crime operation.