Mexican police are looking for many migrants who were kidnapped at gunpoint from a bus that was taking them to the border between the US and Mexico.
On Saturday, some people with guns got on the bus and took 31 passengers. Most of the passengers are believed to be from South America.
Some Mexican passengers and the driver noticed something wrong and called for help.
Immigrants are sometimes attacked by gangs, who keep them until their families pay money.
The people who were taken on Saturday were on a bus run by the company Senda. They were going from Monterrey to Matamoros, which is close to the US border.
The Mexican travelers said that the bus was stopped by five cars with men carrying weapons.
The people who moved to Mexico, most likely from Venezuela, had to leave the bus while the Mexican passengers got to stay.
The news in the area said that the Venezuelans were going to the border for a planned asylum meeting with US officials when they were taken by force.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that the police are searching very hard.
Security forces stopped a strange vehicle on Monday on the highway and found five Venezuelan migrants, including two children, inside.
Officials said that the five Venezuelans were taken from another Senda bus in a separate incident. This shows how often migrants are kidnapped in this border area.
We don’t know which gang has the 31 missing people. But people who help migrants had said that there have been more kidnappings for ransom lately.
Father Francisco Gallardo, a Catholic priest who helps people who have come from other countries, said that many people are being taken away from their families very often.
Father Francisco said that when the migrants came to his shelter, they told him that gangs were taking whole families and threatening to hurt or kill them unless they paid a lot of money as ransom.
Tamaulipas is known for being dangerous for migrants, and Matamoros is in this state.
In 2010, a very bad thing happened. 72 South and Central American people were kidnapped and killed by a gang called Los Zetas because they didn’t want to work for the gang.
Due to the dangerous risks for migrants in Mexico, some decide to stay safe by joining large groups called migrant caravans, which travel to the border, mostly on foot.
About 7,000 people started a journey from the southern city of Tapachula on Christmas Eve.
A woman with her son talks to a government official before getting on a bus. They were part of a group of people traveling to the United States and had just finished their journey in Mapastepec, Chiapas, Mexico. This happened on January 2, 2024.
On Tuesday, Mexican officials said that the group of migrants had split up after traveling more than 100km (62 miles). Most of them accepted an offer to get on buses to a migrant processing center in the southern city of Mapastepec, operated by Mexico.
The US has asked Mexico to stop letting so many people cross through its land to get to the US.
President López Obrador said he made “important deals” in a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Mexico City last week, but he didn’t say what they were.
Tag: President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
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Mexican police look for migrants who were taken off bus
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Extradition of ‘El Chapo’ son to the US halted after 29 killed in arrest operation
A Mexico City federal judge halted the extradition of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s son, alleged drug cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán, to the United States on Friday, a day after he was arrested in an intense operation in northern Mexico that led to the deaths of 29 people.
The US is seeking Guzmán’s extradition for drug trafficking and has offered up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of the man they say is “a senior member of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
On Thursday, Mexico’s Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard confirmed that there is an arrest warrant in the US dated September 19, 2019, but said the possible extradition of Guzmán would not be immediate due to the formalities of the law. He also stated that Guzmán has ongoing legal proceedings in Mexico.
According to the Televisa network and other Mexican media, another federal judge later ordered Guzmán to stay in 60 days of preventive detention for the purpose of extradition after a hearing at the Altiplano maximum security federal prison where he is being held.
CNN has requested a response from Guzmán’s defense but has not yet heard back.
Guzmán’s father, “El Chapo,” had escaped from Altiplano prison on July 11, 2015 through a mile-long tunnel that featured a motorcycle on tracks. He was later captured and convicted in the US four years later of 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, drug trafficking and firearms charges. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years and ordered to pay $12.6 billion in forfeiture.
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Ovidio Guzmán was previously arrested by federal authorities in October 2019, but was released on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to avoid further bloodshed.
His latest arrest comes days before US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visit Mexico City to attend the North American Leaders Summit.
Capturing Guzmán could be a way for López Obrador to show the US that he is “in control of the armed forces and Mexico’s security situation,” Gladys McCormick, a associate professor at Syracuse University who focuses on Mexico-US relations, told CNN in an email.
“It also defuses the power behind any ask from the Biden administration to stem the tide of fentanyl and other narcotics across the border,” she added.
At a news conference Friday, López Obrador denied that Guzmán’s arrest was linked to Biden’s arrival, saying Mexican authorities had acted autonomously.
“About interpretations, there are a lot of them, we do not share them, we acted with autonomy,” the Mexican President said.
Violent aftermath
After Guzmán’s arrest in Culiacán on Thursday, chaos erupted in the city. The authorities asked citizens to seek refuge due to clashes in several areas.
His arrest was the result of a lengthy operation which involved 200 special forces, Defense Minister Luis Cresencio Sandoval said Friday. Local officials urged citizens to shelter at home amid clashes with cartel members in various parts of the city.
Guzmán was previously arrested in October 2019 but was freed on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to avoid further bloodshed.Cepropie/AP
At least 19 suspected gang members and 10 military personnel died during violent clashes in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, after authorities arrested Guzmán, along with 21 others. No civilian deaths or injuries were reported.
Security at Altiplano prison has been increased since Guzmán was detained, the minister added.
The President said later on Friday that the city was calmer and officials were working to clear the roads.
“In Culiacán, we opened all the blocked roads and we are working on removing the vehicles that are alongside the streets,”López Obrador said.
The state of Sinaloa, where Culiacán is located, is home to one of the world’s most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel, of which “El Chapo” was the leader.
A soldier keeps watch near the wreckage of a truck set on fire by drug gang members in Sinaloa, following Guzmán’s detention by Mexican authorities.Reuters
The US State Department wrote that law enforcement investigations indicated that Guzmán and his brother, Joaquín Guzmán-López, “inherited a great deal of the narcotics proceeds” following the death of another brother, Edgar Guzmán-López.
They “began investing large amounts of the cash into the purchasing of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia. They also began purchasing large amounts of ephedrine from Argentina and arranged for the smuggling of the product into Mexico as they began to experiment with methamphetamine production,” the State Department said.
The brothers are also alleged to oversee an estimated 11 “methamphetamine labs in the state of Sinaloa,” the State Department says.
Source: Ghanaweb