Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the Gulf Cartel if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by Matamoros’ “JA Espinoza.”
MATAMOROS, Tamaulipas — In response to the rising number of kidnapping in the border city of Matamoros, authorities kicked off new anti-kidnapping units that is supposed to investigate and prosecute the crime. The units were also created to calm the public’s anger at the continued lack of security conditions.
With the group in Matamoros, there will be three anti-kidnapping units in Tamaulipas. One will be headquarted in Ciudad Victoria, one in Reynosa and the third in Matamoros. Their goal will be to highlight the high crime rate in the border cities despite the all too common speeches by public officials claiming that the border area is safe.
Since February, the border cities of Matamoros and Reynosa have been ground zero for a bloody war between two rival factions of the Gulf Cartel. The conflict led to violent gun battles in broad daylight as well as a sharp spike in the number of kidnappings.
According to government officials, the units is made up of trained investigators. They are equipped with state of the art equipment to allow them to target the criminal activity which has deeply hurt many citizens in this border area.
In the border city of Reynosa, State officials have confirmed that there are more than 800 individuals who have been reported as missing or kidnapped. It remains unclear how many cases have gone unreported, Breitbart Texas reported.
The goal of the units are to bring back a sense of peace to the area. They will attempt to learn the fate of the hundreds of travelers who went missing while travelling along the highways to and from this border city.
The unit in Matamoros will fall under the a state bureau designed to fight kidnapping state-wide which, in recent years, has been a type of crime that has targeted many businessmen in throughout the state. The kidnapping of businessmen or their relatives has become a multimillion dollar business for drug cartels seeking to supplement their income.
As previously reported on the Cartel Chronicles, drug cartels will resort to petty crime such as robberies, kidnapping and bank robberies following large seizures by authorities on both sides of the border.
The high number of kidnappings has not only affected Mexican citizens, but at times the victims have been U.S citizens. In February two U.S. Army veterans, Jesus and Ernesto Garcia, went missing after the two brothers traveled into Matamoros to visit their grandmother, Breitbart Texas reported. Since their disappearance the family has not heard from them or about them.