A group of cartel gunmen in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas have kidnapped a top football player from the Greek soccer team Olimpyakos. The soccer player had been visiting friends and family in the area.

A group of at least six cartel gunmen kidnapped Alan Pulido and his girlfriend Ileana Salas on Saturday night along a highway on the  outskirts of Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas, Mexico’s Proceso Magazine reported. Hours later, Salas was released. The fate of the soccer player remains unknown. 

The overnight kidnapping has sent shockwaves throughout Mexico where soccer is seen by many as the national past-time much like baseball in America. The soccer player began his career in Mexico but had recently moved to Greece to play soccer at the international level.

For most of Sunday, the Tamaulipas government had not released any official information. In the mean time, relatives of the soccer player have begun to speak out.

Earlier this month, Breitbart Texas reported on the kidnapping of an American family who spent more than two weeks captive at the hands of Los Zetas cartel gunmen before their rescue. The family had been driving from the U.S. to a relatives funeral in the central part of Mexico. 

In mid 2015, a group of cartel gunmen kidnapped and murdered the father and brother of Hollywood film director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. The gunmen kidnapped the businessmen in the southern part of Tamaulipas and demanded ransom from the relatives. Their bodies were discovered almost a month later in a neighboring city in the state of Veracruz.

As Breitbart Texas has been consistently reporting, Ciudad Victoria has been ground zero for a fierce war between rival factions of the Los Zetas drug cartel. One faction known as Grupo Bravo/ Vieja Escuela has been leading a series of attacks on their rivals known as Cartel Del Noreste or CDN. The ongoing conflict between the two criminal organizations has led to a series of kidnappings and gruesome executions that include beheadings, dismemberment and other gory measures.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.