PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — Human smugglers connected to the Los Zetas cartel kidnapped a group of illegal immigrants trying to make their way to the Texas border.
The kidnapping took place recently at a rail yard in the town of Nava, a rural community approximately 12 miles from the Texas border, law enforcement sources in Tamaulipas confirmed to Breitbart Texas. The human smugglers kidnapped them in order to extort more money out of their relatives originally paying for safe passage.
A woman managed to escape from her kidnappers and called authorities. Responding agents with Coahuila’s Attorney General’s Office were able to rescue six and arrest some cartel operators and one rail yard guard who had been holding them hostage.
Authorities raided a local rail yard in Rio Escondido where they looked for an SUV described by the woman. In the area, authorities found the kidnappers and the victims. The cartel demanded $5,000 to free the two women, one child and three men that they were holding. State investigators were able to arrest seven kidnappers, including one of the guards at the rail yard who is believed to have been part of the human smuggling and kidnapping crew.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila and Nuevo León 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 various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas 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 “J.M. Martinez” from Piedras Negras Coahuila.