REYNOSA, Tamaulipas — The citizens of this border city who lived through years of violence are now facing a series of kidnappings as cartel members look to diversify their income sources. The victims in the recent kidnappings are not personally linked to organized crime but appear to be average citizens–primarily women.
The new crime wave comes after months of fierce fighting between rival factions of the Gulf Cartel over control of the region’s drug trafficking routes and territories. Despite the ongoing violence, neither of the two factions has managed to assume complete control. The fighting is leading to an increase in ransom kidnappings as the criminal organizations try to make up lost earnings. Mexican law enforcement sources revealed to Breitbart Texas that cartel operators are relying on two primary methods to carry out the kidnappings that have been documented.
The first method deals with the use of car crashes where kidnappers will crash into an unsuspecting woman to make her think it’s an accident. Once the target gets out of their vehicle, they are taken by force for ransom.
The second mode of kidnapping involves kidnappers dressing as flower delivery men to get unsuspecting victims to open their door. As soon as the victim opens, gunmen take them by force to a stash house to negotiate with their relatives. Victims have reported cartel gunmen demanding between $500,000 pesos (approximately $28,000 USD) to $5 million pesos (approximately $280,000 USD). Recently, cartel gunmen released one of the victims however, the amount of the ransom that was allegedly paid remains unknown.
The nonprofit organization called Alto Al Secuestro (Stop To Kidnapping) labeled Tamaulipas as the second state in Mexico with the most kidnappings and Reynosa as the focal point. The organization documented 1,202 kidnappings that have actually been reported by the victims in Tamaulipas from December 1, 2012 to December 31, 2017. The organization recorded 205 kidnappings in Reynosa during that time frame.
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 “A.C Del Angel” from Tamaulipas.
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