Highway Robberies Spike Along Mexican Border Area South of Texas

A highway that connects one of Mexico’s top metropolitan areas with the Texas border has once again become risky for robberies.

According to various news outlets, the victims of the robberies have largely been people from the Monterrey Metropolitan area who travel to McAllen, Texas, for tourism and shopping in recent weeks.
According to information revealed by one of the victims to El Manana, the motorist was driving back to Monterrey after spending some days shopping in McAllen. When the motorist and his relatives got close to a shuttered customs station 20 miles south of the city, four male and a female gunman took their belongings, cash, and phones. The gunmen released the victims afterward.

In another case, which took place last weekend, a family came face to face with another group of gunmen who stopped them, asked for ID, and then allowed them to leave. The gunmen were not law enforcement.

Earlier this month, gunmen carjacked a bus traveling from Reynosa to Monterrey, Vanguardia reported. The gunmen were able to rob the passengers and then escaped southwest toward Coahuila. Coahuila authorities eventually caught the gunmen.

The highway between Reynosa and Monterrey is not the only one that has seen an increase in cartel roadblocks and robberies. Residents report similar cases along Highway 54, which connects Miguel Aleman with Monterrey. The route is favored by some travelers from Monterrey since they believe the route to be faster. In recent weeks, Miguel Aleman has seen a dramatic rise in violence as rival criminal organizations fight for control of smuggling corridors into Texas.

This ongoing fighting has led to an increase in cartel checkpoints and robberies. According to motorists, the robberies are being reported near the old customs building in Ciudad Mier, approximately 1.5 miles north of the border between the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.

“It was there, by the marker for Kilometer 22, you see them from a distance, and you start praying,” a resident of Miguel Aleman told Breitbart Texas. “When we go through there, they sort of know who the locals are, but we did see another family that they had stopped, and they were checking their phones.”

Frequent travelers said that while they at times do see the presence of Nuevo Leon’s “Fuerza Civil” police and the National Guard, all law enforcement presence is gone come nightfall.

Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to Mexico City and the 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.P. De La Garza” from Nuevo León.