Authorities in Mexico rescued 13 Central American migrants who had been kidnapped and were being tortured by their captors to force families to pay ransom for their release.
The incident occurred this week in the Mexican border city of Juarez, Chihuahua, just south of El Paso, Texas. A group of six kidnappers, which included two underage teens and two women, held the tortured migrants at a stash house in the Barrio Nuevo neighborhood, El Diario de Juarez reported.
A tactical team from the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office carried out the raid at the stash house, where authorities arrested the six alleged kidnappers and rescued the migrants. During the raid, authorities found an altar to Santa Muerte, handguns, and street-level baggies of drugs.
The victims included a 29-year-old man and a 17-year-old teen from Guatemala who had third-degree burns to their midsection that were part of the torture. A 24-year-old woman from Honduras also had third-degree burns to her midsection, breasts, and arms. Authorities revealed that they took the tortured migrants to a local hospital. All 13 of the migrants showed various levels of injuries — presumably caused by the kidnappers.
Available information does not reveal when the group kidnapped the migrants or which criminal organization they belonged to. The rescue comes at a time when Ciudad Juarez has become a busy human smuggling corridor, leading to several shootouts and killings between rival cartel-connected trafficking organizations.
In May, El Diario de Juarez reported on a series of shootings near the Ciudad Juarez airport that were all linked to rival cartel-connected human smuggling groups fighting for control of the migrants arriving each day by airplane.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.