The U.S. Department of State issued a new travel alert about cartel gunmen kidnapping American passengers from buses traveling through the border city of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. The advisory comes even after Mexican border state officials dismissed a prior alert claiming the region has minimal crime statistics.
This week, U.S. diplomats from the consulate in Matamoros issued the travel alert claiming that gunmen were targeting buses from the Omnibus line that were leaving the city of Reynosa. In their alert, consular officials detailed that gunmen were focusing on U.S. citizens, residents, and other travelers with ties to the country.
Travelers reported to U.S. consular officials that gunmen had taken their documents and luggage, cleaned out their bank accounts, and that their loved ones had to pay thousands of dollars for their release.
The new travel alert comes one month after, as Breitbart Texas reported, the U.S. Consulate in Matamoros issued a notice of a similar trend where they didn’t specify which buses from Reynosa were being targeted.
Soon after that alert, Jorge Cuellar, a spokesman from the Tamaulipas government, dismissed the claims from U.S. diplomats, claiming that they had been irresponsible for relying on hearsay and not government statistics that show that the border state is virtually free of crime.
As Breitbart Texas reported, Cuellar has a long history of pushing false or doctored statistics to hide the fact that most of the state is under the control of drug cartels. Cuellar is the same official who has publicly denied a large number of cartel shootouts and blockades in the northern part of the state, claiming that they are part of social media disinformation.
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.