ROMA, Texas — Mexican cartel smugglers on the waters of the Rio Grande got into a shootout with U.S. Border Patrol agents. No injuries were reported and the gunmen got away.
The shootout took place on Monday afternoon in the border community of Fronton, located in the western part of Starr County near Roma, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office revealed.
Border Patrol agents spotted several men in camouflage clothing on board of a raft. One of the agents began to hear gunshots and noticed that the rounds began to hit nearby. He took out his handgun and fired three shots at the gunmen. Another agent was able to help his fellow agent escape from the area, the information provided revealed. The case is being investigated by the Starr County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The area just south of Star County is a known staging area used by Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, a ruthless crime syndicate that is responsible for the drug and human trafficking that takes place in the region known as the Rio Grande Valley.
As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, the Gulf Cartel has been behind various spillover crimes such as in August 2015, when a team of cartel gunmen crossed into Texas to kidnap a man who was then taken into Mexico. In a rare occurrence, Mexican federal authorities were able to rescue the man in the border city of Reynosa.
The Gulf Cartel has also been behind multiple other kidnappings and murders in Texas. These include a 2011 double homicide in Brownsville where a team of hit men gunned down a cartel member and his bodyguard who had been driving along a highway less than a mile form the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
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