A Texas family has been identified among those kidnapped by the Los Zetas cartel in Mexico as cartel violence continues to take hold of the border region surrounding Nuevo Laredo.
Mexican authorities had confirmed earlier this week the rescue of 17 kidnapping victims from Nuevo Laredo. According to information from Laredo Police, six of those victims were actually U.S. citizens, the Laredo Morning Times reported.
The kidnapping rescue took place earlier this week when the Mexican Army raided a stash house in Nuevo Laredo that had 17 kidnapping victims, information provided to Breitbart Texas by the Tamaulipas government revealed.
Mexican authorities had received an anonymous tip about gunmen bringing victims into a house in the Villas de la Fe neighborhood. Following the information from the tip, military personnel went to the house and spotted a lookout. The individual went back into the house and, along with other men, climbed to the roof.
According to the information provided by the Tamaulipas government, the soldiers surrounded the area and arrested two men who had been jumping on rooftops in en effort to elude capture. The men were identified as 28-year-old Jose de Jesus Oviedo from Nuevo Laredo and 40-year-old Jorge Garcia Bautista from the Mexican State of Veracruz. Authorities would not disclose which faction of the Los Zetas the men belonged to.
As Breitbart Texas has been reporting for the past 10 months, two rival factions of the Los Zetas drug cartel have been fighting for control of lucrative drug trafficking routes and territories. One faction called the Vieja Escuela Z or “Grupo Bravo” has been trying to overpower another faction called Cartel Del Noreste or “CDN”. Initially, the fighting had started in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas. Fighting has since spread to Nuevo Laredo.
It remains unclear as to where and how Los Zetas managed to kidnap the U.S. family. In addition to rescuing the 17 victims, authorities also found the body of an unidentified man. Investigators have not been able to confirm if the man was another kidnapping victim or if he had been a Zeta.
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas you can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.