Shaeed Woodard

Letter Claims Mexican Cartel Handed Over Men Who Killed Americans

By Alfredo Pena, Mark Stevenson and James Pollard, Associated PressMarch 10, 2023

A letter claiming to be from the Mexican drug cartel blamed for abducting four Americans and killing two of them condemned the violence and said the gang turned over to authorities its own members who were responsible. In a letter obtained by The Associated Press through a Tamaulipas state law enforcement official, the Scorpions faction of the Gulf cartel apologized to the residents of Matamoros where the Americans were kidnapped, the Mexican woman who died in the cartel shootout, and the four Americans and their families.

National News

Survivors of Deadly Mexico Kidnapping Being Treated at Texas Hospital

Alfredo Pena, Fabiola Sanchez and Travis Loller, Associated PressMarch 8, 2023

A road trip to Mexico for cosmetic surgery veered violently off course when four Americans were caught in a drug cartel shootout, leaving two dead and two held captive for days in a remote region of the Gulf coast before they were rescued from a wood shack, officials said Tuesday, March 7. Their minivan crashed and was fired on shortly after they crossed into the border city of Matamoros on Friday as drug cartel factions tore through the streets, the region’s governor said. A stray bullet also killed a Mexican woman about a block and a half away.