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The U.S. State Department considers Tamaulipas, where the two cities are located, to be the most dangerous state along the U.S.-Mexico border. Tens of thousands of people a day are competing for 1,450 slots, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). U.S. authorities temporarily suspended CBP One appointments in June in another Tamaulipas border city, Nuevo Laredo, due to "extortion and kidnapping concerns," the official said. Juan Rodriguez, head of the Tamaulipas migrant services agency, said the agency was "attentive" to the issue. Additional reporting by Jackie Botts in Mexico City, Daniel Becerril in Reynosa and Matamoros, and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco.

Persons: Wong, Luis Miranda, Joe Biden's, Biden, Bertha Bermúdez Tapia, Miranda, Olivia Lemus, Lemus, Juan Rodriguez, Laura Gottesdiener, Ted Hesson, Mica Rosenberg, Beth Solomon, Jackie Botts, Daniel Becerril, Kristina Cooke, Mary Milliken, Suzanne Goldenberg Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, U.S . Department of Homeland Security, U.S . State Department, New Mexico State University, Gulf Cartel, Northeast, U.S . Customs, Border Protection, CBP, DHS, Biden, The U.S . State Department, Carolina, Thomson Locations: U.S, Mexico, New Jersey, REYNOSA, Mexican, Reynosa, Venezuela, Carolina, Matamoros, Tamaulipas, United States, Washington, Nuevo Laredo, Central, Northern Mexico, Chicago, The, Honduran, Venezuelan, New York City, Mexico City, San Francisco

In the United States, some truck owners delight in modifying their rigs with oversized wheels, heavy-duty suspension kits and soot-spewing exhaust systems, turning them into the monster trucks that stalk organized events like demolition derbies and mud bogs. In Mexico, drug cartels are taking the monster truck concept to another terrifying level, retrofitting popular pickups with battering rams, four-inch-thick steel plates welded onto their chassis and turrets for firing machine guns. Some of Mexico’s most feared criminal groups, including the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, are using the vehicles in pitched gun battles with the police. Other organizations, like the Gulf Cartel and the Northeast Cartel, use the armored trucks to fight each other. Cartels emblazon the exteriors with their initials or the latest in camouflage patterns, at times making them hard to distinguish from official military vehicles.

Organizations: Jalisco New, Gulf Cartel, Northeast Cartel Locations: United States, Mexico, Jalisco, Mexican

☆ The killing of Americans in a Mexican border city highlights a sinister trend that US policies are making worse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Luis Chaparro | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Initial reports indicated that authorities suspected that the four kidnapped Americans had been confused for Haitian migrants, whose numbers in Matamoros have increased in recent weeks. It also revealed an overlooked trend: the extreme vulnerability of the thousands of migrants who have been stuck in Mexican border towns for the past three years. "We feel like we are being kidnapped inside this city," Fedler Dominic, an Haitian migrant in Matamoros, told Insider in a phone interview. In April 2022, three migrants, including a man from Peru, were kidnapped in Nuevo Laredo, another border city. "You can't basically move from the camp," Manuel Velázquez, a Cuban migrant in Matamoros, told Insider.

☆ Mexican Drug Gang Turns In Members It Blames for Americans’ Deaths
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Juan Montes | José De Córdoba | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

People attended a vigil in Scranton, S.C., on Wednesday to mourn the deaths of two of four Americans caught in a shootout in Matamoros, Mexico. MEXICO CITY—A faction of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel left five men tied up on a Matamoros street with a sign claiming they were responsible for kidnapping four Americans and killing two of them and a Mexican woman who was hit by a stray bullet, officials said Thursday. Tamaulipas state Attorney General Irving Barrios said the five men, who were left near the city’s principal plaza in the early morning hours, were in custody and being questioned.

☆ Gulf cartel apologizes after Americans are kidnapped and killed in Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Ken Dilanian | Minyvonne Burke | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The Gulf cartel apologized Thursday after two American citizens were killed during an armed abduction last week in Mexico. A senior law enforcement official told NBC News that U.S. authorities believe the letter is legitimate. Four Americans were shot at and kidnapped after driving into Matamoros, Mexico, just south of Brownsville, Texas, for a medical procedure. Video showed a gunman dragging people into a white pickup, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the matter previously said. A law enforcement official with knowledge of the matter said a woman in the group had been seeking a cosmetic medical procedure.

☆ Mexican cartel says sorry for attack on Americans, serves up five suspects
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Two of the Americans and a Mexican woman died after gunmen opened fire on the U.S. citizens shortly after their arrival in Matamoros on Friday. The four Americans were found on Monday on the edge of the city, by which time two of them were dead. The letter was left alongside five men with their hands tied in Matamoros, the photos showed. The Mexican source familiar with the investigation confirmed the handover, expressing skepticism the five were the ones responsible for the attack. The Mexican source said the evidence suggested that the two deceased Americans, identified as Shaeed Woodard and Zindell Brown, had probably died from injuries they suffered during the attack by the gunmen in Matamoros on Friday.

☆ Mexican cartel says sorry for attack on Americans, bodies return to US
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Daniel Becerril | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Two of the Americans and a Mexican woman died after gunmen opened fire on the U.S. citizens shortly after their arrival in Matamoros on Friday. The four Americans were found on Monday on the edge of the city, by which time two of them were dead. The Mexican source familiar with the investigation confirmed the handover, expressing skepticism the five were the ones responsible for the attack. The Mexican source said the evidence suggested Woodard and Brown had probably died from injuries they suffered during the attack by the gunmen in Matamoros on Friday. Reporting by Dave Graham and Daniel Becerril; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Stephen CoatesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Mexican officials, who say they are pursuing various lines of inquiry, drew up a brief document summarizing the abduction of the Americans and biographical information on them. A Reuters review of South Carolina state records found that Woodard was convicted five times between 2007 and 2016 of drug crimes. The records also showed that Williams was in 2017 convicted for the manufacture and distribution of cocaine, though this was not mentioned in the Mexican document seen by Reuters. Reuters could not ascertain how a drug gang might have known Americans with drug convictions were arriving in Matamoros. Mexican officials have not yet specified the cause of death of Brown and Woodard.

☆ Americans Kidnapped, Killed in Mexico Were Victims of Violent Border City
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Juan Montes | José De Córdoba | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

MEXICO CITY—The four Americans who came to the border city of Matamoros last week looking for medical treatment stumbled into a city under the control of powerful factions of the historic Gulf Cartel that extort businesses, traffic migrants and smuggle fentanyl and other drugs across the Rio Grande. Matamoros, a city of 500,000 on the border with Brownsville, Texas, is a key commercial hub in the state of Tamaulipas, and has in recent years drawn Americans in search of affordable medical treatment and low-cost surgeries. It is also the birthplace of the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest and most powerful criminal organizations, and home to a recent rise in armed violence between drug gangs, Mexican authorities and security analysts say.

☆ Americans Kidnapped, Killed in Mexico Stumbled Into Violent Border City
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Juan Montes | José De Córdoba | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Feds cite rarely used law to charge 12 with violent scheme to 'monopolize' business at U.S.-Mexico border
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julia-Ainsley-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Julia Ainsley | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

The Justice Department invoked a rarely used, 132-year-old law on Tuesday to charge 12 people with running a violent and sometimes deadly scheme to “monopolize” the resale of American cars and other goods in Central America by fixing prices and retaliating against those who refused to be extorted. The Justice Department charged the group under the Sherman Act of 1890, an antitrust regulation used to break up American monopolies Standard Oil in the 1920s and AT&T in the 1970s. Those who challenged the group were met with threats, kidnappings and even death, the indictment said. The defendants’ addresses in the indictment range from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to just across the border in Matamoros, Mexico. The indictment said the group met at the Holiday Inn in Harlingen, Texas, in March 2019 to divide $44,000 in cash.

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