Mexico City, Jan 5 (EFE).- The governor of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, Américo Villarreal, on Friday denied press reports that police officers from his state were involved in the kidnapping of 32 migrants on Dec. 30.
«In no circumstance of this investigative process and the follow-up of the case, which, as we had said, there were videos from the C5 (Security Center), and the specific follow-up of this moment, there is a possibility of the presence of this circumstance that is raised and which are suppositions,» he stated.
Moreover, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused his political opponents of taking the opportunity to politically exploit the case of the 32 migrants kidnapped last weekend and released on Wednesday in Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas, where so far no one has been detained for the crime.
«Regardless of the fact that these are humanitarian issues, very delicate and serious because human lives are at stake, there is still politicking in the attitude of our adversaries,» he said during his morning conference.
On Dec. 30 armed men traveling in five vans intercepted a 37-passenger bus in the municipality of Río Bravo traveling to Matamoros, on the border with Brownsville, Texas, according to the Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Rosa Icela Rodríguez.
«The criminals forced the migrants to leave the unit and took 32 of them in the vans, leaving five passengers,» she said.
Six of the migrants take were from Honduras and 26 from Venezuela, including three with dual Colombian nationality.
The criminals then took the migrants to a farm, where they stripped them of their belongings and called their families in the United States to demand money, Rodríguez said.
The Mexican government sparked controversy on Thursday when López Obrador acknowledged that the migrants had been released by criminals, contradicting presidential spokesman Jesús Ramírez and Interior Secretary Luisa María Alcalde, who the day before had said they had been «rescued.»
«We know from the victims’ own testimony that they were released after federal forces were deployed in the area,» the security secretary later argued.
The kidnapping, which the secretary called «atypical,» occurs against the backdrop of historic numbers of people trying to enter the United States in 2023, with US Customs and Border Protection announcing last month the arrival of more than 2.2 million migrants between January and November.
«In fact, migrants are at risk when they travel without documents, which is why there is an entire government strategy to provide them with assistance. From the beginning of the current administration until today, the crime of kidnapping has decreased by 77.6%,» said Rodríguez.
Although there are still no detainees, the secretary said «there are already very clear lines of investigation to achieve the arrest of those responsible». EFE
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