Former FBI Official Warns Against Mexico Travel

Soldiers stand guard outside the Forensic Medical Service morgue building ahead of the transfer of the bodies of two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen to the U.S. border, in Matamoros, Mexico, on March 9, 2023. Daniel Becerril/Reuters

A former senior FBI official has warned American youth not to visit Mexico, due to the dangerous routes before reaching their destination, after gang violence claimed the lives of two U.S. citizens this week.

Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Fuentes said that the problem is that Americans have to travel through Mexico’s dangerous zones to reach their vacations destination, and this should be avoided.

“No, absolutely not,” he told FOX News.

“The problem with these self-contained resorts—and they have all kids of security and protection and everything—[is] you have to get to the resort. So the danger is getting off the plane or bus or train and getting from the transportation hub to the actual resort which there you have protection.”

“En route, you’re in danger, just like these Americans that were killed in Matamoros—because once they crossed the border, they were on their own,” Fuentes said.

“They might have gone on their way to a medical facility that had security guards or any of that—we don’t know for sure. But they certainly ... once they crossed the border, they were on their own.”

Tamaulipas attorney general's office personnel walk at the scene where authorities found the bodies of two of four Americans kidnapped by gunmen, in Matamoros, Mexico, on March 7, 2023. Daniel Becerril/Reuters

Regarding the Biden administration’s handling of cartel smuggling or violence, Fuentes said they have no concise strategy,

“Or if they have [a strategy], they’ve failed to articulate it in any kind of sensible manner,” he said.

“If they’re going to have a strategy, it’s going to have to start with closing the border. That’s number one. And until they do that, they’re not serious about any of this.”

Friday’s Shooting

Mexico’s president said on Tuesday that two of the four U.S. citizens who were assaulted and kidnapped in Mexico had been found dead, while the other two were still alive.

The FBI said the Americans’ vehicle came under fire soon after it entered Matamoros, located just across the U.S.–Mexico border from Brownsville, Texas, in Tamaulipas.

“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI San Antonio office said in a March 5 statement.

Tamaulipas’ Attorney General Irving Barrios said on Twitter that the two surviving Americans had been handed over to U.S. officials at the border with Texas and they have returned to the United States.

All four American citizens who were assaulted and kidnapped by gunmen in Mexico on Friday have been identified by family members.

The four Americans entered Mexico on March 3 in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates.

Tamaulipas is one of six states in Mexico that the State Department advises Americans not to travel to due to the threat of organized crime activity, including kidnapping for ransom.

Five people have been detained in relation with the crime, Tamaulipas’s attorney general said on Friday.

Proposal for American Military Intervention With Cartels

An illegal immigrant wears two wristbands that Mexican cartels have been using to control human smuggling into the United States, near Penitas, Texas, on March 15. 2021. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday rebuked calls from some U.S. lawmakers advocating military action in Mexico against drug cartels, describing the proposals as threats to Mexican sovereignty.

“We are not going to permit any foreign government to intervene in our territory, much less that a foreign government’s armed forces intervene,” Lopez Obrador said during a regular news conference.

“This is an independent, sovereign country, it (independence) costed a lot.”

Texas Republican Dan Crenshaw on March 8 released a message in Spanish on Twitter asking Lopez Obrador why he opposes the proposal that U.S. congressman introduced in January authorizing military force targeting drug cartels in Mexico. He criticized Lopez for putting drug cartels before his own people.

The fatal kidnappings and backlash could complicate delicate efforts to foster closer collaboration between the United States and Mexico on immigration and the trafficking of drugs, particularly the ultra-lethal substance fentanyl.

LA County Sheriff’s Detectives and Drug Enforcement Agency agents assigned to a task force at the Los Angeles International Airport seized approximately 12,000 suspected fentanyl pills on on Oct. 19, 2022. Courtesy of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department

Lopez Obrador said he would begin a public information campaign aimed at Mexicans and other Hispanics living in the United States about the Republican-led proposal. “We are going to issue a call not to vote for that party, because they are inhuman and interventionist,” he said.

Reuters and Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.