The Mexican military rescued 20 kidnapped men from a house in the northern city of Monterrey, a military spokesman said on Sunday.
“The release of these 20 people was the work of intelligence services from the secretary of defense and a response to the high rate of kidnappings that exists in the city of Monterrey,” military spokesman Antonio Vargas said.
The rescue came after the military raided the house where the hostages were being held early on Sunday morning.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The victims were in a 9m2 area and their hands and feet were bound. They said they were recently kidnapped in different parts of Monterrey, the third-largest city in Mexico.
The kidnappers demanded a ransom for each hostage of between 20,000 and 50,000 pesos (between US$1,789 and US$4,300).
Kidnapping in the industrial-hub city has become “an illicit organized crime that gangs commit in order to cover their expenses, and we are fighting it head-on,” Vargas said.
The operation involved house-to-house checks carried out by military in the area.
According to the government, the states of Nuevo Leon, whose capital is Monterrey, and Tamaulipas, are the scenes of a deadly war between the Gulf Cartel and its former allies Los Zetas, who control the drug trafficking routes into the US and criminal activities in local markets.
Meanwhile, 10 decapitated bodies were found in the northern Mexican city of Torreon in the country’s latest grisly mass murder as drug gangs war over smuggling routes, Mexican newspapers reported on Sunday.
The bodies were dumped in the back of a truck with their heads scattered across the city, Reforma newspaper reported.
Authorities said the killers left a message directed at another gang, the paper said.
In related developments, recently arrested leader of Los Zetas says the group gets their drugs in Guatemala and their weapons are smuggled from the US across the Rio Grande.
Rejon Jesus Enrique Aguilar, also known as “El Mamito,” is a leader and founder of Los Zetas, which was founded by military deserters.
Aguilar was arrested on July 3 in a district near the Mexican capital.
In a video copy of his statement that was delivered to the media this week by Mexico’s secretary of homeland security, Aguilar said his group obtains their drugs in Guatemala.
“We buy in Guatemala,” he answers to a question about where they get the cocaine that they traffic. “It is not reliable [buying from] the Colombians.”
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