Hunt for cartel boss who abducted four Americans and killed two trends now
The Mexican government has launched a manhunt for a high-ranking cartel leader thought to be behind the kidnapping of four Americans, including two who were murdered.
José 'La Kena' García is identified as the leader of a Gulf Cartel cell known as the Cyclones' that since 2015 has been operating in Matamoros, a border city in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
Sources with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told Mexican news outlet Milenio that state and federal authorities are investigating whether García was involved in the kidnapping of the four South Carolina residents last Friday.
Latavia 'Tay' McGee, a mother-of-five, was joined by her cousin Shaheed Woodward and her friends Zindell Brown and Eric James on a drive to Matamoros for her 'tummy tuck' surgery when their minivan was attacked by alleged members of the Gulf Cartel.
Video footage showed cartel henchmen escorting McGee into a pickup truck while the three other men were dumped into the vehicle's flatbed.
Mexican state and federal authorities are looking into whether José 'La Kena' García, leader of the Gulf Cartel faction 'The Cyclones', was involved in the kidnapping of the four South Carolina residents in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, last Friday
South Carolina resident Latavia 'Tay'McGee is escorted by cartel fighters to a pickup truck moments after her minivan was intercepted on a Matamoros, Mexico, street last Friday
On Tuesday morning, security forces located McGee and James, who was shot in the left leg, in a stash house about six and half miles away in the rural town of El Tecolote.
The bodies of Woodward and Brown were found dead in the home, where an alleged cartel member identified as José, whose responsibility was to look after the Americans, was arrested.
McGee and James were turned over to U.S. authorities while the remains of Woodward and Brown were transferred to a local morgue for autopsies.
