The head of the Tamaulipas State Attorney General’s Office (FGJET), Irvin Barrios Mojica, stated that, regarding the events that occurred last Friday, March 3, in the border city of Matamoros, the commitment is to locate the missing US citizens and find those responsible for the facts.
For his search, he revealed that an investigation and intelligence group made up of various federal and state institutions was established.
In a joint press conference, with Sergio Chávez, head of the Secretary of Public Security, the attorney general confirmed that in the events a citizen of Mexican nationality lost her life and people of North American origin were deprived of their liberty“and for which the United States embassy in Mexico issued a search bulletin for their location.”
Among the actions that have been implemented, Barrios Mojica assured that, from the outset, communication was established between the various state and federal instances to deal with the criminal event, in which two impacted vehicles were located, one of them with state license plates. American from North Carolina.
“The State Attorney General’s Office opened an investigation folder, in which various procedures were carried out, such as the processing of the vehicles, reconstructive ballistics tests, comparative ballistics for the casings percutidos found at the site to identify the weapons used; lifting of evidence of fingerprints which are entered into the database to achieve their identification; taking biological samples for the extraction of genetic profiles; as well as the review and analysis of the images from video surveillance cameras in the area”.
Given the presumption of being American citizens, he added, contact was established with United States authorities for the exchange of information in the field of the various attributions and faculties, which has been permanent and tending to search to locate them.
“These communications are also carried out at the highest level between the State Government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States Embassy in Mexico,” he said.
The Attorney General affirmed that the Mexican Army, the Mexican Navy, the Secretariat of Public Security and Citizen Protection, the National Search Commission, National Guard, State Guard, the Tamaulipas Persons Search Commission and the Attorney General of Justice of the State of Tamaulipas undertook search actions that are taking place at this time and will continue for the next few days.
And he added: “In the same way, a investigation and intelligence group made up of various federal and state institutions. Maintaining communication at all times with the instances of the United States, for the processing of all the information related to the case, which in the same way allows the location of the North American citizens and the likely perpetrators.”
Although only two questions were allowed at the press conference, and at the insistence of the reporters, neither the Prosecutor nor the Secretary of Security, did not answer the question if the disappeared are the ones who appear in a video, dragged towards a van. But various police sources agreed later that it was indeed the same missing persons.
