EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Four members of a motorcycle club abducted by drug cartel operatives during a ride in the mountains of western Chihuahua have been freed, Attorney General Cesar Jauregui said on Thursday.
The victims include residents of the binational community of LeBaron, Chihuahua, which was rocked by the murders of three women and six children – all of them American citizens – during a drug cartel attack in November 2019.
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The bikers started their ride in Nuevo Casas Grandes and were passing through the community of Maderal del Largo in western Chihuahua on Monday when one of the motorcycles broke down. According to Jauregui, it was then that members of an organized criminal group operating in the area took them prisoner.
“They were taken to some cabanas and questioned by this group. After (the interrogation), two of them were freed, but they would not release the other two,” Jauregui said in a news conference on Facebook Live. “With the substantial presence of state police, the army, the National Guard in the area – searching and making their presence known – I think we were able to dissuade this criminal group, to have them understand it would be better for them to free these people.”