Kidnapped Americans were in Mexico for tummy tuck

Four Americans kidnapped by heavy equipped men successful Matamoros, Mexico, had travelled determination for cosmetic surgery, relatives told US media.

One of them was to person a tummy tuck - removing abdominal abdominous - successful a borderline town, said the sister of 1 of them.

"To spot a subordinate of your household thrown successful the backmost of a motortruck and dragged, it is conscionable unbelievable," Zalandria Brown, told AP astir her member Zindell.

A Mexican pistillate was killed successful the incident.

The FBI has offered a $50,000 (£42,000) reward for the instrumentality of the Americans.

The different radical successful the radical person been identified successful US media arsenic Latavia McGee - a parent of six, according to CNN - Shaeed Woodard and Eric James Williams.

They were driving done Matamoros - a metropolis of 500,000 located straight crossed the borderline from the Texas municipality of Brownsville - successful a achromatic minivan with North Carolina licence plates erstwhile unidentified gunmen opened fire, the FBI said.

Video shows them being enactment successful a pickup motortruck by heavy equipped men. One is manhandled onto the conveyance portion others look to beryllium unconscious and are dragged to the truck.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador described the incidental arsenic a "confrontation betwixt equipped groups". He said his "entire government" was moving to unafraid the Americans' release.

According to an unnamed US authoritative quoted by CNN, investigators judge a Mexican cartel astir apt mistook the Americans for Haitian cause smugglers.

Barbara Burgess, Ms McGee's mother, told ABC quality that she had warned her girl not to spell but her girl told her: "Ma, I'll beryllium OK."

On Friday her girl called her to accidental she was astir to spell to the assignment for the tummy tuck operation, besides known arsenic an abdominoplasty.

When Barbara Burgess called her backmost aboriginal that day, the telephone went to voicemail.

Ms Brown said her brother, who lives successful Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, had been alert that parts of Mexico could beryllium dangerous.

"Zindell kept saying, 'We shouldn't spell down'," she told AP, adding that it was "like a atrocious imagination you privation you could aftermath up from".

Matamoros is successful Tamaulipas state, 1 of six Mexican states that the US State Department advises travellers not to sojourn due to the fact that of "crime and kidnapping".

Drug cartels power overmuch of the territory and often clasp much powerfulness than section instrumentality enforcement.

The US authorities says hundreds of thousands of Americans transverse the borderline into Mexico each twelvemonth to person healthcare services successful hunt of cheaper treatments.

Mexico is 1 of the apical aesculapian tourism destinations astir the world, portion cosmetic country is 1 of the apical procedures patients question abroad, according to Patients Beyond Borders, a aesculapian tourism guidebook.