2023 Matamoros kidnappings

On 3 March 2023, four U.S. citizens from South Carolina — Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown, Eric Williams, and Latavia "Tay" McGee — traveled across the border into Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, so that McGee could undergo a cosmetic surgical procedure. Shortly after crossing, their minivan was intercepted in central Matamoros by armed gunmen, who forced the four into the bed of a pickup truck. During the abduction, a Mexican bystander, Arely Pablo Servando, was killed by a stray bullet. A U.S. official later said the group was likely mistaken by cartel members for Haitian drug smugglers.

According to Tamaulipas Governor Américo Villarreal, the kidnappers moved the victims between locations, including a medical clinic, apparently to create confusion and hinder rescue efforts. On 7 March 2023, security forces located the four Americans in El Tecolote, an ejido about 10 km (6.2 mi) southeast of the abduction site. Woodard and Brown were found dead. Williams had sustained three gunshot wounds to the leg, and McGee was found uninjured; both survivors were taken to the border and hospitalized in Texas. A 24-year-old man from Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas, who was allegedly found guarding the victims, was taken into custody and charged with aggravated kidnapping.

In the early morning of 9 March 2023, five men with their hands bound were found abandoned at the original abduction site in downtown Matamoros, along with a message purportedly from the Grupo Escorpión faction of the Gulf Cartel. The message identified the five men as the perpetrators and offered an apology to the victims' families and to the people of Matamoros. These five men were subsequently charged by the state prosecution service with aggravated kidnapping and homicide.

The case drew significant political attention in the United States. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina called for drug cartels to be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and urged pressure on the Mexican government, including potential U.S. military intervention. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador rejected any suggestion of foreign interference, calling it "an offense to the people of Mexico," and threatened a campaign urging Mexican and Latino voters in the U.S. not to support Republican officials who threatened intervention. Some opposition politicians and human rights activists in Mexico noted the speed of the investigation compared to the many unresolved cases among the country's thousands of forced-disappearance victims.

Tamaulipas was already on the U.S. State Department's "Do Not Travel" advisory list prior to the incident. Following the kidnappings and the separate disappearance of three women from Texas in the same region in late February 2023, the Texas Department of Public Safety advised residents to avoid travel anywhere in Mexico during the spring break period due to ongoing cartel violence.