5 missing band members found slain in Mexican border town; authorities blame Gulf cartel

MEXICO CITY — Among their last social media posts were photos of the five band members posing at the international bridge leading across the Rio Grande from their hometown, the Mexican border city of Reynosa.

“We’ll see you in a little while in McAllen, Texas,” read the caption, which went on to express the group’s hope to perform one day in the United States, following the path of many regional Mexican ensembles that have found binational success.

Those images on the bridge were among the last public sightings of the members of El Fugitivo, a group of local musicians, mostly in their 20s, who worked the border circuit, playing ranchera tunes and plaintive corridos, or ballads.

The five dropped out of sight Sunday evening in Reynosa.

Their disappearance in the dangerous border town in the state of Tamaulipas — a mostly cartel-controlled area infamous for massacres and kidnappings — alarmed relatives and friends, who staged demonstrations this week to demand their safe return. Demonstrators staged rallies on a pair of border bridges and at other sites in Reynosa.

But it was all for naught: On Thursday, Tamaulipas prosecutors confirmed that authorities had discovered the bodies of the five at an unspecified site in Reynosa.

Authorities have made nine arrests in the slayings, Irving Barrios Mojica, the attorney general of Tamaulipas state, told journalists at an afternoon news conference. He blamed the slayings on Gulf cartel, which reigns supreme in the area, but gave no motive for the homicides. Nor did the prosecutor say how the five were killed or specify where the bodies were found.

Authorities later learned that the five were kidnapped at 10 p.m. Sunday, apparently while en route to a private engagement in Reynosa. Forensic examination of the site is continuing, the district attorney said.

Tamaulipas — bordering Texas and the Gulf of Mexico — is widely considered among the most dangerous states in Mexico. It has long had one of the country’s highest rates of homicides and disappearances.

Tamaulipas is also the site of two of the most grisly massacres in recent Mexican history — the slayings of at least 265 U.S.-bound migrants in two separate mass killings more than a decade ago in the municipality of San Fernando. Authorities blamed the Zetas gang.

The U.S. State Department urges U.S. citizens to not travel to Tamaulipas, citing the threat of crime and kidnapping.
“Heavily armed members of criminal groups often patrol areas of the state and operate with impunity particularly along the border region from Reynosa to Nuevo Laredo,” reads the State Department warning. “In these areas, local law enforcement has limited capacity to respond to incidents of crime.”

Musicians have not been spared in the gang violence that batters much of Mexico.

In 2020, 10 musicians and crew members of a regional band known as Sensación Musical were ambushed and slain in the southwestern state of Guerrero while returning from a gig. Authorities called the bloody attack the result of a dispute between rival armed groups in rural Guerrero.

Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.