Gang intercepts Mexican gov’t vehicle carrying illegal migrants

Carolyn Hileman - The Voice* | June 13, 2008

Released : Friday, June 13, 2008 12:02 PM

Mexico City, Jun 13 (EFE).- A group of armed men hijacked a bus belonging to Mexico’s INM immigration agency that was transporting 37 undocumented immigrants, an official told Efe.

The vehicle was carrying 33 Cubans and four Hondurans from the Caribbean resort city of Cancun to an INM post in Tapachula, which lies on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala.

The vehicle was intercepted in the state of Chiapas by armed assailants who left the INM personnel tied-up on the side of the road and made off with the 33 Cubans and four Hondurans to an unknown destination.

The empty bus was found Thursday by Chiapas police in the town of Sonorita.

The 33 Cubans were detained on June 6 by the Mexican navy when they were traveling in a luxury boat off the coast of Isla Mujeres, an island near the resort city of Cancun.

The Cubans said they had departed on June 3 from Havana in a makeshift vessel, but had run out of fuel. They added that after being adrift at sea they were rescued by the crew members of a luxury vessel, a version that raised suspicion among Mexican authorities.

Groups of immigrant traffickers who transport Cubans to Mexico or directly to the United States are active in the Mexican Caribbean region; between January and May, INM officials in the surrounding state of Quintana Roo detained 334 foreigners, the majority of them Cubans.

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