According to GlobalPost, police raided six different locations around the Mexican city of Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas. Among those rescued were eight minors, including a 2-year-old girl.
Police arrested four suspects, aged 18 to 36, on suspicion of human trafficking, kidnapping, and other offences. The bust comes about one month after police rescued 73 migrants being held in a single house also in Reynosa.
Some of the migrants reported suffering for a week "in inhumane conditions."
GlobalPost reports that "Hundreds of thousands of Central Americans undertake the hazardous journey across Mexico each year on their way to the United States." According to InSight Crime, criminal gangs often take advantage of migrant workers, who are the targets of extortion, kidnapping, forced labor, sex trafficking, and murder. Since rights groups began monitoring kidnappings in 2008, the practice has become more widespread as it is highly profitable for organized crime, InSight reports.
The spokesman said that the migrants had been "abducted in different actions and places along the border strip when they tried to cross the border with the United States."
Reynosa is the fastest growing city in Tamaulipas which borders the American state of Texas. In 2010 police found a mass grave of more than 200 bodies believed to be migrants in the state, attributed to the Zetas, a growing Mexican cartel known for violence.
