4 kidnapped Americans crossed into Mexico for health care – The Denver Post

By ALFREDO PEÑA and JAMES POLLARD (Associated Press)

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Four Americans who traveled to Mexico last week to seek health care got caught in a deadly drug-related shootout and were kidnapped by heavily armed men who threw them in the back of a pickup truck, officials from both countries said Monday.

The four were traveling Friday in a white minivan with North Carolina license plates. They came under fire shortly after entering the city of Matamoros from Brownsville, at the southernmost tip of Texas near the Gulf coast, the FBI said in a statement Sunday.

“All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,” the FBI said. The bureau is offering a $50,000 reward for the victims’ return and the arrest of the…