Bodies of missing Mexican musicians found near Texas border

CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico (AP) — Five bodies that appeared to be members of a Mexican regional music group who had gone missing were found in the northern city of Reynosa, along the Texas border, authorities said on Thursday.

The musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo, which played at parties and local dances in the region, had been reported missing since Sunday.

The genre they played – Mexican regional music, which encapsulates a wide range of styles including corridos and cumbia – has in recent years gained a spotlight as it’s entered a sort of international musical renaissance. Young artists have mixed the classic genre with trap and sometimes pay homage to leaders of drug cartels, often portrayed as Robin Hood-type figures.

While it was not immediately clear if the group played such songs, other artists have faced death threats by cartels, while others have had their visas stripped by the United States under accusations by the Trump administration that they were glorifying criminal violence.

Few details were released about where the bodies were found and in what conditions, but Tamaulipas state prosecutors had been investigating the case, according to a statement by state security officials. The last time they had communicated with their families was Sunday night, when they said they were going to a venue where they were hired to play.

After that, nothing else was heard of them. Officials said the bodies shared characteristics of artists, though did not provide further detail.

Their disappearance caused an uproar in Tamaulipas, a state long eclipsed by cartel warfare. Their families reported the disappearances, called on the public for support and people took to the streets in protest.

On Wednesday, protesters blocked the international bridge connecting Reynosa and Pharr, Texas, later going to a local cathedral to pray and make offerings to the disappeared.

As of midday Thursday, the state prosecutor’s office had not released further details on the case.

Reynosa is a Mexican border city adjacent to the United States and has been plagued by escalating violence since 2017 due to internal disputes among groups vying for control of drug trafficking, human smuggling and fuel theft.

This case follows another that occurred in 2018, when armed men kidnapped two members of the musical group “Los Norteños de Río Bravo,” whose bodies were later found on the federal highway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.