Migrants Captured by Gang on Border Trying to Cross Into US

According to SkyNews, the Mexican army has freed 165 migrants – including two pregnant women and 20 children – who were kidnapped and held for several weeks by a criminal gang.
The migrants, mostly from Central America, were trying to cross into the US from Tamaulipas state when they were captured for a ransom.
After an anonymous tip-off, the army found them being held at gunpoint in "precarious, unhealthy and overcrowded conditions" in a town on the border.

The migrants were rescued from the house in Gustavo Diaz Ordaz

"They were held against their will while the criminal group contacted their relatives by telephone demanding ransom be paid to the captors," Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said.
He said: "Everything seems to indicate that the migrants were taken by smugglers commonly known as 'coyotes,' and these offenders handed them over to criminal groups."
A man guarding the migrants was arrested during the raid and others were being sought.
Among those freed were 77 Salvadorans, 50 Guatemalans, 23 Hondurans and an Indian national, Sanchez said. Another 14 were Mexicans.

About 20,000 migrants are kidnapped every year in Mexico

The Zetas cartel is behind most abduction of migrants along the US-Mexico border. In 2010, the cartel was blamed for killing 72 migrants in northern Mexico in 2010.
Following the nationwide military crackdown on organised crime undertaken in December 2006, drug cartels have diversified their income sources by committing kidnapping, extortion, robbery and other crimes.
The National Human Rights Commission estimated in 2011 that about 20,000 migrants are kidnapped every year in Mexico, where they are held for ransoms of more than $2,000 (£1282) paid by family members in the US.