The US State Department has issued a travel advisory for the state of Tamaulipas in Mexico following an outbreak of violence near the US consulate in Nuevo Laredo.
The consulate was forced to close for a short time on Monday after a gunfight broke out over the arrest of alleged Cartel Del Noreste drug cartel leader Juan Gerardo Trevino.
Mr Trevino, also known as “El Huevo”, is facing extradition to the US, according to Reuters. He is charged with drug trafficking, money laundering, and state-level charges for murder, terrorism, extortion and criminal association.
According to Ricardo Meija, Mexico’s assistant secretary of public safety, Mr Trevino is a US citizen, and was deported from Mexico on Tuesday. He was handed over to US authorities at a border bridge in Tijuana.
Mr Trevino is reportedly the nephew of Miguel Angel Trevino, the now-imprisoned former leader of Los Zetas drug cartel. Cartel Del Noreste is believed to be the successor cartel to Los Zetas.
On Monday the consulate advised its employees to stay inside and urged Americans to leave or avoid the region.
“The Department of State authorized the departure of non-emergency US government personnel and eligible family members from the U.S. Consulate General in Nuevo Laredo due to security conditions,” the US State Department said in a statement.
“As of March 15, the Department of State is not able to offer routine consular services from the US Consulate General in Nuevo Laredo,” the department statement continued. “US citizens wishing to depart Nuevo Laredo should monitor local news and announcements and only do so when considered safe during daylight hours.”
According to a senior official in Tamaulipas, there was one “collateral” fatality caused by the shootout.
The violence was reportedly a battle between competing cartel factions.
US Representative Henry Cuellar, whose hometown is Laredo, Texas, which sits across the border from Nuevo Laredo, told Border Report that the violence was triggered because “one group is not happy because they got their leader and the other two groups are saying ‘Is there a vacuum here because we might need to come in?’”
“I have raised our grave concerns about these incidents and the safety and security of our employees directly with the government of Mexico,” US Ambassador Ken Salazar said in a statement on Monday.
Tamaulipas’ state forensic service reported that over the course of several years it located more than a dozen “extermination sites” where the remains of nearly 100,000 missing Mexicans had been disposed and destroyed.
