Cancun – Mexican Federal Police rescued 31 Cuban immigrants from captivity in the Mexican resort city of Cancun, in the southern state of Quintana Roo.
The migrants said masked gunmen held them in a house near the Caribbean coast and demanded $217,000 to set them free. Police received multiple reports on the situation before moving into free 22 Cuban men and nine Cuban women, according to Mexico’s National Public Safety Board.
The police were there on Thursday night with a bus to rescue the 31 Cubans and move them to the Federal Police Bureau. Then they were transferred to the office of the General Prosecutor of the Republic to take their statement about what happened.
Authorities didn’t say if the kidnappers were arrested during this police operation at Quintana Roo. The Cuban migrants stated that they crossed from Cuba to Mexico on rafts and they wanted to continue the trip to The United States of America, according to Sipse.
Also, they said they were captured for around two months in that house. According to some neighbors, people often go in and out, but they never speak with anybody in the neighborhood.
In the following hours, the 31 Cuban migrants were made available to the National Migration Institute to determine their legal stay in the country. Authorities said they don’t have legal permission to remain in the Mexican territory, so they will be sent back to Cuba in the next hours.
Not the first case
This is not the first time that Cuban migrants were rescued in Cancun. On 2016, Mexican authorities discovered a Cuban traffic network operating in Cancun for more than three years using modified motor boats.
This organization used to agree on the illegal cross of Cubans, being responsible for the traffic of three professional baseball players that are currently training in the United States of America.
Hundreds of Cubans who were in the process of trying to arrive at the United States were stranded in Mexico and Central America after the United States repealed in January the so-called “wet foot, dry foot” policy that granted residency to almost every Cuban who has touched U.S. soil
Cancun is one of the principal destinations for Cubans who escape from the island by rafts because of the distance between both countries, which is only of 300 miles. And now, after the elimination of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, some Cuban migrants are trying to arrive at Mexico and then at The United States to cross the borderline, where Donald Trump plans to build a wall to control and eliminate the risks of the illegal migration of Mexican and other Latin Americans.
Source: Reuters