Five ride-share drivers missing after trip to border ... Borderreport
Molly Molloy
Five ride-share drivers missing after trip to border
Families urge police to step-up search in town where rival cartels are fighting for control of migrant smuggling
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Relatives of five ride-share drivers are demanding answers five days after the disappearance of their loved ones in the border town of Ojinaga, Mexico.
The five rode out of Chihuahua City early last Thursday in different vehicles and their relatives lost contact with them.
The Chihuahua Attorney General’s office identified them as Abigael Ramos Gonzalez, Abigael Ramos Torres, Fabian Ramos Torres, Sandra Salais Calzadillas, and Francisco Ivan Flores Hernandez. The AG’s office said the cars left the state capital at 11 a.m. Some called, texted or used telephone apps at 4 p.m. to tell relatives they were on their way out of Ojinaga but never made it back to Chihuahua City.
The relatives say they located four of the five cars-for-hire in a vacant lot in Ojinaga, which is about a three-hour drive (172 miles) northeast of the state capital. The fifth, still missing vehicle’s last GPS location was near a ranch called Alamo El Chapo.
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On Monday, the families staged a protest in a park across from the Government Palace in Chihuahua City, alleging they’re the ones doing the investigation because authorities have been slow to respond.
“We went to the prosecutors on Saturday to see if they had information, but they said they don’t work weekends and the elections (on Sunday) got in the way,” Pablo Martinez, son of Sandra Salais, said during the protest broadcast on social media. “We are here to request they speed up the search, that they take notice of what we learned and that they check the GPS of the cars and the Sentinel (security cameras) platform.”
The attorney general’s office said it has assigned state police officers as well as specialists from the Missing Person’s Unit to investigate the case.
A tow truck retrieves cars belonging to missing ride-share drivers in Ojinaga, Mexico. (Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office)
Speaking to Mexican news media, Deputy Attorney General Heliodoro Araiza on Monday said the four vehicles have been sent to an impound lot and “all pertinent investigations” are being conducted. He told El Sol de Ojinaga newspaper that authorities aren’t ruling out the drivers were transporting migrants to the border.
Ojinaga sits across the Rio Grande from Presidio, Texas. The town caught the eye of international news media in October 2021 when 13 Mexican migrants were kidnapped and killed as part of rival drug cartels’ fight for control of migrant-smuggling in the Chihuahua City-Ojinaga corridor. Ten of the bodies were recovered two years later from a clandestine grave in the nearby town of Coyame.
In a Facebook group made up of Mexican Uber and DiDi platform entrepreneurs, members posted numerous messages of solidarity with the families of the missing. One, however, posted a warning: “It’s the consequences of carrying undocumented (people). It’s a federal crime and with the mafia it’s a beating – minimum.”
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