Viral Video Shows 4 Kidnapped Americans Forced Into Back Of A Truck In Mexico

Four U.S. citizens were seen in a new video getting kidnapped and forced into the back of a pickup truck after being shot at in Mexico.

On Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City said that the victims had crossed the border into Matamoros in Tamaulipas in a white minivan on Friday. It had North Carolina license plates. Soon after, they came under fire, reported New York Post.

The shocking video that emerged Monday showed the Americans' kidnapping. It featured men wearing bulletproof vests and dragging a person across the ground. They were also seen roughly pushing a woman into the flatbed of the truck.

The suspects also grabbed two men who seemed to be wounded or dead. Their bodies were tossed into the same flatbed of the truck.

It was not immediately known where the four victims, whose names are yet to be revealed, were taken, or in what condition.

The Americans were attacked by mistake and were not the intended targets, a U.S. official told CNN.

The official shared that investigators believe that a Mexican cartel likely mistook them for Haitian drug smugglers.

Citing receipts found in the vehicle, the U.S. citizens had traveled to Matamoros for medical procedures, the official said.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also said that he was informed that the captives crossed the border to buy medicines in Mexico, "there was a confrontation between groups and they were detained."

The kidnapping was confirmed Friday by the FBI San Antonio Division office.

The federal agency is offering a reward of $50,000 for the return of the Americans and the arrest of the suspects.

People in Matamoros are used to witnessing factions of the Gulf drug cartel fighting. The Americans' kidnapping in the city came after gun battles Friday.

An unspecified number of people had been injured and killed Friday, according to Tamaulipas state police.

U.S. citizens have been urged not to travel to the area, as per the State Department's travel warning for Tamaulipas. But it is a border city, and Americans who live in Brownsville, Texas, and other nearby cities often drive across to visit family, shop or for medical purposes.