Mexican authorities have reported the kidnapping of the mayor of Río Bravo, in the state of Tamaulipas, Miguel Ángel Almaraz Maldonado, who was captured during the night from Saturday to Sunday in the state of Zacatecas, as detailed by the Secretaría de Seguridad of San Luis Potosí.
"According to the first data collected, the events related to the alleged unlawful deprivation of liberty of the municipal president of Río Bravo, Tamaulipas, Miguel Ángel Almaraz Maldonado, occurred on the San Tiburcio-Vanegas highway, in territory of the state of Zacatecas", the Secretaría has indicated in a statement.
In the official note, the account of one of the affected people is included, who stated that they were abandoned in the middle of the highway and that, after that, they asked for help and managed to reach the municipality of Cedral, in San Luis Potosí, where they requested assistance from security forces.
"After receiving the report of what happened in the neighboring state of Zacatecas, the Guardia Civil Estatal activated an operation in the border area, in addition to establishing coordination with the authorities of that entity and the corresponding offices to contribute to the location of the people", he explained.
Almaraz has expressed his intention to compete in the primaries of the Partido de Acción Nacional (PAN), of a conservative bent, to be a candidate for governor of Tamaulipas in the elections scheduled for 2028.
The councilman was already arrested in 2009, when he was a member of the PRD (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, of the left), accused of being part of a network dedicated to the theft of hydrocarbons in the Cuenca de Burgos, fuel that was allegedly sold in refineries in the United States.
He was also charged with organized crime and money laundering. He remained six years confined in the prison of El Rincón, in the state of Nayarit, until his release in January 2015.
In 2021 he ran as a candidate for mayor of Río Bravo, but was defeated by the aspirant from the Morena-PT coalition (Partido del Trabajo), Héctor Joel Villegas González. Finally, in 2024 he managed to win the municipal presidency under the PAN acronym.