By Luis Chaparro, Business Insider
The March 3 abduction of four Americans in the Mexican city of Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, Texas, was not the first such crime by Grupo Escorpiones, an armed branch of the Gulf Cartel.
Weeks earlier, the group kidnapped and held for ransom a family of five that it learned had tried to cross the Rio Grande without paying the “cuota,” an extortion fee the cartel demands from anyone looking to enter the US.