Mexican mayor Miguel Angel Almaraz freed hours after armed abduction

Miguel Angel Almaraz, the mayor of the Mexican border town of Rio Bravo, is alive. Federal officials said his captors set him free on Sunday, hours after armed men snatched him and drove him to the city of Zacatecas.

The abduction unfolded on Saturday in a stretch of territory that straddles Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi states. Almaraz was travelling with family and friends when armed men intercepted the car, according to Al Jazeera. They let everyone else go and took only the mayor. His relatives made it to a town in San Luis Potosi and raised the alarm with the state's Security Department.

Rio Bravo is home to roughly 110,000 people in Tamaulipas state, just 11km (7 miles) from the Texas border. Almaraz belongs to the conservative National Action Party and was once tied to the left-wing Party of the Democratic Revolution. In 2015 he was acquitted of money laundering charges after spending six years behind bars.

Nobody has said why he was taken. Authorities say they are investigating the case, including who might be behind it.

Zacatecas has a reputation for cartel bloodshed, with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel both active there and both accused of attacking civilians and politicians. In August, a car bomb blew up outside a municipal police headquarters in Ojo Caliente, injuring 11 people and damaging about 30 homes; officials floated retaliation by an organised crime group after a recent arrest as a possible motive. In June 2021, police found the bullet-ridden bodies of 18 men following an apparent gun battle between suspected drug cartels in the state.