3 women missing for 2 weeks after traveling from Texas to Mexico
Three women have been missing for two weeks after traveling from Texas to Mexico for a shopping trip, authorities said.
The women -- Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, Marina Perez Rios, 48, and Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47 -- have been missing since Feb. 25, according to missing person posters posted by the Local Commission for the Search of Persons in the Mexican state of Nuevo León.
Two of the women are from Peñitas, a Texas town on the U.S.-Mexico border, Peñitas Police Chief Roel Bermea told ABC Rio Grande Valley affiliate KRGV. The three left on Feb. 24 to go to a flea market in Montemorelos, a city in Nuevo León, he told the station.
Saenz is a friend of the Rioses, who are sisters, The Associated Press reported.
Peñitas police started looking into their disappearance after the husband of one of the missing women contacted the department, Bermea said. Though after several days with no contact, his investigator contacted the FBI "to see what they could do," the chief said.
"We did contact the FBI to let them know the ladies were considered missing," Bermea told KRGV, adding that there's "not much we can do ourselves" in a missing persons case in another country.
The FBI confirmed in a statement to KRGV that it is aware of the matter but that "no information is being provided at this time."
According to the Attorney General's Office of Nuevo León, which is leading the investigation, U.S. authorities have not intervened in the search because the women are not American citizens, but Mexican nationals living in the U.S.
Drones, all-terrain vehicles and canines have been deployed in the search, according to the Attorney General's Office of Nuevo León, which said in a statement Tuesday that search operations are being carried out daily. Investigators were looking to coordinate with authorities in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas to strengthen the search there, as the women's families believe "that the event occurred there," the office said.
News of their disappearance comes after four Americans were kidnapped shortly after crossing the border into Matamoros, Mexico, which is in Tamaulipas just south of Brownsville, Texas, on March 3. Two of the Americans, including one who was traveling to the region for a cosmetic procedure, were rescued on March 7, though two were found dead. Five alleged Gulf Cartel members have since been charged with aggravated kidnapping and murder.
Bermea told KRGV this is the first time they are investigating a disappearance in another country.
"We're just concerned," he told the station. "We really haven't had any other incidents that I can recall of something like this happening in another country."
The women were traveling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado, authorities said. Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI or the Peñitas Police Department at 956-581-3345.
ABC News' Victoria Beaulé and Anne Laurent contributed to this report.
