Two people, including a Texas rancher, were killed when their truck drove over an improvised explosive device (IED) in Mexico last week, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said on Tuesday. Authorities suspect the IED was planted by a cartel member.
Antonio Céspedes Saldierna — a 74-year-old man from Brownsville, Texas — was killed in the explosion, along with Horacio Lopez Peña, KRGV reported. Peña’s wife, Ninfa Griselda Ortega, was also wounded in the blast. Céspedes, who worked on both sides of the border, was driving on his ranch in Tamaulipas, Mexico — in the Santa Rita area of San Fernando — when he was killed, according to his son, Ramiro.
In a statement, Miller urged Texans who travel along the southern border to “exercise extreme caution,” adding, “This shocking act of violence highlights the growing threat posed by cartel activity along our southern border.” Céspedes’ son, Ramiro, a United States Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said his father was killed in a “terrorist attack.”
“I consider this a terrorist attack because if I went to war to fight terrorists, and I’m seeing the same thing here to me – my personal opinion – it is a terrorist attack,” said Ramiro.
The Tamaulipas government has warned about IEDs being placed on rural roads. Cartels often plant the IEDs to defend their territory from rival cartel members, according to the Tamaulipas police. The Texas Agriculture Commissioner told Texans to “avoid dirt roads and remote areas, refrain from touching unfamiliar objects that could be explosive devices, limit travel to daylight hours, stay on main roads, and avoid cartel-controlled regions.”
“Our agriculture family is the backbone of Texas, and we must do everything we can to protect it,” he added.
Since being sworn into office last month, President Donald Trump has designated eight cartels as terrorist organizations, including some of Mexico’s most powerful cartels: Cartel de Sinaloa, Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion, Carteles Unidos, Cartel del Noreste, Cartel del Golfo, and La Nueva Familia Michoacana.
