Gunmen grab Mexico surgeon, later release him: US citizen patient was the target
Felix Perez Rocha, a plastic surgeon, had finished a liposuction and was starting another procedure when gunmen burst into his operating room and hauled the terrified doctor away.
The kidnapping at a high-end clinic in the affluent business hub of Monterrey immediately suggested one of the more cinematic chapters of drug-trafficking lore. A narco kingpin forcing a surgeon to alter his looks and help him evade the law? It has happened before.
But on Friday, state prosecutors in Monterrey said it appeared that Perez’s patient was the target, not the doctor. A woman whom authorities identified as Elida Ordaz, 29, a U.S. citizen from Mission, Texas, had undergone the fat-removal procedure an hour or so before the four gunmen stormed the hospital. They demanded that she be turned over to them. When hospital officials refused — she had already left — they seized the doctor.
“We understand that the principal objective … was the lady,” Nuevo Leon state Atty. Gen. Alejandro Garza told reporters.
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