16 kidnapped police employees released in southern Mexico

By EDGAR H. CLEMENTE
Associated Press

TAPACHULA, Mexico (AP) — Sixteen police employees who were kidnapped in southern Mexico have been released after three days of captivity. No details were given on the circumstances of their release Friday. The group had been captured Tuesday by gunmen traveling in several vans that intercepted a police transport truck in the southern state of Chiapas. The gunmen detained the men in the truck and released 17 women. After the kidnapping, authorities deployed more than 1,000 officers to hunt for the abductees. However, an official in the state prosecutor’s office says the kidnapped men returned on their own aboard a pickup trip, arriving at the state police headquarters in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.