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A 31-year-old Cuban identified as Rey traveled from Mexico City with his partner to the community of Santa María Moyotzingo, in the municipality of San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla, to purchase a vehicle advertised on social media, and ended up with two gunshot wounds after being ambushed by armed individuals on the evening of last Tuesday.
According to reports from local media in Puebla, upon arriving at the meeting point, Rey noticed the presence of the criminals and attempted to flee, but was struck by at least two shots that injured him in the right forearm and the abdomen on the same side.
The attackers also stripped him of cash, although the exact amount was not determined.
Badly injured, Rey managed to drive his vehicle to the Carrillo Puerto colony, where he found Municipal Police officers conducting a patrol and requested assistance.
Paramedics from Civil Protection transported him to the Integral Hospital of Texmelucan, and due to the severity of his injuries, he was referred to the Hospital of Traumatology and Orthopedics in the city of Puebla. His health status remains unknown and no arrests have been reported.
The meeting had been arranged in Santa María Moyotzingo, an auxiliary town of Texmelucan that has a documented history of thefts using this same method: criminals post vehicles at attractive prices on social media, lure buyers to remote areas, and ambush them.
The case of Rey is not isolated. Just two days earlier, on April 27, a woman was injured by gunfire under similar circumstances in the same municipality. And on April 18, another buyer requested police escort for a transaction in San Cristóbal Tepatlaxco; the supposed sellers never showed up, and the police safely escorted him.
In April, within a matter of hours, three robberies related to car purchases via social media were reported in the region, resulting in the theft of 240,000 pesos and two individuals injured by firearm.
The criminal pattern is not limited to Texmelucan. In August 2025, the Secretariat of Citizen Security of Mexico City arrested 40 individuals for extortion in car sales through social networks, with victims being assaulted or shot during operations that included investigations for theft, injury, and homicide.
The attack against Rey is also part of a series of violent assaults against Cubans in the Puebla-Tlaxcala region, a migration corridor frequented by fellow countrymen traveling north through Mexico towards the United States.
In October 2024, the Cuban Yordis Nariño Delgado was shot and killed in Ixtacuixtla, Tlaxcala, and his attackers fled precisely to San Martín Texmelucan. In March 2026, four Cuban migrants were tortured and burned alive in a hotel in Apizaco, Tlaxcala.
The authorities in Texmelucan provide a free police support program and an OCRA module to verify vehicle documentation, which has thwarted at least 12 attempts of fraud. However, according to their own reports, very few people request this service prior to engaging in a transaction.
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