Mexican authorities this week rescued 165 kidnapped people near the U.S.-Mexican border.

According to a Reuters report, the kidnapped people were mostly Central American migrants, and included women and children. Groups of them were reportedly attempting to cross the border into the U.S. when they were kidnapped by gunman and held less than a mile from the border, in a crowded house in the Gustavo Diaz Ordaz municipality.

A spokesperson for the Mexican government stated that the kidnappers may have been human traffickers, who, along with criminal gangs, arranged for people to be kidnapped. The state of Tamaulipas, where these kidnapping took place, is the site of dispute between two Mexican drug cartels.

Mexican drug cartels have, according to Reuters, began dabbling in human trafficking in recent years. In addition to the high death toll that comes with the drug war, kidnapping has become a danger in northern Mexican states such as Tamaulipas. Extortion or forced drug muling is not an uncommon fate for those kidnapped.