The FBI is in contact with Mexico about Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, sources said

The FBI has been in contact with the Mexican government and Mexican law enforcement regarding the disappearance of Nancy Guthriemother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, law enforcement sources told CBS News.

Authorities believe Nancy Guthrie, 84, was abducted from her home in Tucson, Arizona, in the middle of the night before she was reported missing on February 1. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told CBS News affiliate BBC News this week that he believes Guthrie was targeted in an apparent kidnapping.

The FBI maintains dedicated border liaison agents working near the border who work directly with their Mexican law enforcement counterparts in these types of situations.

The FBI’s officially attached office in Mexico City serves as a bridge between FBI headquarters, the US Embassy and the Mexican federal attorney general’s office.

Another source told CBS News that the small FBI office most important to Guthrie’s case is in Hermosillo, Sonora, a Mexican state that shares a border with Arizona. Tucson is about 60 miles from the Nogales crossing.

The US State Department has issued a Level 3 travel advisory for Sonora, which is one level below the most severe advisory. The State Department is urging Americans to reconsider traveling to the area, noting the risk of violence from terrorist groups, cartels, gangs and criminal organizations.

Hermosillo is about 170 miles in Mexico on the other side of the border. If something happens in this local hallway, that’s the small office that gets the call.

Nanos said there is no indication that Guthrie was taken to Mexico, but that does not mean that an investigation in the area has not yet begun.

Sonora State Attorney General Gustavo Rómulo Salas Chávez said Thursday, “We have no information suggesting that this person is in Mexico, specifically in Sonora.”

Carlos Flores, the commissioner general of the Criminal Investigation Agency in Mexico, said on Thursday, “The FBI has told us that they currently have no leads that suggest this person could be in Mexico.”

On Friday, the Secretary of Security in Mexico, Omar García Harfuch, stressed to reporters that “there are no indications, any investigation that would suggest that he is in our country.”

“There is no line that points to Sonora, or to any investigative team working with this case in Mexico,” he added, according to a statement from the Mexican embassy in Washington, DC.

Another source said border policies already exist in cases like this, whether there is a confirmed lead or not.

Meanwhile, the local organization Madres Buscadoras De Sonora (Wanted Mothers of Sonora) told CBS News they were contacted by a member of the Guthrie family and asked to help in the search. The well-known organization in Sonora posted a message on social media asking for information about Guthrie’s whereabouts.

A reward from 88-CRIME was increased Wednesday to $102,500 — thanks to an anonymous $100,000 donation, the organization said — for information leading to the arrest of a person or people involved in Guthrie’s disappearance. That reward is in addition to the $100,000 reward the FBI is offering.

According to Nanos, the investigators did it can be exported that an accomplice helped a kidnapping suspect seen on a doorbell camera video outside Nancy Guthrie’s home the night of her disappearance.

Video found on Guthrie’s Google Nest doorbell camerashared by the FBI last week, is the only video Google was able to find from Guthrie’s home cameras, according to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. There are additional cameras from the building that developers are still working on as they try to get usable video back. Investigators hope the technology companies involved in the videos will disclose more.

Savannah Guthrie, her two siblings and all their spouses were cleared as suspects in this case, the sheriff’s department announced on Monday as the high-level investigation enters its third week.

Nanos told BBC News that the Guthrie family had cooperated with investigators.

“We really put them down,” said Nanos. “We take their cars, we take their houses, we take their phones, all these things – and we don’t take them. They gave it to us willingly. They cooperated with us 100% in everything we asked. They are victims. They are not suspects.”