CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas – Investigators in this border state are looking into the recent assassination of a state judge and a prosecutor. The occurred as the two drove away from a courthouse.

The Tamaulipas government is offering a $1.5 million pesos ($75,000 USD) for information regarding the double murder of Judge Abelardo Ibarra Torres and Erika Dolores Granados Flores, who was a prosecutor and handled various organized crime cases. The incident happened this week when the two left a state courthouse in Ciudad Victoria. Both were riding in a blue Mini Cooper when a group of gunmen ambushed them in the Haciendas del Santuario neighborhood.

Preliminary information provided to Breitbart News by law enforcement sources revealed the gunmen were tailing the victims and attacked as soon as they entered the neighborhood. At the scene, authorities recovered a dozen 9mm bullet casings. It is believed the two officials died instantly.

Both the prosecutor and the judge had seen their share of high-profile cases, including one involving Juan Alfonso “El Gafe” Vasquez Canto, a top leader with the Northeast Cartel (CDN) faction of Los Zetas. Authorities recently found the body of Vasquez Canto hanging in his cell days after the CDN murdered and dismembered one of the top leaders of a rival organization, the “Old School Zetas.”

One of the theories being looked at suggests cartel gunmen targeted the pair as payback for the death of El Gafe.

The two officials also handled another high-profile case dealing with the murder of a Spanish citizen whose husband is charged as the prime suspect. The case initially set off a large-scale search and rescue operation since the husband first claimed a team of cartel gunmen kidnapped his wife while the family was visiting a local beach.