A Mexican journalist who was kidnapped at gunpoint as he took his daughter to school has been freed, authorities in the violent eastern state of Veracruz said Thursday.

Marcos Miranda, who had received threats over his work as editor and crime reporter with the news portal Noticias a Tiempo, was abducted Wednesday by two armed men in the town of Boca del Rio, Veracruz.

He was freed in a pre-dawn police operation Thursday as his captors were transporting him, state security officials said.

In a video posted later to his news site, Miranda said his captors had told him they were taking him to a new safe house.

“But I think they were going to kill me,” he said.

Security officials said the suspects in the vehicle opened fire when police stopped it for a search, then fled, leaving Miranda behind in handcuffs.

Miranda’s wife said he had received threats from Veracruz State Interior Minister Eric Cisneros, who allegedly told the journalist that if he did not write good things about him, “he knew what would happen.”

Miranda’s release was rare good news for the press in Mexico, which as of May has been the deadliest country in the world this year for journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders.

The watchdog group regularly ranks Mexico alongside war-torn Syria and Afghanistan as the most dangerous countries in the world for the news media.

The kidnapping came the day after journalist Norma Sarabia was murdered in the state of Tabasco, which neighbors Veracruz. She was the sixth journalist slain in Mexico this year.

More than 100 reporters have been murdered since 2000 in Mexico, where asking questions about political corruption or powerful drug cartels can be a deadly business