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Mexico has a very grisly new social media problem.
Influencers are being murdered right in front of our eyes, literally, during livestreams.
Over the past two years, around 20 social media influencers have been murdered in Mexico. The majority of these killings have gone down in Sinaloa, where rival cartel groups are in a bloody war.
When you hear these stories, you might think it’s just what happens with Mexico’s cartel violence.
But it seems there’s something bigger going on.
Many of the murdered influencers had some connection to Mexico’s criminal cartel world.
And experts believe that’s why they’re such valuable targets.
Social media influencers can give ego-driven cartels something old-school gangsters never had: instant access to enormous audiences.
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They can flaunt cars, money, parties, women, weapons, designer clothes, and the entire fantasy of cartel life to millions of young people.
Also, many experts believe influencers are a way for these criminal groups to launder money through legit-looking online businesses and social-media activity, which as you know is a huge money-maker.
Which means influencers become promoters, status symbols, and financial tools, and, when cartel wars break out, they also become a message board.
That means when a rival gang wants to send a message, killing somebody with a massive public following can make that message travel real fast.
So, that may be what we’re seeing unfold right now.
Just days after we reported on the horrifying livestream murder of a 23-year-old beauty influencer, another popular social-media influencer was executed in front of his followers during a livestream outside of a fast food joint.
And again, it happened in Sinaloa.
Cesar Gastelum was livestreaming to thousands of followers Tuesday when two men pulled up on a motorcycle.
Seconds later, he was shot in the head.
Mexican influencer César Gastélum was live-streaming outside a fast-food restaurant when two men on motorbike stopped next him, pulled out a gun and shot him in the head.
His brutal murder in Culiacán, the capital of the northwestern Mexican state of Sinaloa, happened in just a few seconds on Tuesday in front of an audience of thousands of social media users watching his TikTok stream.
As news of his death ricocheted around the world, alarm was rising back home about the mounting deaths of influencers in Mexico, especially in the country’s most dangerous states.
It is a phenomenon that some experts have attributed to possible links between content creators and criminal organizations, as well as the ongoing clashes between different factions of Sinaloa cartel.
Warning GRAPHIC:
🇲🇽 Mexican streamer César Gastélum was fatally shot while broadcasting a live challenge with friends outside a fast-food restaurant in Sinaloa
Two helmeted men on a motorcycle pulled up next to the group and fired at Gastélum’s head at close range.
Mexico’s cartel wars have always been about intimidation and symbolism.
And they’re always focused on sending messages to their rivals.
But now, social media has changed up the delivery system.
Back in the old days, cartel propaganda made its way through the propaganda pipelines via newspaper headlines, graffiti, or narcocorridos.
Now it can travel through TikTok.
And speaking of TikTok, we saw just how horrifying things can get in another case we covered last week.
Valeria Márquez was just 23 years old when the cartel murdered her live on TikTok.
Valeria Márquez was a 23-year-old beauty salon owner. She had a big social media following and was doing what thousands of young influencers do every day: talking to her followers from her salon.
But little did she or her fans know that this livestream had a dark and deadly cloud hanging over it.
Valeria had an inkling that she was a target. She had mentioned that “someone” might want to kill her. And she made it clear that if anything happened to her, her former boyfriend probably had something to do with it.
Then a man arrived in a delivery outfit.
He walked into the salon, and within minutes Valeria was dead.
This is the moment she was killed on the livestream.
Please be warned: it’s graphic and shows everything unfold, including her death.
You can read the entire piece here:
Horrified fans watch as beauty influencer is executed during TikTok livestream…
So, why are so many influencers getting tangled up in cartel violence?
The simple answer is that influencers are useful to the cartels. They come with big audiences, legitimate-looking businesses, and the kind of flashy lifestyle that can make cartel culture look glamorous instead of deadly creeps.
That can help with recruiting, image-building, and even laundering money through social media.
And once an influencer is seen as connected to one faction, that can make them dangerous to the other side.
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At that point, they’re not just an internet celebrity… they’re part of the cartel war.
CNN:
María Fernanda Arocha, from ACLED, explained that influencers have become relevant for criminal groups because they can serve “a double function” of helping them launder money through the activities the influencers carry out on social media, and acting as promoters of lifestyles and the image of the cartels, which in turn can help them recruit more members. The murder of an influencer could be interpreted as an attempt to send an intimidating message to the opposing side.
“If we see it within the framework of the dispute, that is what we would see as the most obvious reason in the sense that, by being public figures, through these attacks and the supposed connection they have with a criminal group, messages are being sent,” she said.
Some influencers may have become a new form of corrido singers, say experts. Their videos work as a modern take on the narcocorridos – ballads about the trafficking underworld that drug kingpins used to praise themselves and communicate with each other, said security expert Alexei Chévez.
Influencers can sell the fantasy that cartel life means endless power, respect, and wealth.
A 30-second TikTok can glamorize cartel life to millions.
An influencer can make organized crime look less like murder, extortion, trafficking, and terror and more like luxury cars, nightclub tables, designer clothes, and private jets.
That’s huge PR.
Social media turned regular, everyday people into celebrities almost overnight.
Of course the cartels would want the same opportunity.
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Influencers love to sell products, lifestyles, personalities, and dreams. But once the dirty cartel money comes into the picture, the stakes become much higher.
Sure, the likes and followers are still pouring in…
Sadly, so is the blood.
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