Mexican influencer Cesar Gastelum was livestreaming outside a fast food restaurant when two men on a motorcycle pulled up next to him, pulled out guns and shot him in the head.
His brutal murder in Culiacan, the capital of northwestern Mexico’s Sinaloa state, occurred in mere seconds on Tuesday, right in front of thousands of social media users who were watching his stream.
As news of his death spread around the world, there was growing alarm at home over the increasing number of deaths of influential figures in Mexico, particularly in the country’s most dangerous states.
Some experts have attributed this phenomenon to possible links between content creators and criminal organizations, as well as ongoing conflicts between different factions of the Sinaloa cartel.
Gastelum’s last posts on Instagram and TikTok have thousands of comments ranging from sadness to disbelief. Several users said, “Rest in peace” and “Justice for Cesar.” One account pointed to another tragic incident that was captured on a livestream, saying: “Oh, the same thing happened to Valeria Marquez, how awful.”
Marquez was a well-known beauty influencer who, like Gastelum, was killed last year while streaming on social media from Zapopan, Jalisco.
Beautiful TikTok influencer shot dead while live streaming in Mexico
Beauty influencer Valeria Marquez was shot and killed during a TikTok livestream from her salon in Zapopan, Mexico. Local authorities said the incident is being investigated as a possible homicide. Just days earlier, another woman, a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz, was shot and killed during a livestream along with three others.
Federal authorities in Mexico have launched an investigation to determine whether the murders of Gastelum and Marquez are linked to drug cartels.
In Gastelum’s case, they are reviewing posts in which he mentioned a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. In the case of Marquez, the Federal Security Cabinet announced at the end of July that an investigation showed that Marquez had ties to “El R1,” the son of Ramon Ángel Álvarez Ayala, a recently arrested suspected criminal leader who was allegedly hired to kill a young woman. CNN has reached out to Alvarez Ayala for comment.
There is no official record of how many influencers have been killed in Mexico. According to local media, about 20 incidents have occurred across the country in the past two years, most of them in Sinaloa state, where violence has increased due to a conflict between the two main factions of the Sinaloa cartel, Los Chapitos and Los Mayos.
The fight began in late 2024 after Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was extradited to the United States, where he was later indicted and sentenced to life in prison. Zambada claims he was betrayed by Joaquín Guzmán López, one of the sons of his former partner Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, which sparked a bloody struggle between rival groups for control of the organization.
“We see in Sinaloa how this is directly connected to the dynamics of the Sinaloa cartel conflict and how this affects these kinds of people,” Maria Fernanda Arocha, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean regional research director for the non-governmental organization Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), told CNN.
ACLED has its own count. According to its records, from 2024 to today, there have been 20 attacks on influencers in Sinaloa, resulting in 14 deaths.
The NGO is not releasing the names of the deceased for privacy reasons. CNN checked its database with reports from the federal government, local authorities and local media and identified nine influential people among the victims and five relatives or associates of them.
According to the study, the nine influencers killed in Sinaloa since 2024 are: Rafael Lazcano Rosales, “El Peinadito”; Juan Carlos López, “El Chilango.” Jesús Miguel Vivanco García, “El Jasper.” Leovaldo Aispuro, “El Gordo Perch”. Agustín Paul Duarte, “El Pinky”. Adalberto Peña “El Tata”. Victor Manuel, “El Brasileño”. Gerardo Moya, “El Jelly”. and Cesar Gastelum’s “Cesarin.”
Rafael Lazcano Rosales, pictured outside a car dealership in Culiacan on June 4, 2024, describes himself on his Instagram account as a businessman, farmer, marathon runner and traveler. On the platform, he posted videos and photos of himself riding in luxury cars, shopping, and traveling around the world. His last post, shared just days before his death, shows him walking through the historic center of San Diego, California.
Gastelum also posted similar content on his Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts, which together had more than 1 million followers. He also shared a humorous clip. In one of the last videos he posted on TikTok, he appears on the street dressed as a priest, with local music and the message: “My love, only the Lord knows the sins I have committed to meet you.”
Mexican influencer shot dead during live stream
Influencer Cesar Gastelum was shot and killed while live streaming in Culiacan, Mexico. Authorities have not determined a motive for the shooting. Mexico’s president said both the perpetrators and the ringleaders needed to be arrested.
Another video posted on YouTube in September 2024 shows him and Leovaldo Aisplow, who would be killed two months after the recording, firing various weapons in rural Culiacan. “We’re going to test the equipment. First of all, we’re quite far from the city… There’s no one here, no one at all, so no one is at risk,” Gastelum says.
Juan Carlos López, who was shot and killed on October 19, 2024, was not known for posting content about his lavish lifestyle, but rather for strolling through the streets of Culiacan and Mazatlan and posting messages of support for Sinaloa Cartel co-founder “El Chapo,” who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 2019.
“I will always be one of Chapo’s friends,” he said in an April 2023 video to coincide with Guzman’s 66th birthday.
Mexican authorities have not reported whether any of the Sinaloa influencers killed in the past two years were being investigated for possible ties to criminal groups.
CNN has reached out to the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) for comment.
Among the slain influencers was Jesus Miguel Vivanco García, who was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for alleged ties to drug lords. His body was found in Culiacan on November 23, 2024, after being missing for several days.
Investigations into their deaths continue, but experts say there are indications that some of the influencers were actually connected to criminal organizations and were killed in an act of retaliation by rival factions.
Video shows record levels of violence in Mexican state after arrest of cartel kingpin
ACLED’s Maria Fernanda Arrocha explained that influencers have become important to criminal groups because they can serve a “dual function”: they can help launder money through their social media activities, and they can also serve to promote the lifestyle and image of the cartel, which in turn helps it recruit more members. The influencer’s killing could be interpreted as an attempt to send a threatening message to the other side.
“If you look at this within the framework of the conflict, this is probably the most obvious reason in the sense that by being a public figure, a message is being sent through these attacks and presumed connections to criminal groups,” she said.
Experts say some influencers may have become a new type of corrido singer. Their videos serve as a modern take on narcocorridos, ballads about the human trafficking underworld that drug lords used to glorify themselves and communicate with each other, said security expert Alexei Chevez.
As the children of cartel founders increasingly compete for territory and market, Chevez argued, these new criminal leaders see influencers as a tool to promote themselves, especially among young people who use social media frequently and are more easily scouted.
“They found a way to be popular, because it is also a culture. Because what exists in the north of this country is a drug culture, which started with the corridos and has continued with the glorification of criminal organizations. Unfortunately now many young people want to be part of it,” he said. “They want to participate in the ownership of trucks, weapons, drugs, etc. There’s an ambitious side to it.”
