Drug Cartels’ New Favorite Target: Internet Influencers

Mexican drug cartels have found a new type of target: internet influencers. Content creators broadcasting from cartel territory are increasingly turning up dead, with some gunned down while livestreaming to their followers.

Most recently, Mexican authorities arrested a man accused of shooting and killing TikTok influencer Cesar Gastelum during a live broadcast in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

Local media estimate that roughly 20 influencers have been killed under similar circumstances across Mexico since 2024, with the toll concentrated in Sinaloa, according to CNN. A separate tally puts the number at 19 as of earlier this month, eight of them in Sinaloa alone, as The Sun reported.

International Crisis Group analyst David Mora told The Sun that influencers have become caught up in the bloody power struggle between rival criminal factions.

“The dynamic we are seeing with influencers and cartels in Mexico is one we have seen before – attacking those who provide resources for the enemy,” Mora said.

“Influencer killings have emerged alongside this war,” he added. “They have started taking sides – not directly but by promoting certain images or symbols or music associated with one of the groups.”

Gastelum, 24, had more than half a million TikTok followers before he was killed on August 4, per CBS News. He was reportedly participating in a social media challenge outside a KFC restaurant when two men pulled up beside him on a motorcycle and opened fire.

The shooting was captured on a livestream in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state and an epicenter of the ongoing war between rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. 

Authorities are investigating whether Gastelum was targeted over his social media activity. Mexico’s security secretariat said shortly after his death that its lines of investigation included posts “alluding to a faction of a criminal group,” CBS News reported.

Gastelum is only the latest name on a growing list.

Last year, Mexican social media influencer Valeria Marquez was shot and killed inside a beauty salon during a livestream on TikTok — the camera kept rolling as she lay bleeding to death. 

In Sinaloa, 22-year-old Agustin Paul, known online as “El Pinky,” was found dead with his hands and feet bound in January 2025. His killing came a day after threats were leveled against local musicians and another influencer, according to IBTimes UK.

In October 2024, influencer Juan Carlos Lopez, known online as “El Chilango,” was shot dead after posting videos of his walks through Culiacan and publicly declaring his loyalty to incarcerated Sinaloa Cartel co-founder “El Chapo,”  CNN reported.

The threats have extended beyond individual killings. In January 2025, a small plane reportedly dropped pamphlets over Culiacan threatening artists and YouTubers accused of supporting one faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The violence comes amid a vicious internal war that erupted following the capture of longtime Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the United States in July 2024. The conflict has pitted a faction loyal to Zambada against Los Chapitos, led by sons of Guzman.

Social media has also become a valuable propaganda and recruitment tool for these violent gangs, which puts influencers even more at risk.

“Propaganda is crucial to cartels because it helps legitimize them,” Mora said. “Having local communities on your side makes control of criminal rackets easier. Making the criminal lifestyle attractive also helps recruit young people.”

He added, “Everyone’s life is filtered through social media – so it has become new turf to fight over.”

“The Sinaloa cartel was a perfect example of a cartel that did not have to rely on force and violence to keep control or support,” Mora told The Sun. “But these mechanisms are not there anymore especially amid the violence in Sinaloa, and this has brought a reckoning. Violence is now putting innocent people in the middle.”