Popular influencer shot dead during livestream outside restaurant

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A Mexican influencer was shot dead on Tuesday while streaming live on social media outside a restaurant in Sinaloa state, where cartel and gang violence is rife.

Cesar Gastelum, who had more than 600,000 followers on TikTok, was broadcasting with two friends — all dressed as food delivery workers as part of a challenge.

Video circulating online showed a motorcycle carrying two people pull up beside them. In the recording of the livestream, seen by the Reuters news agency, the driver of the motorcycle appeared to fire a gun directly at Gastelum.

Local police confirmed Gastelum’s death.

The livestream was halted and later removed by the platform, though footage and images of the attack have continued to circulate.

Local police initially reported the death of a delivery worker, but later identified the victim as Gastelum, who was reportedly 25 years old and posted lifestyle content.

The attack took place in a busy shopping plaza near the Sinaloa prosecutor’s office in Culiacan, the state capital.

The drive-by shooting death have been in retaliation for social media posts about a criminal group, authorities said Wednesday.

“The lines of investigation include numerous publications, some of which refer to a criminal group,” Mexico’s Security Cabinet posted on X, referring to online posts, without providing further details.  

Soldiers and police were deployed while forensic experts collected evidence and removed the body, according to footage from local TV stations.

The district has been troubled over the past two years by internal struggles within the powerful local cartel.

Around a dozen influencers — some allegedly linked to criminal gangs — have been killed in recent years in Sinaloa, local media said.

Last year, Mexican social media influencer Valeria Marquez was shot dead at a beauty salon during a livestream on TikTok, where she had tens of thousands of followers. Prosecutors said she appeared to be murdered by a hit man and expressed fear before being killed.

In July, authorities announced the arrest in Jalisco of Ramon Angel Alvarez Ayala, whom officials linked to the killing of Marquez as well as the November 2025 murder of Uruapan Mayor Carlos Manzo, Reuters reported.

Marquez’s murder shocked Mexico — where killings and kidnappings are a daily occurrence — and brought into sharp focus both its femicide epidemic and growing violence against influencers.

In January 2025, a small plane was reported to have dropped pamphlets in Culiacan threatening around 20 artists and YouTubers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Influencers have been targeted in other parts of Latin America. Last year in Venezuela, police arrested an alleged accomplice in the murder of a TikTok influencer who was killed during a livestream after denouncing members of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang and allegedly corrupt police officers.