A Mexican social media influencer named Cesar Gastelum was shot dead Tuesday while on a livestream with a group of friends outside a restaurant in the city of Culiacan in northwestern Mexico, local authorities said.
Gastelum, who had nearly 600,000 followers on TikTok and was best known for posting comedy skit videos, was streaming outside a fast food restaurant when two individuals pulled up on a motorcycle and appeared to fire a gun directly at him, according to footage reviewed by Reuters.
A Sinaloa state official confirmed Gastelum’s death to the British news agency, saying an investigation was underway and that security had been ramped up in the area.
The shooting comes amid a wave of violence in Culiacan, which for some time has been at the centre of a conflict between enemy crime gangs vying for control.
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It also follows the May 2025 killing of Mexican beauty influencer Valeria Marquez, who was shot dead during a TikTok livestream at the salon where she worked in the western state of Jalisco.
Marquez, 23, was killed after a man entered the salon and opened fire, according to prosecutors. Her death was investigated under femicide protocols.
Femicide can include degrading violence, sexual abuse or a relationship with the murderer. It may also involve the victim’s body being exposed in a public space, the Mexican authorities said.
Her brazen killing sent shockwaves through Mexico, a country that faces some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world.
At the time of her death, Marquez had about 200,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok.
In July, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of Ramon Angel Alvarez Ayala, known as “El R-1,” whom Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch identified as the leader of a criminal cell linked to a Jalisco cartel and the fatal shooting of Marquez.
He was also arrested for ordering the assassination of a mayor in Michoacan state, Security Minister Omar Garcia said in a post on X on Thursday.
Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia are tied as the countries with the fourth-highest rates of femicide in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, at 1.3 femicide deaths for every 100,000 women in 2023.
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