Mexican influencer shot dead during TikTok livestream

A Mexican social media influencer with 650,000 followers on TikTok has been killed while he was doing a livestream, authorities have said.

Cesar Gastelum was shot dead on Tuesday in Culiacan, the capital of Mexico’s volatile Sinaloa state. The shooting took place near the local prosecutor’s office.

A video of the moment of Gastelum’s death, seen by The Associated Press news agency, shows him laughing with two other men in the car park of a Kentucky Fried Chicken when two men pull up on a motorcycle. One is seen pulling out a gun and shooting Gastelum. The attackers then flee the scene.

Sinaloa has been ravaged by warring between two factions, Los Mayos and Los Chapitos, of the Sinaloa Cartel in recent years, with dead bodies left across the city marked with either faction’s signature.

“We must find out why this deplorable homicide occurred,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told journalists during a Wednesday morning news conference.

Gastelum posted content in which he would refer to himself as “belico”, a term often used in subcultures in Mexico to imply a connection to cartel culture.

Mexico’s security cabinet and local prosecutors said an investigation was ongoing and that it appeared Gastelum had released some videos in which he “alluded to a faction of a criminal group”.

In May 2025, 23-year-old beauty influencer Valeria Marquez was also shot dead while livestreaming on TikTok, in the central state of Jalisco.