The Mexican Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) has taken over the case of César Gastélum, the young influencer who was shot the night of August 4 in a restaurant in Culiacán, in the state of Sinaloa, while he was streaming live. The development has been confirmed by the family through Andrea Félix, leader of the association Wives of Fallen Police Officers in Sinaloa.
Last week the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office documented the footage that Gastélum was recording for a live TikTok broadcast. They have it along with thousands of users who managed to download the video at the time of the attack. Authorities also have the fast-food restaurant’s security recordings, and have obtained clear images of the attackers’ faces, both of the person driving the motorcycle and firing and of the person riding as a passenger in the rear.
In the restaurant footage one can even see Perla, the young influencer’s mother, standing behind the yellow tape, almost motionless until they take him away. A week after the murder, she was notified that the case had been transferred to the FGR. Perla has been overseeing the proceedings, pressing authorities and saying the accounts given about her son do not match reality.
“Many things have been said that are not true,” says Andrea Félix, leader of an association of which Perla is a member, as Gastélum’s father had been a police officer (he died of illness two years ago). Since then, the content creator’s mother has sought for the Sinaloa government to honor the benefits her husband had.
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The Mexican Influencer César Gastélum is shot dead during a livestream
When Gastélum was killed, his mother went to the crime scene to identify him. She cried and wiped her tears in front of reporters and the authorities who removed the body. Fellow members of the association pooled resources to pay for the funeral services and to say goodbye to the young man, who was 25 at the time of his death. “We have been asking the Victims’ Commission to help us in cases like this. Sometimes it is very difficult,” Félix says.
Since Gastélum’s murder, social media platforms have been flooded with theories, conjecture, conspiracies, images and videos linking him to the world of the drug cartels and alleging ties between the influencer and one of the two factions at war in Sinaloa. Three days before his death, he was seen in a video wearing a hat and dancing with another content creator known as La Beba to “La Cita Fresita 2,” a song by Grupo Aztteca in collaboration with Luis R. Conriquez and Óscar Maydon. The lyrics tell the story of a character involved in the narco world who confesses his life to a young woman. One part says ”ya tengo rato portando el sombrero” (I’ve been wearing the hat for a while).
In Sinaloa, wearing or referencing the hat has a particular meaning because it is one of the symbols most associated with the drug lord Ismael El Mayo Zambada, whose nickname among his people was El del Sombrero (The One in the Hat). For that reason, social media users and local outlets have speculated about the hat as a sign of closeness to La Mayiza, the faction now led by Ismael Zambada Sicairos, alias El Mayito Flaco.
Similarly, on Gastélum’s social media accounts the young man can be seen wearing a hat and jewelry engraved with the letters “MF,” a reference to the nickname of El Mayo’s son and heir. An interview Gastélum gave in 2022 to the podcast Los Mafia, hosted by Carlos Lizárraga, known as El Horny, resurfaced after his death. In the conversation the influencer spoke about his life in Culiacán, and one of the moments that drew the most attention was when he discussed the meaning of wearing a hat in Sinaloa. “That thing [the hat] is the passport to enter Sinaloa [both Gastélum and Lizárraga laugh],” the guest said, and the host replied with another question: “Does it really mean something?” Cesarín, as his friends called the youtuber, answered: “Those of us from here know. It’s simply a little amulet, but we know it provides a good shadow.”
Among the lines of investigation analyzed while the case was still being handled by the Sinaloa Attorney General’s Office was the possible link between the murder and the content Gastélum produced as an influencer, as well as a possible glorification of crime. The Regional Deputy Attorney’s Office for the Central Zone said all hypotheses are being investigated as part of the investigation.
Gastélum’s murder has once again focused attention on the violent chain of crimes that has struck a number of influencers amid the internal war within the Sinaloa Cartel. Since the dispute within the criminal organization began in September 2024 between Los Chapitos, the heirs of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, and La Mayiza, at least eight tiktokers have been killed in the crossfire.
In January 2025 hundreds of flyers were dropped from a small plane over Culiacán accusing the Castro brothers—Marcos Eduardo, Gail, Kevin—and Kevin’s wife, Ana Gastélum, the clan known as Los Toys; singer Peso Pluma; and other influencers of being part of a money-laundering network for Los Chapitos. The last time Marcos Eduardo Castro, alias Markitos Toys, was seen was last January, after more than a year out of the public eye following the accusations against him. The Culiacán-born influencer broke his silence to deny the money-laundering allegations and the supposed ties to the narco world, and to speak about the murder of his brother, Gail Toys, who was executed in Ensenada in March 2025, and the attacks his family has suffered amid the violence in Sinaloa.
The video in which he defends himself also resurfaced on social media after Gastélum’s execution at point-blank range. “In that flyer they not only implicated me, they implicated my brothers and my sister… I am not responsible for the problem that is happening in Sinaloa or in the country… All that has been said about me and my family is false, totally false. I am not that,” said the tiktoker and entrepreneur who specialized in luxury experiences. However, on several occasions Castro openly defended his friendship with Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, better known as El Nini, the former head of security for the Sinaloa Cartel faction led by El Chapo’s sons.
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