Mexican social media influencer César Daniel Nolasco Gastélum was shot and killed Tuesday night while livestreaming outside a fast-food restaurant in Culiacán, Sinaloa, according to Reuters and local authorities.
Gastélum, known to followers as Cesarín and by the Kick handle Compasexor, was approximately 25 years old. He had built an audience of nearly 600,000 on TikTok through comedy sketches, character portrayals and everyday videos, along with more than 116,000 Instagram followers and over 16,000 YouTube subscribers, according to platform counts reported by Infobae and local outlets.
According to a recording of the livestream reviewed by Reuters and accounts from local authorities — as also confirmed by CBS News — Gastélum and two friends were outside the fast-food outlet in the Desarrollo Urbano Tres Ríos neighborhood when two helmeted men on a motorcycle approached. One of the riders fired a handgun at close range, striking Gastélum in the head. He collapsed immediately and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The attack occurred around 8:15 p.m. local time on Aug. 4 near the intersection of Boulevard Enrique Sánchez Alonso and Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez, roughly 500 meters from the Sinaloa state prosecutor’s offices. Paramedics responded but could not revive him. His companions were unharmed.
A Sinaloa security official confirmed the death and said a significant security operation was underway. Soldiers and police secured the area while forensic teams collected evidence. Initial police reports described the victim as a delivery worker before he was identified as the content creator. Gastélum and his friends had been dressed in food-delivery uniforms as part of a social-media challenge.
Minutes earlier on the same stream, one of the companions had noted the motorcycle circling the area and remarked that the riders made him uneasy, according to audio captured in the recording. The bike, described by witnesses and circulating video as a white, red and black Honda dual-purpose model, returned and the shooting followed.
The livestream, which was running on Kick, cut off after the gunfire. Clips of the moments before and after the attack circulated widely on social media before platforms began removing them.
Culiacán, capital of Sinaloa, has seen sustained violence tied to rival factions of the Sinaloa Cartel fighting for control. The kidnapping of Culiacán-based creator La Nicholette in recent years highlighted how narco-linked content creators have become targets in the cartel conflict, a pattern The Guardian has documented in its reporting on influencers caught in the Sinaloa faction war. The killing adds to a series of attacks on content creators in the state. Local media have counted at least 10 influencers slain in Sinaloa in recent years amid the broader conflict.
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The case also recalled the May 2025 murder of beauty influencer Valeria Márquez, 23, who was shot during a TikTok livestream inside her salon in Zapopan, Jalisco. Prosecutors investigated that killing under femicide protocols. In July 2026, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala, known as El R-1, a figure linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel whom security officials have connected to Márquez’s death.
No motive has been publicly established in Gastélum’s killing. Online speculation linked him to other local influencers and to internal cartel disputes, including unverified claims of family ties to Ana Gastélum, partner of a relative of the content creator known as Markitos Toys. Reporting by Infobae and other outlets found no documented familial connection. His name also did not appear on a January 2025 list of influencers and artists targeted in leaflets dropped over Culiacán that accused various figures of ties to one cartel faction.
Gastélum’s content centered on humor rooted in northern Mexican and Sinaloa culture. He performed sketches as characters such as “Profe Alducin” and “the Padre,” posted music covers, travel clips and lifestyle footage, and streamed informal conversations on Kick. Three days before his death he posted a video dancing with the creator known as La Beba.
He had publicly mourned the earlier killing of fellow Sinaloa creator Leovardo Aispuro, known as El Gordo Peruci, posting a photo at the grave and writing that he would never forget the advice he received. BBC News reported that Aispuro was killed in December 2024 in a shooting police linked to the rivalry between two warring Sinaloa Cartel factions — Los Chapitos and La Mayiza — that has fueled violence across the state since September 2024.
As of Wednesday, authorities had not announced arrests or released further details on the investigation. The security operation in Culiacán remained active.
Gastélum’s death lands within a wider pattern of creator-targeted violence across Latin America that HypeFresh has tracked in recent months, including the home-invasion killing of Costa Rican TikToker Gabriela Sanarrusia, the abduction and murder of 15-year-old Honduran streamer Pedro Alexander Díaz Franco, the disappearance of fishing YouTuber Mikey Rijavec off the Mexican coast, and the murder-suicide that took TikToker Sara Gilson — a wave of cases that has intensified scrutiny on platform responsibility for high-risk livestreaming.
