Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
When a 23-year-old Mexican influencer was shot during streaming on Tiktok, rumors began to swirl. Was it a cartel hit? Or another tragic example of violence against women?
On Tuesday, Valeria Marquez was shot at Blossom The Beauty Lounge, a beauty salon of the victim in Zapopan, a city in the Central Eastern state of Jalisco.
The office of the public prosecutor said it is investigating crime as a femicide, which means that it believes that crime was motivated by the fact that the victim was a woman.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said that an investigation is underway: “We work to catch those responsible and find out why this happened.”
But the fact that the crime took place in Jalisco, the state where the dreaded cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) arose, led to speculation by some that the cartel could be involved in one way or another.
Mrs. Marquez was a Mexican model that started to make a name for himself in 2021 in 2021 after winning the beauty match of Miss Rostro (Miss Face), according to the reports of Mexican media.
Shortly thereafter she started making content on social media. She would share make -up tips and routines for personal care, talk about fashion and show off her journeys.
Photos of her on private jets and yachts can be seen on her Instagram account, which had more than 223,000 followers at the time of her death.
Mrs. Marquez also had another 100,000 followers on Tiktok.
Although it is unclear what exactly happened, Mrs. Marquez said during her last live stream that she was waiting for a courier she knew to deliver a gift.
She added that she was a bit worried, because her girlfriend could not see the face of the courier when he arrived.
“Why didn’t he just drop it off (the gift)? Did they pick me up (kidnap me) or what?” She wondered aloud to her followers.
As he held a pink stuffed animal, Mrs. Marquez looked away from the camera and immediately grabbed her chest and belly before he collapsed in her chair.
Another woman then took the phone and ended the live stream.
The police arrived on the spot around 6:30 pm local time (12:30 GMT) and confirmed the death of Mrs. Marquez, according to the public prosecutor.
Authorities say that at least two men arrived at motorcycles at the salon and one of them asked the victim if she was Valeria. When she answered “yes”, he pulled out a gun and shot her at least twice before he fled.
Researchers say they check CCTV images and follow the social media of Mrs. Marquez, explains instructions about who the attackers could be.
But the location of the salon in the rich Zapopan area of Guadalajara has asked questions about the motive for crime. Although the presence of private security and the neat of its streets gives the impression that Zapopan is a safe area, it is in reality one of the most violent municipalities in Jalisco. In fact, shootings regularly occur in the luxurious shopping centers of the area.
More than half of the property and the commercial development in the area is connected to money laundering money, according to the US Department of Justice.
Jalisco is in sixth place of the 32 states of Mexico, including Mexico City, in terms of murders, with 906 murders registered since the start of the term of office of President Claudia Sheinbaum in October 2024, according to data consultancy Tresearch.
It is also one of the Mexican states that are most struck by the cartels. It was here, 50 kilometers from Zapopan, that a cartel training center was found in March, and it is here that 15,000 people have disappeared since 2018.
The same day Márquez was murdered, a former congress member called Luis Armando Córdoba Díaz was murdered just two kilometers away, according to the newspaper Reform.
According to the state of Jalisco, 90% of the crimes are never reported or investigated. The office of the attorney has long been accused of having ties with cartels that denies it.
The office of the public prosecutor said that so far they have no reason to suspect that the murder of Mrs. Marquez has been ordered or carried out by one of the organized criminal groups that are active in the area.
Instead, the office suggested that the murderer might have been motivated to kill her because of her gender.
Mexican media had previously published reports in which Mrs. Marquez blamed her ex-partner when something happened to her.
Mayor of Zapopan Juan José Frangie said that his office had no report from Mrs. Marquez to ask for help from the authorities because of threats against her, adding “a femicide is the worst”, according to AFP news agency.
“In response to claims pointing to alleged perpetrators of the femicide in Zapopan, we clarify that there are no direct accusations against a person in the research file,” said the office of the Jalisco officer of Justice in a statement.
“All explanations and instructions, including videos and social media messages, are analyzed. The research is conducted under the femicid protocol, with a gender perspective, without revictimization and in accordance with the principles of legality, impartiality and respect for human rights,” it added.
Gender-based violence is a serious problem in Mexico, a country that is fourth in Latin America and the Caribbean for femicide, behind Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.
According to the latest data from the United Nations for Latin -America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), there were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 women in Mexico in 2023, Reuters reported.
Less than 48 hours before the murder of Mrs. Marquez, Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayor candidate for Morena (the ruling party) in the city of Texistepec, Veracruz, became killed while participating in a political motorcycle gift. Just like the affairs of the influencer, the murder of the politician was recorded by cameras because the event was streamed live on Facebook.
