Content creators who use their social media platforms to support Los Chapitos or La Mayiza are under scrutiny by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) due to suspicions that they are not only encouraging one of the two sides waging the so-called “War in Sinaloa,” but also laundering money for them.
One list includes 64 influencers believed to be based in Sinaloa, whose profiles or channels are being investigated for being artificially “inflated” by organized crime so that platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram would pay them large sums of money for advertising sales.
These profits were allegedly handed over to splinter groups of the Sinaloa Cartel by the influencers themselves so that the troops of El Chapo Guzmán’s son and El Mayo Zambada could acquire weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and bribe authorities. “It’s a simple scheme involving operations with illicit funds, but it took us a while to uncover it because there’s little regulation on social media. However, we already have the first profiles we can sanction and freeze bank accounts so the money doesn’t reach the criminals,” said a source consulted by MILENIO, who participated in the investigations.
Names, names…
On the list are young people like Marcos Eduardo Castro Cárdenas, better known on social media as Markitos Toys, a young man born in 1998 in Culiacán, where he started his YouTube channel six years ago. In record time, his profile experienced an unusual boom, becoming a content creator with 4.24 million subscribers on YouTube and 5.4 million followers on Instagram.
Other alleged narco-influencers under scrutiny by authorities include Ana Cristina Gastélum, known as Ana Gastelum; Carlos Lizárraga, known as El Horny; Óscar Antonio López Iribe, known as El Camaronero; Mayve Castro, Jmayvecc, among others.
