The murder of Mexican Tiktker Valeria Márquez raises questions

When a 23-year-old Mexican influence was shot dead, while rumors began to rotate live. Was it a hit cartel? Or another tragic example of violence against women?

On Tuesday, Valeria Marquez was shot dead at Blossom the Beauty Lounge, a beauty salon owned by the victim in Prank, a city in the Central-East state of Jalisco.

The State Prosecutor’s Office said it was investigating the crime as a femicide, which means that he believes the crime was motivated by the fact that the victim was a woman.

The President of Mexico, Claudia Shainbaum, said an investigation was being conducted: “We are working to capture those responsible and to understand why this happened.”

But the fact that the crime happened in Jalisco, the country in which the cartel Jalisco Nueva Genchin (CJNG) was afraid led to speculation from some that the cartel could somehow be involved.

G -Ja Marquez was a Mexican model who began to make his name in 2021 after winning the Miss Rostro Beauty Competition, according to Mexican media reports.

Shortly thereafter, she began to create content on social media. She will share makeup and personal care tips, talk about fashion and show her trips.

Photos of her private jets and yachts can be seen in her Instagram account, which had more than 223,000 followers at the time of her death.

D -Ja Marquez also had another 100,000 Tiktok followers.

Although it is not clear exactly what happened, during his final live, D -Ja Marquez said he was waiting for a courier who knew he would file a gift.

She added that she was a little worried because her friend couldn’t see the courier’s face when he arrived.

“Why didn’t he just cut him (the gift)? Would he take me (abducted me) or what?” He wondered aloud to his followers.

As he was holding a pink stuffed animal, Da Marquez looked away from the camera and immediately grabbed his chest and abdomen before collapsing at his chair.

Then another woman took the phone and finished live.

Police arrived at the scene at about 6:30 pm local time (12:30 GMT) and confirmed the death of Gja Marquez, according to the State Prosecutor.

Authorities say at least two men arrived at the salon and one of them asked the victim if she was Valeria. When she replied “yes,” he pulled out a gun and shot it at least twice before running away.

Investigators say they are checking CCTV footage and tracking G -Ja Marquez’s social media for clues about who the attackers are.

But the location of the salon in the rich area of ​​a Guadalajara prep, raised questions about the motive for the crime. While the presence of private security and the arrangement of the streets give it the impression that the prep, is a safe zone, in fact it is one of the most abundant municipalities in Jalisco. In fact, shootings regularly occur in luxury shopping centers in the area.

More than half of real estate and commercial development in the area are related to money laundering for drug trafficking, according to the US Department of Justice.

Jalisco ranks sixth among the 32nd states in Mexico, including Mexico City, in terms of killings, with 906 murders being registered since the beginning of President Claudia Sheibaum’s term in October 2024, according to Tresearch’s consulting firm.

This is also one of the Mexican countries most affected by the cartels. It was here, 50 kilometers from a prep, in March, a cartel training center was found and it was here that 15,000 people disappeared from 2018.

On the same day as Marquez was killed, a former congressman named Luis Armando Cordoba Diaz was killed only two kilometers, according to the newspaper ReformS

According to Jalisco, 90% of crimes are never reported or investigated. The State Prosecutor’s Office has long been accused of having a cartel relationship, which it denies.

The prosecutor said that they had no reason to suspect that the murder of Gja Marquez was ordered or committed by any of the organized criminal groups operating in the area.

Instead, the office suggested that the killer could be motivated to kill her for his gender.

Mexican media have previously published messages in which Mrs. Marquez has accused her ex-partner if something happened to her.

Propan Mayor Juan Jose Frangi said his cabinet had no data on G -Ja Marquez demanding help from the authorities for threats to it, adding that “femicide is the richest thing,” according to AFP news agency.

“In response to claims indicating the alleged femicida perpetrated, we explain that there are no direct accusations against any natural person in the investigation file,” a Jalisco prosecutor’s office said.

“All statements and clues, including videos and publications on social media, are analyzed. The investigation is conducted in accordance with the Femicides protocol, with a gender perspective, without review and in accordance with the principles of legality, impartiality and respect for human rights,” he adds.

Gender -based violence is a serious problem in Mexico, a country that ranks fourth in Latin America and the Caribbean for the pace of femicides, behind Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.

According to the latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in 2023 there were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 women in Mexico, Reuters reports.

Less than 48 hours before the murder of Gja Marquez, Jesenia Lara Gutierrez, a candidate for mayor for Morena (the ruling party) in Texystepek, Veracruus, was killed while participating in a political forklift. Like the case of influence, the murder of a policy was recorded by cameras because the event was live on Facebook.