Mexico: Influencer murdered live on TikTok

The crime took place around 6:30 p.m. (0:30 a.m. GMT Wednesday) in the beauty salon owned by Valeria Marquez in Zapopan. The video she was filming on social media shows the young blonde woman's final moments, wearing a fuchsia-colored tank top, holding a colorfully colored stuffed pig that had just been given to her.

"Are you Valeria?" a man's voice from off-camera asks her cordially. "Yes," Valeria Marquez replies, sounding concerned. She mutes the sound and collapses seconds later from the impact of the gunshot(s). "According to preliminary investigations, she was in her beauty salon when a man entered and apparently shot her several times with a firearm, killing her," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. Municipal police responded to the scene after receiving a call to an emergency line and confirmed the young woman's death, the prosecutor's office added.

Valeria Marquez had never reported any threats, according to Zapopan Mayor Juan José Frangie. "We have no record (of the victim) in the records of the prosecutor's office or the Zapopan police." Authorities announced the opening of an investigation into femicide.

Initial investigations do not yet establish a link between the influencer's murder and organized crime, which kills tens of thousands of people each year in the country . Zapopan is located on the outskirts of Guadalajara, the capital of the state of Jalisco, home to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). The CJNG is one of eight Latin American criminal mafias—including six Mexican ones—listed as "terrorist" organizations by U.S. President Donald Trump.