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As Mexico’s murder records continue to soar, the Mexican drug cartel has found a way to hide this sickening reality by using TikTok to exhibit a world of luxury through the use of exotic pets, lavish cars and dances.
During the past couple of years, a majority of deaths in Mexico has been linked to direct or indirect crime. Crime rates often surge in low income neighborhoods on the street and are present in the public for everyone to see. According to American Magazine, “Hundreds of thousands of low-income inhabitants of the capital’s sprawling working class neighborhoods depend on microbuses and combis for daily transportation, where they make easy targets for petty criminals.”
With crime taking place almost constantly, it is hard for high profile crimes like murder to be solved. Loan Grillo of the New York Times writes, “The cartels rule in an environment of widespread impunity. One study found that nine out of 10 murders in Mexico are never solved, and even in the most high-profile massacre cases, justice is evasive. In such an environment, gangsters win real support with their crude punishments.”
Although the drug cartel is heavily observed by the Mexican government because of activities such as money laundering, kidnapping, sex trafficking and more, they mask their disturbing behavior with generous accounts. During the pandemic, millions of poor Mexicans were suffering from the economic crisis so the Cartel created food relief groups, charities, and encouraged people in small communities to quarantine. Grillo has reported, “They are now handing out boxes of food and supplies, with labels such as ‘Gulf Cartel,’ to the poor Mexicans struggling to survive the economic meltdown caused by the pandemic.”
Despite these acts of kindness, there are some benefits that the Cartel receives while helping those in need. As part of recruiting more members to commit crimes, they focus on small communities to rally support and fall back on them when they need help hiding drugs and more. According to Grillo, “While the government struggles to provide aid countrywide, the cartels focus on small communities. There they buy themselves concentrated support so that they can later hide people or merchandise and recruit smugglers and killers.”
To continue to promote their benevolence, drug traffic groups are using social media platforms like TikTok as a propaganda tool to advertise their high end lives. Without a doubt, these videos have surfaced on many accounts and have gotten thousands of likes and shares, with the hopes to recruit younger users. After one video of a high-speed boat chase became viral, an outpour of more cartel-related videos surfaced TikTok.
According to New York Time’s Oscar Lopez, “And once they viewed the boat chase video, the algorithm began to offer them a trickle, then a flood of clips that appeared to come from drug trafficking groups in Mexico.”
Though this is a new concept to many, narco activity has been seen on the internet for decades. Absurd videos and pictures have been viewed on Youtube and many other streaming sites to scare other gangs. Oscar Lopez stated in the New York Times, “At first, the videos were crude and violent — images of beheadings and torture that were posted on YouTube, designed to strike fear in rival gangs and show government forces the ruthlessness they were up against.”
As videos resume, users begin to question the policy of TikTok and what changes will be made to prevent more activity or even worse. Lopez wrote in his article, “Guns, Drugs and Viral Content: Welcome to Cartel Tiktok,” that “when asked about their policy regarding the videos, a TikTok spokeswoman said that the company was ‘committed to working with law enforcement to combat organized criminal activity,’ and that it removed ‘content and accounts that promote illegal activity.’”
Since TikTok is a place where many trends take place, it can be dangerous to have videos of cartel “luxury” lifestyles advertised. These gang members have upgraded their marketing skills to try and recruit young users and the best way is by using an application filled with adolescents. Hopefully, TikTok will find a way to stop the circulation of these videos and/or deactivate the accounts.
