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Move over, Charli D’amelio! The Sinaloa Cartel wants your TikTok followers!
With Mexico set to again shatter murder records this year, experts on organized crime say Cartel TikTok is just the latest propaganda campaign designed to mask the blood bath and use the promise of infinite wealth to attract expendable young recruits.
Circulating on Mexican social media for years, cartel content began flooding TikTok feeds in the United States this month after a clip of a high-speed boat chase went viral on the video-sharing platform.
“As soon as I started liking that boat video, then there’s videos of exotic pets, videos of cars,” said Ricardo Angeles, 18, a California TikToker interested in cartel culture.
Unreal. Twitter and Facebook are out here flagging election coverage while TikTok is throwing cartel content in your face. “Oh you like boats? Great, try out these guns and maybe a few ‘how to package a brick of cocaine’ tutorials!” Next thing you know, you’re 14 videos deep into a cartel rabbit hole, and Addison Rae is nowhere to be seen.
Here’s the boat chase:
Jesus God. If you’ve ever had the wheel of a motor boat before, you can imagine that being run down by a Star Destroyer boat like that would keep you away from the ocean for the rest of your short life. And yes—something tells me none of these guys lived much longer. The boat chasing them seemed highly motivated and superior.
I’m not going to go digging for cartel vids on TikTok, but I’m sure they’re easy to find. Personally, I don’t want the Chinese government getting a sense of my preferences—especially when it comes to drug cartel content. Parents, if you’re reading this, here’s reason #1,000,000 for why you should keep your kids off TikTok.