A Youtube sensation has been found dead with his hands and feet bound after he suffered hours of torture.
Officials supsect that a hitman linked to the powerful Sinalou drugs cartel in Mexico is responsible for the brutal killing of the 22-year-old influencer ‘El Pinky’, real name Agustin Paul, reports the Mirror.
Footage shared online shortly after his death showed him bruised and battered. In the video, which the Record has chosen not to show, El Pinky is interrogated by a Mexican cartel and accused of collaborating with a rival gang ‘La Mayiza’.
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Just hours before his brutal death, leaflets bearing El Pinky’s name were dropped from an aircraft over the city of Culiacán, accusing him of working with a rival cartel. The Youtbe star, who garnered thousands of followers on his channel Los Plebes de Barrancos, was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head on January 10 in Culiacán city, northwest Mexico.
The leaflets claimed El Pinky had laundered money for La Mayiza, a rival gang. Investigators are treating the case as a premeditated murder alegedly carried out by the Sinaloa cartel, a drugs gang once controlled by notorious drug lord El Chapo. They are believed to have been responsible for dropping the leaflets, reports the Daily Star.
(Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Other Youtubers with large followers were also targetted on leaflets dropped around Culiacán city on January 9. This included ‘Dos Dias’ artist Peso Pluma and YouTuber Markitos Toys.
Authorities are now investigating potential motives behind El Pinky’s murder, with his YouTube content being considered as a possible factor. Known for posting viral challenges and humorous videos to his 98,000 subscribers on his channel ‘Los Plebes de Barrancos’, El Pinky’s notable online presence may have drawn unwanted attention from the cartel.
It follows the death of YouTuber Miguel ‘El Jasper’ Vivanco who was found dead in Sinaloa last year. According to his family, cartel hitmen abducted El Jasper from his home two nights before his bullet-riddled body was discovered in November 2024. Both El Jasper and El Pinky were brutally tortured before their murders, leading to speculation that Mexican cartels could be responsible for their deaths.
Recent months have seen a surge in violence between rival cartel organisations in Mexico, where authorities have repeatedly attempted crackdowns on organised crime. Mexican drugs cartels first rose to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, dominating the production and distribution of the illicit drug trade across the country and beyond its borders.
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