On May 13, 2025, 23-year-old Mexican influencer Valeria Márquez was livestreaming to her 113,000 TikTok followers from her Jalisco salon when she met her tragic end in a violent firearm attack.
Thousands were left shocked as they witnessed her collapse on camera, clasping her bloodied wounds.
Local authorities declared the incident a femicide, and it remained one of the most gruesome instances of gender-based violence in Mexico in the last decade.
As the police failed to come up with answers for months, internet sleuths came up with theories based on her social media presence, one of which linked the case to cartel violence.
Despite previously denying such ties, authorities have now arrested one of Mexico’s most notorious crime bosses and accused him of ordering the hit on Márquez a year ago.
They have also revealed the possible motive behind the femicide, which has left several on the internet absolutely heartbroken for the late content creator.
“I remember watching this video. It’s so sad,” one netizen commented.
Valeria Márquez’s life was taken allegedly at the behest of her ex-boyfriend
Image credits: marquezvaleria_v
On July 31, Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection, Omar Garcia Harfuch, announced the arrest of Ramón Ángel Álvarez Ayala, street name “El R1.”
He was captured the day before in a special forces operation that ended in a car chase and the demise of one of Ayala’s security team members.
According to Harfuch’s social media post, Ayala is the main leader of Los Rs, a violent criminal cell linked to the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels.
Image credits: marquezvaleria_v
He was primarily arrested as the alleged mastermind behind the assassination of Carlos Manzo, the outspoken Uruapan Mayor who often condemned organized crime syndicates, on November 1, 2025, at a Día de los Muertos festival.
After Ayala’s arrest, prosecutors claimed that he ordered the femicide of Márquez at the request of his son, Francisco, who had been in a romantic relationship with the influencer.
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Their relationship ended recently, after which Francisco allegedly terrorized Márquez multiple times before calling his father to organize a hit on her.
“The son of R1 had a romantic relationship with Valeria,” Harfuch said.
“He had threatened her on several occasions, and everything indicates — and this will be proven — that the son asked his father, R1, to commit the femicide.”
Francisco is currently at large, and the authorities are looking for him.
Valeria Márquez was assassinated under the ruse of an “expensive” gift delivery
Image credits: El País
The day Márquez lost her life, a masked man posing as a delivery person had arrived at her salon, Blossom The Beauty Lounge, located in a shopping plaza in the Jardines del Valle neighborhood in Zapopan, Jalisco.
Another man accompanied him on a motorcycle.
Márquez was not at the salon at the time, but a woman who was present later said that the men told her they had a “very expensive gift” for Márquez that they had to deliver in person.
Later, while livestreaming, Márquez detailed the incident and expressed fear about her well-being.
Image credits: v___marquez
She sat waiting for the delivery, clutching a pink stuffed animal and a cup of Starbucks coffee, sent by her friend, Vivian de la Torre.
“Maybe they were going to k**l me… Why didn’t he just drop it off? Were they going to take me away, or what? I’m worried,” she said in the video, minutes before she breathed her last.
Shortly after this, the men returned. One could be heard in the livestream asking: “Are you Valeria?”
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As soon as she nodded, the men opened fire at her, hitting her in the head and chest. She collapsed on the spot, leaving her followers horrified at the unfolding tragedy.
Some netizens suspected Vivian was involved in the incident, as she had insisted Márquez wait for the delivery and even sent her coffee and a soft toy to keep her entertained.
CJNG members have been accused of several other homicides, including that of a mayor
Image credits: elpaismexico
Hours before Márquez was attacked, former congressman Luis Armando Córdova Díaz lost his life in the same area, just a few miles away. It was also carried out by two armed men on a two-wheeler.
Two days earlier, Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayoral candidate for Morena in Texistepec, Veracruz, was fatally wounded during a political motorcade.
While authorities did not establish any connections between the incidents, the prosecutor’s office admitted that CJNG ruled the streets of Jalisco with an iron fist.
They also said that hired assassins on motorcycles, locally called “sicarios,” had become a common occurrence.
Image credits: v___marquez
In June 2025, the US Treasury cited the leaders of CJNG in a sanction that accused them of committing homicides, including targeted fatal attacks on women, as a “tool of intimidation” used against rival cartels.
They also blamed the cartel for a significant share of fentanyl and other illegal substances entering America.
Image credits: Carlos Manzo
In the sanctions, Ricardo Ruíz Velasco, or “Double R,” a CJNG lieutenant closely linked to the cartel’s leader, Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, had been identified as the prime suspect for Márquez’s femicide.
Media reports at the time claimed he was her former partner. However, Mexican authorities dismissed any such allegations. It has since been clarified that there is “no evidence” linking him to the femicide.
Image credits: v___marquez
Velasco has a long criminal history dating back to 2012, including his alleged involvement in the homicide of Venezuelan model Daisy Ferrer Arenas and Mexican influencer Juan Luis Lagunas.
“Influencers have become another cog in the machine of organized crime,” David Saucedo, an expert on Mexican cartels, told CBS News days after Márquez’s femicide.
“That’s the kind of power that runs certain parts of Mexico,” a reader wrote
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