Although dangerous Mexican drug lord El Chapo is out of commission while awaiting trial in the U.S., the area surrounding his former home state of Sinaloa has shown no shortage of cartel-related violence. And after 17-year-old YouTube star Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales posted a video in which he mocked one of Mexico’s most notorious drug lords, Nemesio Ocegera Cervante (a.k.a., “El Mencho”), the teen was shot dead with 15 bullets.
El Mencho is the leader of Jalisco’s New Generation Cartel in Jalisco, which operates about 650 miles away from where Lagunas grew up in Sinaloa. The teen enjoyed a quick rise to fame with over 1 million followers on his now-deleted Instagram page and a highly popular YouTube channel, where he would rack up hundreds of thousands of views while consuming blackout-quantities of booze and generally partying hard under the nickname “El Pirata de Culiacán.”
The Washington Post reports how Lagunas insulted El Mencho on YouTube and was subsequently murdered in a hail of bullets:
“El Mencho a mí me pela la verga.” Lagunas said, according to El Pais. The phrase is an insult that loosely means, “suck my c‑*ck.”
And on Monday night, while he and his friends partied at a bar in Jalisco, a group of armed individuals burst in and fired at Lagunas, the attorney general of Jalisco, Raúl Sánchez Jiménez, told Mexican media outlets. The teenager died, sustaining between 15 and 18 bullet wounds. Authorities managed to identify Lagunas by his tattoos.
Rosales’ death arrives while Mexico winds down one of its deadliest years on record. Reuters reveals how the country averaged 69 murders per day in 2017, which surpasses 2011’s record of 63 murders per day.
On Instagram, fellow viral star Beto Sierra memorialized his friend as follows: “You were living a fast life you never listened, and I don’t judge you. Those who knew you know you were a good person.”
(Via Washington Post, El Pais & Reuters)