Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales Murder: Mexican YouTube Star Insults Cartel Boss In Video, Gets Gunned Down
Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales was known for showing off his flashy lifestyle on YouTube, and that ended up being the undoing for the Mexican teenager.
Rosales, known to his followers as “The Pirate of Culiacan,” amassed a sizeable following on YouTube and other social media where he shared pictures showing off his flashy sports cars, booze, drugs, and attractive female friends. As the New York Post noted, Rosales took it a step further in a recent video, insulting a man named Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the boss of the New Generation Cartel of Jalisco.
The loose talk was met with a swift response from the cartel. As the report noted, shortly after Rosales posted the video, four heavily armed men stormed into a bar where Rosales was drinking and executed the teenager with a hail of gunfire. The New York Post noted that the gunmen fired 18 shots into the teenager, killing him.
Apparently Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales was not expecting the harsh response from the cartel. A report from El Diario noted that he actually told followers where he would be at the bar, allowing the cartel members to find him and kill him. But even media outlets feared for the young man’s safety, with one newspaper noting that he had “signed his death warrant” with the insults of the cartel.
Rosales had a growing following and was featured on Mexican television, saying he wanted to expand his social media empire beyond his boastful YouTube videos. But he will not have that chance now, killed before his 18th birthday in a murder that has drawn international headlines.
Rosales’ death comes as the violence among and between cartels has spread. Earlier this month, a group of hitmen from the Viagras cartel killed a group of captives from a rival cartel in what Newsweek described as an “ISIS-style execution.”
The cartel violence has also spread to some of the country’s tourist hot spots. Six bodies were found hanging from a bridge in the Los Cabos area, a popular tourist resort. As Reuters noted, the killing had the markings of cartel violence.
Police are still investigating the murder of Juan Luis Lagunas Rosales and reportedly have not confirmed that the cartel he insulted was responsible for his slaying.
