A Venezuelan influencer was shot dead while livestreaming on TikTok, exposing gangs and allegedly corrupt police.
According to CNN, Venezuela’s Ministry of Public Safety stated on Instagram that influencer Gabriel Jesús Sarmiento was shot and killed in the city of Maracay on Monday during his livestream.
The TikToker often criticised criminal and alleged corruption of the law and enforcement through his social media content.
As per ministry, he was killed shortly after reporting “threats made against him by members of the GEDOs (Organised Crime Structured Groups, in Spanish) and alleged police officials.”
The ministry also added that it has assigned the 69th Prosecutor’s Office Against Organised Crime to “investigate, identify, and prosecute” those responsible for the influencer’s death.
In a livestream recording viewed by CNN, a woman can be heard screaming offscreen, and a man is asking her why she was yelling.
After a heavy burst of gunfire, a man could be seen in the recording shouting, “What happened? What happened?”
The other man screamed, “They shot me!” The video then ends with an image of two unidentified armed men.
Notably, Sarmiento’s death came more than a month after a Mexican beauty influencer, Valeria Marquez, was shot dead in her beauty salon in Jalisco during the livestream.
