Criminal Recruitment on TikTok by Mexican Criminal Groups

Por Alejandra Jimena Arias Vásquez

Since 2024, the Seminar on Violence and Peace of El Colegio de México has been conducting research—operating through a TikTok user account—to track the algorithmic behavior of content that glorifies criminal culture, particularly posts featuring images and symbols that praise criminal groups' activities. One of the greatest challenges for the research is that digital platforms' ubiquity knows no borders; content travels far beyond where the post was originally created. This article summarizes the study's findings.

Nowadays, digital platforms are yet another space for consolidating criminal groups. These spaces facilitate criminal recruitment without coercion—a form of recruitment classified as “non-coercive” according to the typology developed by the Observatorio Nacional para la Prevención del Reclutamiento de Niñas, Niños y Adolescentes (ONPRENNA), an organization composed of civil society, public institutions, and academics. 

The Observatory was part of a public safety strategy focused on preventing crime and human rights violations to support children's and adolescents' well-being. However, it operated in Mexico only from its creation in 2021 until 2024. Collaboration between the Observatory and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) was crucial to establishing criminal recruitment as a crime, since Mexico does not currently classify it as such in legislation, even though several initiatives aim to add it to the federal criminal code.  

As this security strategy was disrupted and after the arrest of Ismael Zambada, aka “El Mayo”, organized crime demonstrated its ability to adapt to rifts within the Sinaloa Cartel (CDS). This event split the CDS into two factions: Mayiza and Chapiza. Cohesion among the armed wings broke down. The cartel viewed this as betrayal, and in terms of criminal recruitment dynamics, it created a need to increase the number of armed individuals in each faction. Children and adolescents became an easy target for recruitment. 

The Glorification of Criminal Culture

While the battle takes place on the ground, the digital realm and its infrastructure—manifested in social media networks and platforms—facilitate the demand for armed personnel to control territories, where the conflict between Mayiza and Chapiza is only one part of the organized-crime recruitment ecosystem. In this context, at El Colegio de México's Seminar on Violence and Peace, we conducted the study New Frontiers in Digital Recruitment, published in April 2025. 

In late 2024, using a TikTok user account, we began tracking the algorithmic behavior of content that glorifies criminal culture. That is, posts featuring images and symbols praising the activities of criminal groups—namely, people carrying high-caliber weapons, long-range communication radios, tactical gear bearing cartel acronyms, and armored convoys—sometimes accompanied by songs alluding to criminal leaders, and other times simply by songs from the genre typically associated with crime in Mexico: the corridos. We identified 100 TikTok accounts linked to criminal propaganda, arms sales, human trafficking, and criminal recruitment. 

Of the 100 accounts, 47% were related to recruitment, and 31% promoted propaganda or glorified criminal culture. This finding was crucial in confirming that the digital space mirrors organized crime and facilitates the creation of new identities, successfully resonating with children and youth. Another significant finding is that 54.3% of the accounts studied were associated with the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (CJNG), 5.4% with the CDS (without distinction between factions), and another 5.4% with La Mayiza.  The Northeast Cartel (CDN) also emerged as a group that primarily posted propaganda videos promoting its criminal brand, set to music by Makabélico, a rap artist the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned in 2025 due to his alleged ties to the CDN. 

In the same month we published our report, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Omar García Harfuch presented updates on the investigation into a recruitment center discovered in Teuchitlán, Jalisco, at Rancho Izaguirre. This event marked a turning point in the authorities’ recognition of the existence of criminal recruitment through social media. The Cyber Police’s operations are essential for monitoring both genuine and fraudulent job offers to keep fewer people from being drawn into a life of crime; however, they remain insufficient to address this rapidly growing phenomenon. 

Just like a Hydra, while Mexican authorities were taking down accounts on digital platforms—including TikTok—job postings, propaganda, and confrontations continued to circulate with the help of the algorithm. Our investigation did not end with that first report; we kept monitoring. Some accounts disappeared, but many others sprang up, and people shared, saved, and commented on their content. This circulation reinforces recruitment narratives—that is, the combination of visual, auditory, and symbolic elements in TikTok content that, when combined, convey persuasive messages encouraging a life of crime. 

The category of recruitment narratives is a key concept in our second report, Del Scroll al “jale”: cómo se recluta en TikTok [From Scrolling to a “Gig”: How Recruitment Works on TikTok]. Unlike the first report, this one was more analytical than merely descriptive. The analysis presented a shift in perspective by focusing on videos rather than accounts. The videos continued to circulate even after the Teuchitlán case, the account suspensions, and the media attention. Criminal groups knew how to adapt; their communication strategy no longer centered solely on emojis and hashtags, as we documented in the first investigation. In some cases, they created more explicit content, offering job opportunities for a specific cartel or seeking a pre-trained workforce—for example, former military personnel and former members of Colombian special operations forces. In others, the content circumvents TikTok’s moderation by omitting direct mentions of criminal groups, avoiding the use of previously flagged emojis and posting only visual metaphors—such as young people atop a hill with walkie-talkies in their pockets and a rifle nearby, or children posing with weapons while covering their faces with an emoji, or a “smiley face” as they flaunt their membership in a circle that grants them access to instruments of power and death. 

It has been a few months since “Del Scroll al ‘jale’” was shared publicly. And in these months, organized crime has continued to reshape itself. The TikTok videos now feature increasingly younger people—children surrounded by uncertainty and danger. Now, on the account with the trained algorithm, more videos of people wearing clothing bearing the initials “MZ”—associated with La Mayiza, a faction that remains active in the conflict in Sinaloa even though its former leader is serving a sentence in a U.S. prison—appear.

The kingpin strategy is ineffective when the financial structure and the criminal recruitment ecosystem remain intact. Among the recommendations outlined in our second report are conducting ongoing assessments (where ONPRENNA could clearly play a role and ensure continuity), strengthening cybersecurity, promoting digital literacy, and building alternative narratives in which criminal paths cease to be attractive. One of the greatest challenges lies in the ubiquity of digital platforms, which know no borders; content travels far beyond where the post was originally created. Criminal recruitment via TikTok is a global problem. 

About the author 

Researcher at the Seminar on Violence and Peace which coordinated the research line on criminal recruitment in the digital realm. She served on the security commission recommending public policy strategies for peace as part of the Commitment to Peace. She volunteered with Mexico United Against Crime (MUCD) as an observer in civic justice courts and public prosecutor’s offices. She also has anti-money-laundering experience at banking institutions such as Citibanamex and HSBC. She is a Ph.D. candidate in Political and Social Sciences at UNAM. She holds a master’s degree in Political and Social Studies, specializing in violence and criminal dynamics in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, as well as in the study of extortion practices. 

Subscribe to our newsletter

This article is part of our newsletter issue number 26. To receive upcoming issues in your inbox, click here.