Posted on 03/27/2025 2:44:48 AM PDT by Libloather
The popular social media platform TikTok has removed a hashtag from its search engine after cartel members were caught using it to highlight their crimes and recruit human smugglers.
A TikTok spokesperson told Fox News Digital that in addition to removing "#CartelTok," from its search engine, the platform also removed "known leaders of cartels or gangs" that violated the organization's policy.
Many of the videos in question showed cartels flashing piles of money, jewelry and luxury items that were used to entice teens in America and Mexico to smuggle illegal immigrants across the U.S. border.
The videos proved that the cartel members were not afraid to boast about their illegal operations, often flaunting their cash on TikTok and other apps, bragging about the ease at which they can evade authorities.
"Carteltok is WILDDD," read a caption from a TikTok video posted on X.
"On TikTok there's currently a trend called 'carteltok', where Mexican cartels hire drug mules who are then paid in crypto. It almost seems as if the cartels are striking back at the Trump administration," another X user wrote, sharing another video of cartels at work from another social media site.
The smugglers not only targeted TikTok for their recruitment, they used other social media sites, including Snapchat and Instagram, among others. They then use encrypted messaging apps, usually WhatsApp, to communicate anonymously with cartel members, getting audio or text messages instructing them where to pick up their human payloads, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Chris Olivarez previously told Fox News Digital.
Representatives for Snapchat, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, told Fox News Digital that they have policies in place to crack down on such content and remove such content when it does appear on their platforms.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“bragging about the ease at which they can evade authorities.”
The video’s should speak to the past tense. These next four years will not be as easy. I expect recruitment to be on the low side for the time being. At least until another democrat gets elected. The way it’s going, that could be a while.
Or they should be appended with video codas, or video “P.S.”es: this is me, currently vacationing in sunny El Salvador.
It would’ve been better to have been left active so it could be used as a source of intel.
Makes me wonder if china owned tik tok actually intended to help out with the policy-violation rationale used as plausible deniability.
BTTT
Writers and editors on Fox News need to look up the difference between “squash” and “quash”.
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