Cartel member arrested in 2018 YouTube commentator killing

MEXICO CITY — Prosecutors in southern Mexico said Tuesday they have arrested an alleged lieutenant of a drug gang for the 2018 murder of a YouTube commentator in Acapulco.

The Guerrero state prosecutors office said the suspect had once been the second in command of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco. The office identified the man only by his first names, Edgar Saúl, in keeping with anti-incrimination rules.

The victim, Leslie Ann Pamela Montenegro, was known by her YouTube persona as “Nana Pelucas.”

Before her death, she had been threatened by a drug gang over her YouTube channel and its commentary on local events in the resort city. She was shot to death by men who walked into a restaurant she ran near Acapulco’s tourist zone.

Montenegro used a big wig and glasses to deliver chatty, comic commentary and criticisms, some concerning the local government.

It is not the first time bloggers and other people who post on social media have been targeted by drug gangs in Mexico, for allegedly revealing information about their activities.

In 2011, a woman who used social media to report on local events was found decapitated by a drug cartel in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.