How China’s TikTok Rakes in Cash for Cartels

Law enforcement officials across the southern border blame the Chinese app TikTok for facilitating cartel violence and drug smuggling, as well as luring young Americans into working for them with seductive videos.

“Cartels are trying to get workers. They’re trying to recruit people to help them out. [They] show lots of money, they show lots of drinking, partying, and everything else,” Commander Jorge Esparza of the Brooks County Sheriff Department told the Washington Free Beacon during a recent trip to the border. “The way I look at it is, if social media companies are getting mad at somebody for making a comment about race or sexuality or something, I think they should be held more accountable” for what cartels are posting.

Anyone can open TikTok and find what amounts to a job board offering: a few hundred bucks in exchange for a simple task, such as driving a car a few miles past a law enforcement checkpoint. A search for “cartel” on TikTok brings up thousands of posts—some of which resemble rap music videos—with a combined nearly 682 million views. Commenters ask how to apply for a job or leave their contact information.

The rise of the social media platform presents a new challenge for authorities overwhelmed with violence and crime stemming from the border crisis. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has faced criticism for its internal policy allowing the solicitation of human smuggling on its platforms, but few other social media companies host such brazen criminal activity. – READ MORE