QBA: Mexican YouTube star admits dissolving bodies of missing students in acid

Rapper says he was under orders from feared drug cartel - and admits participation in three other murders

Mexican rapper and YouTube star Christian Omar Palma Gutierrez, known as QBA (from Facebook)

A rapper and YouTube star has admitted dissolving the bodies of three missing students in acid, claiming he was under orders from one of Mexico’s most feared drug cartels.

Christian Omar Palma Gutierrez – known as QBA - told investigators he disposed of the corpses after the film students were killed by the gang.

And the 24-year-old, whose YouTube channel has more than 125,000 subscribers, admitted being involved in three previous murders too

Salomon Aceves Gastelum, 25, Daniel Diaz, 20, and Marco Avalos, 20, were abducted after being mistaken for members of the rival Nueva Plaza cartel in the city of Guadalajara, according to the AFP news agency.

Prosecutors believe the kidnappers struck while the trio were filming a project near a former base of the rival outfit.

They beat Mr Gastelum to death while questioning him, and then decided to kill the surviving two. Their bodies were dumped in sulphuric acid to destroy evidence.

Gutierrez – whose songs glamorise violence, death and narcotics – is one of two people so far arrested in connection with the murders.

After more human remains were found at the same sites as the missing students, he told prosecutors he had also been involved in a trio of other murders since being recruited to work for the cartel three months ago. Though his music videos show luxury cars and designer clothes, Gutierrez told police he was being paid just 3,000 pesos – £114 —a week to work for the gang.

Chief investigator Lizette Torres told AFP that Gutierrez’s videos were forming part of the investigation.

The productions tend to depict gang members Guadalajara and are filled with firearms and drugs.

Gutierrez and the second detained suspect will be charged with aggravated kidnapping. Police said they were still searching for at least five other suspects.

Almost 29,000 people were murdered in Mexico in 2017; the country’s deadliest year since records started 20 years ago. Another 33,000 people are currently listed as missing.

Much of the violence is down to Mexico’s US-backed war on drugs which has seen the military deployed since 2006.

The violence will be a key issue in the upcoming presidential election which the current ruling party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party—led by President Enrique Peña Nieto—is expected to lose.