Police in Spain are investigating after a Spanish influencer died on-air early New Year’s Eve while participating in a cocaine-alcohol-fueled challenge for money.
Sergio Jiménez, who turned 37 on Dec. 13, had pledged to consume six grams of cocaine and a bottle of whisky for viewers who had bought him the goods and paid to watch him do it in under three hours, according to media accounts.
He lived with his mother, Teresa, in Vilanova i la Geltru, just southwest of Barcelona. She noticed his door ajar when she awoke around 2 a.m. last Wednesday, she told El Periódico de Catalunya.
“I asked him what he was doing, but he didn’t answer,” she told the newspaper.
She tried to push her way in, but something was blocking the door. Worried, Teresa called her other sons, and one, Daniel, came right over, she recounted.
He pushed his way into the bedroom to find his brother kneeling on the floor next to the bed as if in prayer, his head resting against the mattress and his palm curled tightly around his phone, which was still livestreaming, he told El Periódico. He was stiff and cold. A nearly empty whisky bottle, two energy drink cans and a small pile of cocaine atop a strip of red paper sat on a table nearby.
Viewers’ voices could be heard from the phone, according to Daniel, with them asking: “Are you sleeping off your hangover yet Sergio? Haven’t you finished your bottle of whisky?”
Jiménez was allegedly emulating streamer Simón Pérez, a fallen real estate developer who now earns his money by using drugs in front of paying live audiences on various platforms, according to El País. Jiménez, known as “Sancho” or “Sssanchopanza” on the Kick and Twitch streaming platforms, fashioned his own spinoff after starring alongside his mentor in a series of such videos in October.
Teresa’s other son, Jordi, had told their mother Jiménez was making extreme videos. He was already dealing with mental illness and addiction, she said.
The Catalan police force, Mossos d’Esquadra, has ordered an autopsy and is investigating the matter as a possible crime, looking for who supplied the drugs, who encouraged Jiménez, and other factors, they told El País. Police also released a video cautioning against participating in dangerous “viral challenges.”
