Mexican Drug Cartels vs. Mitt Romney's Mormon Family - Part 1/7

MITT ROMNEY: Drug trafficking, that's one more of those areas of concern. It's time for the United States of America to take responsibility for the pain, and suffering, and torture, and *** that's going on throughout Latin America. SHANE SMITH: Maybe one of the reasons that Mitt Romney is so concerned with the drug wars taking place just south of the American border is that it affects him and his family personally. Hi, I'm Shane Smith and we're here at the VICE headquarters in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Now Williamsburg is ground zero for hipsters, which means it's also ground zero for partying, which means it's ground zero for ***. Now VICE has talked a lot about *** over the years. In fact, one of our magazine covers featured a mirror with a big line of coke chopped up on it. But recently we followed a story that made us think twice about our historical fascination with coke. And it has to do with Mormons-- as in Mitt Romney's family type Mormons-- Mexican drug cartels, polygamy, kidnapping, ***, and finally, ***. Now it's a freaky, freaky story. And it's taking place just south of the US border. So we went to check it out first hand to see what was going on. We just passed through from El Paso, Texas, which is actually one of the safest cities in America, into Juarez, Mexico, which is actually one of the most dangerous cities in the world. In fact, it's the most dangerous city in the world for journalists. And we're driving with a camera rolling, which is, in retrospect, very *** stupid. People always ask me what the most dangerous place I've ever been to is. And when I say Mexico, they're a bit flummoxed and they say, Mexico? I've been to Mexico. I've been to Cancun, Joe's tequila foam party, and Boom Boom Room. But this Mexico here in Juarez, is the Mexico run by the narco lords. They don't care about what you're shooting. They don't walk up and say, hey, what's that camera for? They just see a camera and go, that can't good, and bam. Now the drug lords that rule northern Mexico are like most mafia around the world. They're very wealthy, and they're insanely ruthless. But the thing that sets the Mexican cartels apart from the other mobs is their seemingly profound love of ***. They put other crime syndicates to shame with the sheer scale of their killing, not to mention the gruesome eye-catching way they present their murders with a kind of evil inventiveness. And it's not just traditional gang on gang violence either. The cartels kill anyone and everyone in their way. Rivals, witnesses, journalists, politicians, and police are all targets. And rather than hiding the bodies like most criminals, they actually want you to see them. And they want you to know exactly who did it. In fact, the war on drugs in Mexico is so violent that its body count is almost 10 times that of American soldiers killed in the real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And in a country where it's supposedly illegal to own guns, the narcos are armed to the teeth with state-of-the-art weaponry, 90% of which are smuggled in from the United States, which is something we got to see first hand as soon as we arrived in Juarez. MEXICAN OFFICIAL: [SPEAKING SPANISH] SHANE SMITH: We came in here and we saw this huge bunker. And we're like, oh. This is where they hold all the guns, and all the drugs, and everything in this big, massive concrete bunker. And they're like, no, no. The drugs and the guns are here in the trucks. That's a nightclub called the Sphinx. So last night the police caught these guys trying to smuggle in 268,000 rounds of ammunition in a truck with Oklahoma plates. It was driven by a guy from Dallas. Over a quarter million rounds of ammunition, this is the kind of firepower that they have. This is a .30 caliber Browning, which shoots super fast and can shoot through armored cars. And then they have this anti-aircraft, .50 cal. Can I pick it up? MALE SPEAKER 1: No. No. You can't touch that. SHANE SMITH: ***, I did. I put my finger on it. I'm going to get in trouble. They just confiscated these weapons. And I touched the .50 cal. And they haven't dusted them for prints yet. So now my prints are on a *** weapon. Not good. MEXICAN OFFICIAL: [SPEAKING SPANISH] MITT ROMNEY: These look like they're from America. America, America, America, all the guns are from America. They're all homicides? They've tested them out? MEXICAN OFFICIAL: [SPEAKING SPANISH] SHANE SMITH: Oh, sorry. That was loud. It smells very strong. Holy Jesus, I know this doesn't look like crazy. But you can smell. Wow, it's a lot of drugs, drugs and flak jackets. So this is sort of a rustic type of smuggling. They call it a burrero, which is like a donkey. And they just walk through the desert with the pot on their back. So the market for the drugs is America. The market for the weapons is here in Mexico. And they go like this. When you look at this, like .50 cals, assault rifles, military grade machine guns, you realize, OK, how do the police fight them, let along regular people, let alone Mormons who aren't allowed to own guns. It's crazy. So we're about 200 miles south of Juarez now. And we're out in the middle of nowhere. This is like the narco superhighway. There's actually 300 different smuggling trails right through here. There's no big wall or anything. You can just walk off into the desert with your pack full of ***. And then, all of a sudden, folks in Williamsburg and hipsters are doing coke. As you're out here, it kind of dawns on you that there's nowhere to go. Like if something happens or if somebody even chases us, where are we going to run to? Because you can't trust the police. You especially can't trust the local police because they're all corrupt. So basically, right now, it's a straight shot to the Mormons, their guns, and their god. Ah, we've come to God's country. MALE SPEAKER 2: Joel LeBaron was killed by his own brother, Ervil. He started to kill in the name of God. SHANE SMITH: That's some crazy ***.