Inside Brazil's Deadliest Drug Gangs | News on Drugs

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I used to live in Rio , grew up there and everything he mentioned is true to the bone. When the gangs are in war it's pretty scary and an attack can happen in plain day light.

My dad is from Brasil and grew up in the favelas of São Paulo, and used to sell drugs like weed, shrooms and coke back in the 70-80s. He has lots of great stories, but has since put this lifestyle behind him. He since met my Danish mother and moved here to Denmark/Dinamarca to raise me, which I respect him for, but I wish I was more in touch with my Brazilian side and family. Saudadés 😔🇧🇷🇩🇰

I'm from Brazil, and I can say that he tells better than a lot of journalists here... Well said and very accurate! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Vice Mexico and Vice Brazil teams rn duking it out for the title of best organized crime documentaries

the way he described everything in a timeline that makes sense really painted the picture of how rough it must be to live there. great job man

I'm a Brazilian from SP, all he said was spot on.

I'm from Rio and everything he said is true. I remember one day in 2008 when the governor launched a massive operation for the police to retake all of the favelas in the city from the gangs. I didn't go to school that day and my mother didn't go to work because the city was basically at war. We stayed home watching the operation on TV.

I had a Brazilian neighbor. Guy told me he got away from the military after his first assignment. I was baffled and asked "why?" Then he explained... First assignment as a rookie was to enter a prison after B.O.P.E, the rookies were placed in teams and were given a body part to pick up. So team 1 would be picking up Arms Team 2 would be picking up Legs Team 3 would be picking up Heads Team 4 would be picking up Torsos He gave some grimy visualization of what happens in Brazil its crazy.

The irony of all this is that harm reduction is a success in Portugal.

All said by mr Nico is very accurate with the reality (especially about Rio). What a piece for journalistic work!

This is the kind of insightful, non-bias, reporting that we use to love Vice for. We would never get this point of view from mainstream media. Vice please do more stuff like this where a person can actually feed their mind instead of the dull bloated reports you've done in recent years.

I am brazilian and I've been living in the metropolitan area of Rio for more than 20 years. In my opinion this interview was very accurate in many subjects, despite I disagree at some points. I met at least more than 10 people who were murdered, including a teenager girl, a person related to my family, my brother's best friend (they were classmates and friends since their childhood), the son (together with his friend and in front of his own house) of a wonderfull evangelical woman who helped my family a lot in the past (may she rest in peace) and even two neighbors who were killed around 2:30am inside their home, and we all woke up with the shots - many, many shots. A few days ago, an ex neighbor who I knew relatively well was also murdered. And I still remember a few others. Ok, the point is: none of them was rich, but most of them were not needy in terms of money - as an example, an ex classmate of mine, from a private school and in better situation than me, was arrested years ago for drug trafficking, and the newspapper even mentioned that he was a middle class guy, and that his house was imponent in comparison to its neighboring buildings. Back to the subject... most of them were mestizos like me (but darker), and a few others were either black or white. And most of them had also some things in common: they were on drugs, flirting with 'thug's lifestyle', attending to funk parties in the favelas and living completely imersed in guetto's culture. And you know what? This crap cultural environment is very present among teenagers, at least in this part of Rio de Janeiro state. Teenager boys and young men acting like thugs (clothes, language, manneirisms and so on) is something you can see often here. They are part of a cultural subversion process which tends to idolize crime, drugs, free sex and money. And yes, mainstream media has been feeding this process too, and as soon as you open your mouth to point it out, some people will say "you're racist and prejudicial against this artist/song/culture because he/she/it comes from the favelas". Obviously, poverty takes a role in crime and violence, but, in my opinion, cultural environment, at least in the context of the crime in Rio de Janeiro, plays the main role.

Vice I’ve been wanting a more recent video on Mexicos cartels if you guys could possibly cover them again but without putting yourselves in too much danger

great interview wish it was longer

Enslaved Africans did NOT smuggle weed on slave ships. What a dumb thing to say.

Brazil is my country, I lived in a poor neighborhood, the drug dealer was my neighbor, his mother was always smoking and she had cats. Really nice people. I was only robbed once in my street. Funny thing is: weekends the baile funk were organized by him and one other neighbor, a police officer. It's funny how you grow up in this environment and it's normal for you, I miss the old days, but I understand it wasn't healthy.

Outstanding interview, quite captive. It's a shame how the human mind is plagued with such trivialities to the extent of terminating one another.

Great reporting by Vice as usual! Keep it up my friends!!

Really takes me back to some of y’all’s best docs, keep it up