(laughter)
CHIP: My whole life was like...
My whole life was like...
(sighs)
Like a jungle.
MARIANA: You're 15 years old and you've just arrived in
a new country where economic survival is an ongoing struggle.
CHIP: I got five siblings,
two twin brothers and three sisters.
Rent was always late.
Lights cut out sometimes, you got to use the candles.
MARIANA: On these streets, when opportunity does knock,
it often comes in the form of gang membership.
CHIP: When it comes to recruitments,
immigrants are the most vulnerable,
easiest targets.
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Yeah ♪♪
CHIP: They already come from having nothing.
♪ Yeah ♪♪
CHIP: The younger they are, the easier to manipulate.
♪ Go ♪♪
CHIP: Because they have a mindset,
"I have a point to prove. I have a point to prove."
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Give me some (inaudible) keeping the lights off ♪♪
REPORTER (over TV): L.A. area gangs are targeting
the city's rich in a new aggressive way.
MARIANA: Those who heed the call will walk through a doorway into
a black market teeming with guns, drugs, and cash.
♪ You see they're not moving ♪♪
MARIANA: But there's a price to pay,
because this door revolves.
(theme music playing).
♪ Wear your armor ♪
♪ I'm, like, I use no weapon, it's an honor ♪
♪ I'm like let's get to flexing ♪
♪ Quite the turn, you better get to stepping ♪
♪ If they wanna ♪♪
♪ Hey, I started making noise ♪
♪ Now they say I'm certified ♪♪
MARIANA: This is Chip and Playboi.
They are gang members in Los Angeles.
For them, these streets are paved with gold.
It's just a matter of extracting it.
So, if you were sitting on this corner and
you're waiting for somebody,
is there a specific kind of person that you're targeting?
By the way they're dressed or...
MARIANA: And do you go to places like Beverly Hills or Bel-Air or...
MARIANA: Is there more security there?
MARIANA: There are public and private sides to the gangs of LA.
Outwardly, there's the Swagger; the Outlaw culture recognized
and even celebrated around the world.
But there's also the business end of gang life.
The black markets and violence that fuel the lifestyle.
CHIP: Where I'm going to take y'all right now is by the strip club.
MARIANA: So she would call and say,
"Okay, there's a guy that has a lot of money,
a lot of cash, and he's walking out right now."
MARIANA: Guns or what are you doing?
MARIANA: These armed robberies and home invasions are a means
to an end, staking them with enough money to pursue
their own version of the American dream.
MARIANA: Oh, my God. And is it...
This all illegal weed?
MARIANA: Oh.
And oh, so you're selling wholesale?
MARIANA: $1,500 for that?
MARIANA: What's a Kel-Tec?
MARIANA: So wait, so if these guns all have serial numbers,
which I'm assuming they do, right?
'Cause they're not ghost guns,
how do you go about selling them on the black market?
MARIANA: Playboi is associated with the Bloods
and Chip with the Crips.
But they share a background that has cemented their relationship.
So you guys were born in the US, right?
MARIANA: Belize, where Playboi and Chip's family come from,
is a small country in Central America and
a poor one relative to the United States.
MARIANA: So did your parents, knowing that you guys were
surrounded by gangs and gang activity when you were
growing up, did they want to move elsewhere, or did they?
MARIANA: Were your families involved in gangs?
ALEX: The tradition of gangs in Los Angeles and
in the United States goes back over 200 years.
We often talk about Blacks, Latinos, Mexicans,
people from Central America,
but the early history of gangs in the United States
were mostly White immigrants.
Italians, Irish, Jews.
MARIANA: Professor Alex Alonzo has spent more
than 20 years researching gangs in America.
ALEX: By the time you get to the early part of the 20th Century,
you start seeing African Americans, you start seeing Latinos,
mostly Mexicans and Puerto Ricans,
they start participating.
And then when you get into the '80s,
the '90s and 2000s, you got a whole group of Central Americans
that are immigrating into the United States,
and now they are becoming the gang members of America.
MARIANA: I want to know how a tiny country like Belize,
with a population of just 400,000,
has produced, anecdotally,
so many heavy hitters in Los Angeles street gangs.
But first, I need to understand the landscape.
How many gang members in total do you think exist in LA?
SANCHEZ: It's gotta be 50,000.
MARIANA: Detective Sanchez and his partners in
the Los Angeles Sheriff's Gang Suppression Unit,
report that 17 of the last 19 murders
in the district they cover have been gang related.
REPORTER (over TV): That safety threat seems to be
growing even more alarming; gan members roving in several cars.
REPORTER 2 (over TV): Thieves targeting victims with expensive watches and
designer handbags.
MARIANA: A recent police task force identified 17 different gangs
participating in the latest wave of follow-home robberies.
SANCHEZ: We've seen an increase in crime, tremendously.
Yeah.
Our homicides are up, in the late 40's to 50's.
Our shootings are up about the same.
MARIANA: Percent, you mean percentage?
SANCHEZ: Percentage. Yes. MARIANA: Wow.
SANCHEZ: The last couple years, it's just spiked.
MARIANA: As have armed robberies.
In 2021, they increased 57% over the year before.
SANCHEZ: Let me see your hands...
(speaking in native language).
SANCHEZ: Anything on you right now?
Let me know. Nothing?
MAN: No.
SANCHEZ: You sure? MAN: I'm sure.
SANCHEZ: Every gang member has a role within the gang.
Some people are shooters.
Some people commit thefts.
Other people commit embezzlement.
Your most respected are the guys that commit
the shootings and the assaults.
MARIANA: But it's the young ones who often carry weapons.
Keep an eye on the young man in the red shirt as we pull up.
MAN: Hey, come on, bro.
Get your hands, bro.
SANCHEZ: One of my partners recovered this
from one of the gang members.
It's basically a semi-auto nine millimeter.
There was one in the chamber and several live rounds in the magazine.
I believe that the gang member that had
this firearm was a juvenile.
I believe he's 15, so that's very common.
The older gang members know that they have less time in jail,
less sentences for juveniles,
as opposed to an adult who's on probation,
who has a criminal record to have this firearm.
So it's very common for the youngsters to have the firearm
and nothing happens to the kid.
His grandmother comes right now, we give them both citations.
That's it, he's done.
He can get another gun right now and be out here again.
MARIANA: LA has more than 450 gangs,
each with its own customs and history.
And according to Chip and Playboi,
many Belizean gang members are concentrated here
in the Jungles.
20 years ago, this neighborhood was a location of the film,
Training Day.
(overlapping chatter)
HOYT: What are we doing going in here, man?
We'll get killed coming in here.
HARRIS: Ah, you know about this place, huh?
HOYT: Yeah, it's the Jungle, right?
HARRIS: That's right.
HOYT: They say don't come in here with anything less than a platoon.
MARIANA: Today, the Jungles is still known as
an active gang neighborhood in Los Angeles.
Think we're meeting here in the corner of this park.
To film here, we've been told that we need permission
from an elder in the gang.
And to get that elder, we'll first need to be vetted
by a man named Squab.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: So it wouldn't have been wise for us to just come here by ourselves,
with cameras, without having you?
SQUAB: Nah.
Because (bleep) might pull up on you and rob you,
and shoot you, anything.
You feel me?
You're not safe without a tour guide, basically.
MARIANA: It looks much nicer than what I was expecting.
SQUAB: Yeah. We keep it nice.
MARIANA: It's like all the beautiful palm trees and...
SQUAB: Yeah. We keep it up nice.
But it's very dangerous.
You know, coming around here playing,
you might get what you're looking for.
MARIANA: I want to understand how members of a small immigrant community,
in this case Belize, are swallowed by the tide of
gang violence in Los Angeles.
But gaining access to this area where
they're concentrated requires permission.
Squab, how old were you when you joined the gang?
SQUAB: I was, like, 12.
I went to the meeting and lied, and said I was 14.
MARIANA: Why? Did you just really wanted to be a part?
SQUAB: Yeah. I need, I needed in.
MARIANA: Why?
SQUAB: Because, I just, I just loved everything about it.
It was, like, it, it was just a family set, you feel me?
It was an upbringing, you feel me?
It was love.
It was, it was just different.
MARIANA: And so you're, you're a Blood?
SQUAB: I'm a P. Stone. MARIANA: A P. Stone.
SQUAB: Yeah. It, it, it falls under the category of Bloods.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
And you, you still consider yourself a P. Stone?
SQUAB: Yeah, I'm gonna always be that.
My whole life.
MARIANA: How many times have you been shot in your lifetime?
SQUAB: Two separate times, 13 shots.
So, I got shot five times here.
MARIANA: Oh my God. This is all a scar?
SQUAB: Yup. Four inches away from the heart.
MARIANA: Wow.
SQUAB: In the stomach, like an inch away from the spine.
MARIANA: I can see all the bullet holes here.
What happened?
SQUAB: I'm a active gang member at the time, fully fledged...
MARIANA: Mm-hmm. SQUAB: With it.
So that comes with the territory.
MARIANA: How did you survive?
SQUAB: I was in the hospital, like, 30 days.
I was back out here doing the same (bleep) I was doing.
MARIANA: Really? SQUAB: Before I got shot.
But more now.
Now I was trying to kill some (bleep).
CHIP: It's a thrill.
The fightings, the robberies,
the shootings, seeing people get jumped.
It's exciting to ask a new face where they're from and
pull out a knife, give them a couple shanks or something,
you know, like, "Stay the (bleep) away from here.
You don't belong here and I've never seen you here before,
and this is why what's happening to you is happening."
MARIANA: Is it this way? SQUAB: Yeah, it's this way.
Yeah, we going right upstairs,
up here and, uh, I'm gonna introduce yous.
MARIANA: So, yeah. Can hear some music.
SQUAB: Yeah, that's some of my, that's my Belizean people
playing a Caribbean music a little bit,
everybody live in the building.
MARIANA: So you have immigrant,
a lot of Belizeans and other immigrant groups?
SQUAB: Definitely. All type of immigrant.
MARIANA: Squab says there's only one person who can grant us
permission to film among the Black P. Stones
in the Jungles, and that's who we're headed to meet now.
TONE: In 1983, my mother was killed.
My mother was beat to death.
So I became seriously active in the gang at that time.
I picked up a gun, was trying to kill the man that
was actually, like, beat my mother to death.
MARIANA: Hmm. How old were you?
TONE: I was 16.
MARIANA: Tone is an elder among the Black P. Stones.
He first moved to the Jungles when he was seven years old.
At the time, the Bloods and Crips were new gangs.
The Crips had formed in 1969,
as an alliance between two small street gangs and
took on the color blue as a tribute to a member
who was wearing blue when he was killed.
Three years later, an offshoot set of Crips would form their own gang,
taking on the color red and referring to members as Bloods.
Unlike other organized crime groups,
the Bloods and Crips are largely decentralized,
meaning members rarely pay money upwards.
TONE: When I joined a gang, I joined a gang.
It was a decision I made.
I wasn't birthed into it.
You have a lot of gang members now that are birthed into it.
MARIANA: So, by birthed into it, you mean these kids
that are born and they really don't have an option?
They...
TONE: Exactly.
MARIAN: They're forced to joining.
TONE: And, or, and, or their parents are already from the gang.
MARIANA: Right.
TONE: Right now, if you're young,
you don't really have a choice.
MARIANA: What about immigrant communities that's,
like Belizeans, who started coming here?
How did it affect, when you're coming here with your family,
when you're super young, or you're first generation?
TONE: Whatever gang element they moved into,
the gangs are mainly like the families in that neighborhood,
they're going to pull to that like a small village.
So it doesn't matter.
If they landed in the Crips,
they're gonna be part of the Crips.
If they landed in the Bloods, they're gonna be part of the Bloods.
It's the village of whatever part of town they move to.
MARIANA: Do you know people who are currently,
young people who are active in?
TONE: I know, I know all the ones that's active in my neighborhood.
MARIANA: Could you put in a word for us?
We're, we'd love to meet.
TONE: That's not a problem.
I can get you a couple of ones that's really active in the gangs.
We can definitely do that.
(phone buzzing)
GHOST: Hello? Yeah, you.
Hey, you, uh, you can come now, fool,
I'm on the block.
All right. Damn.
MARIANA: He's here? GHOST: Come in, bro.
MAN: Sup? GHOST: What's happening, dude?
GHOST: Four? MAN: Yeah.
GHOST: This is how we, this is how we serve it up,
so he say he want four lines, so that's four ounces...
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
GHOST: So I just gotta pour it until it hit four.
MARIANA: Oh, it's really purple.
Tone has cleared the way for me to meet, "Ghost,"
a member of the Black P. Stones
who was born in Belize.
Ghost makes his living selling ounces of lean,
a potent mixture of cough syrup and promethazine.
How much do you pay for it?
GHOST: This right here is four lines,
so that's, like, that's 250 a line...
MARIANA: It's $1,000?
GHOST: Yeah, that's how much we get.
(inaudible), all set my boy.
(overlapping chatter)
MARIANA: Bye.
So this is all the money you made today?
GHOST: Yeah.
MARIANA: So, it's about $2,000 just from selling drugs?
GHOST: Yeah.
MARIANA: So wait, so you were born where?
GHOST: I was born in Belize.
MARIANA: And when did you come to the US?
GHOST: I came out here when I was like, when I was 17-years-old.
So I, I came out here nine years ago.
MARIANA: When you were living in Belize though, do,
did you know what gang life was already?
GHOST: Yeah, I was, because I had been exposed over there.
Deports, like, deportees from over here go over there
and they start gangs.
So, I grew up around that.
MARIANA: What kind of gangs were there?
GHOST: Um, Bloods, Crips. MARIANA: So the same gangs?
GHOST: Yeah, the same gang over here.
Me growing up, I had to have pistol with me going to school.
I grew up people not liking me because of my dad back home.
MARIANA: Can you tell me what your dad does in Belize?
GHOST: He the police in Belize right now, ma'am.
He ain't in charge, but he's...
MARIANA: One of them. Right now?
GHOST: Right now.
MARIANA: Does he know you're involved in a gang here?
GHOST: He do.
Yeah, he know I been in the prison and all that like.
MARIANA: And what, what, what were you charged with?
MARIANA: And now you're totally free now, are you?
GHOST: Yeah, almost two years,
I've got this ankle monitor on my leg.
And I keep violating it.
Like, I keep getting violations and all type of crazy stuff.
So I don't know.
You know, I was born in Belize,
so you know how the immigration goes.
They was trying to deport me.
MARIANA: The fact that Ghost was not born here,
and is not a US citizen,
means his situation is particularly fraught.
GHOST: Mom.
WOMAN (over phone): Mm-hmm.
GHOST: I'm on my way to court.
WOMAN (over phone): What are you gonna tell them at court?
GHOST: I'm going to go see if the attorney tell me,
if he could get me on probation.
MARIANA: Although Ghost has already served 16 months in
prison for prior charges, he's headed back to court today
to face new charges for gun possession and robbery,
or he could simply be deported.
And so what's the worst case scenario for you?
MARIANA: What, what, what do you think that time would be,
if you do have to serve time?
GHOST: Probably like a year and a half, two years.
It ain't nothing.
MARIANA: For you, would it be worse to have to serve time
in prison or be deported back to Belize?
MARIANA: You prefer to do time in prison than to go back to Belize?
MARIANA: This is shocking to me.
What is happening in Belize that is both feeding
new recruits to LA gangs,
and is horrific enough that somebody like Ghost would
rather spend years in an American jail than be sent back?
Chip knows someone who can answer that question.
CHIP: Tanga, he's a good friend of mine.
But he went and robbed somebody and ended up getting caught.
Instead of sentencing him to prison,
they deported him back to Belize,
let them deal with it.
MARIANA: Today, Tanga has reestablished himself as
a top drug dealer in Belize City.
And since he's not allowed in the US,
I'm going to him.
♪ ♪
MARIANA: I first came to Belize as a tourist 20 years ago.
Flying in and passing over its long reef and emerald waters,
you can't miss the appeal.
(singing native language).
MARIANA: It's a new country,
barely 40 years old, with a young population and
an economy that runs on sugarcane, bananas, and tourism.
I've come to meet Chip's friend, Tanga,
who's also affiliated with the Crips.
He's promised to show me how gang life has become woven into
the fabric of Belize.
But in a crazy twist of fate,
I now know that's never going to happen.
(sobbing)
MARIANA: So you can see all the cars lined up.
This is the end of the procession,
and this was there, where they were bringing the casket.
Right now, there's all the family members and
friends all surrounded.
Instead of interviewing Tanga,
I've arrived in time for his funeral.
(sirens wailing)
Local news reports are providing the disturbing details
of what appears to be a hit by a rival gang.
REPORTER (over TV): Known to many as Tanga,
was executed as he drove a sport utility vehicle in
the company of Marybeth Wade.
REPORTER 2 (overTV): Eyewitnesses on the scene say that the vehicle was shot at
King Street, but sped away quickly in an attempt to escape
REPORTER 3 (over TV): The father of four, it is believed,
was on the wrong side of town when he was ambushed.
MARIANA: When we arrive for the service,
we see almost the entire community has turned out
to say goodbye and pay their respects.
(horns honking)
MARIANA: One of the many people Tanga left behind was
his girlfriend, Marybeth, who was also shot in the attack.
MARYBETH: He had one of the sweetest soul I ever met.
The feeling he give me, nobody never give me that yet.
MARIANA: This is not the first brush that Marybeth's family has
had with gun violence.
Five years before Tanga's killing,
the body of Marybeth's own brother, Albert Jr.,
was discovered on a dirt road, brutally murdered.
You were with Tanga, right, when he was shot and killed?
MARYBETH: Yeah.
The first shot came, boom.
And he told me to get down.
And the next shot came.
He drove off and in speed, like, really hard,
and the car just crashed into a wall, a cement wall.
And I lift up my head and I said, "Babe, I got hit."
And blood was everywhere.
When I lift his head up...
MARIANA: Oh, my God.
MARYBETH: I saw the bullet hole at his neck and
all the blood was, you know, gushing out.
And I told him to breathe.
Hold on. I said, "We'll get help."
I just feel his breath left his body and...
(sighs)
Then I'm screaming and asking God to help me.
And I ask him, "Babe, please pray on us, God, to save you."
Second hardest day of my life, losing my brother and losing
the man I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
MARIANA: I mean, in a way, he kept you safe, right,
by holding you down?
MARYBETH: Yeah.
So he saved me with his last breath.
PRODUCER: Hold on. Let's cut, guys.
Someone's here.
MARYBETH: (bleep).
Who, who that?
ALBERT SR.: Shut this (bleep) down.
(speaking native language).
Do you want it easy or do you want it rough?
Get the (bleep) out of my property!
Get the (bleep). This is my (bleep) property.
MARIANA: Her dad who's very upset about what happened
to his daughter and he doesn't want cameras here and he's yelling.
Let's get out for now and then we can come back in.
Okay, sir, we will.
We'll get out.
ALBERT SR.: (bleep). MARIANA: Sir. Sir.
PRODUCER: We said yes! MARIANA: We said yes.
ALBERT SR.: Leave! MARIANA: Okay.
We're getting out.
ALBERT SR.: (bleep). MARIANA: We're getting out.
We're getting out! Hey, sir.
Don't touch, don't touch them.
Don't, hey, hey. Sir, don't touch, please.
No touching! No touching!
Everybody's leaving.
MARYBETH: What is your problem? ALBERT SR.: Stop the video.
MARYBETH: (bleep). PRODUCER: Everyone is leaving.
MARYBETH: What is your problem?
(dogs barking)
MARIANA: Eventually, things calm down,
and we are able to speak with Marybeth's father, Albert, Sr.
Can you tell me why you were very angry?
ALBERT SR.: Because I remember my son.
I didn't have no, I don't have nothing against you guys.
MARIANA: I know. ALBERT SR.: I'm sorry.
MARIANA: No, it's okay. You don't need to apologize.
It's easy to understand why the presence of a crew from
the United States has triggered him.
The gang activity that has devastated his family is
a direct export from America.
ALBERT SR.: Until you go through this situation,
you will never understand.
Everybody and I wish people would think before
they do stupid things and...
ALEX: The deportation policy, it may or may not be working,
depending on how you look at it.
They're getting rid of gang members out of Los Angeles and
out of California, yeah, that's probably the goal.
But at the same time, you're just sending the culture
to another land, creating the problem there.
MARIANA: When gang members like Tanga were deported
from the US back to Belize,
they brought their affiliations with them,
spawning Belizean crews of American gangs.
ALEX: You have the Rollin' 30s, the Rollin' 20s,
the Black P. Stones, the Brims,
you have all these gangs now in Belize to spread that culture.
MARIANA: Back in LA, Chip, who connected us with Tanga,
is mourning his friend's death.
(phone line ringing)
MARIANA: Hey, Chip. So sorry for your loss.
We were at the funeral.
MARIANA: So you don't, you don't know exactly who killed him yet.
You don't know which group, or if it was a group, or a gang?
MARIANA: So, what do you, what's your advice because
obviously we're gonna try and talk to people here, um,
and it's an incredibly volatile time to be,
you know, investigating all of this?
MARIANA: Chip comes through with an address,
leading us here,
to an abandoned building in Belize City.
Though he has guaranteed access,
we're told that he cannot guarantee our security.
I think, it's definitely here.
Watch out here.
Can I come in?
♪ ♪
(rapping in native language).
MARIANA: Belize is home to over two dozen feuding groups of
Bloods and Crips, most of them concentrated in the south part
of the capital, Belize City.
In the space of 20 years, the number of murders in this
country has more than tripled, giving it,
per capita, the seventh highest homicide rate in the world.
(dogs barking)
Hi.
MAD MAX: Hi. MARIANA: I'm Mariana.
MARIANA: Scarface and Mad Max lead a faction of Crips,
one of the most dangerous factions in Belize City.
So, can you tell me about what's life like here in Belize?
MARIANA: Still, you're loyal to the Crips, right, or you're part of the Crips?
SCARFACE: Yeah.
MARIANA: So it depends on where you're born, really?
MARIANA: To hear it from these two,
the gang acts as a kind of community welfare organization,
providing cash and jobs to residents of a disadvantaged neighborhood.
But of course, there's more to it.
I mean, you guys sell drugs, right?
MAD MAX: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: What drugs do you guys sell?
MAD MAX: They sell cocaine and speed.
MARIANA: And why do you guys think there's so much violence
associated with, with the drug business?
MARIANA: So the system is failing you guys and
you guys have to figure out your own system?
MAD MAX: Yeah.
MARIANA: Have you guys killed people?
MARIANA: But then doesn't that make them come back
and kill some, one of yours?
MARIANA: Do most people carry guns?
Do most of you guys carry guns?
MARIANA: A Beretta? And it's got an extended magazine, yeah?
MAD MAX: Yeah.
MARIANA: 2,000 miles separate the Jungles in South Central Los Angeles
from this spot in Belize City,
but the parallels I'm seeing are uncanny.
In the face of hardship, violence has become normalized
and the lives of fellow gang members reduced to points
on a scorecard in a game that doesn't end.
Mad Max and Scarface belonged to the same gang as Tanga.
So the next move may well be from their side.
So, which group, which gang, who do you think killed Tanga?
MARIANA: It's the Bloods? MAD MAX: Yeah.
MARIANA: How many funerals have you guys been to?
MARIANA: If the Bloods in Belize are indeed responsible
for Tanga's murder, I have to wonder how they benefit from
a killing that is sure to produce retaliation.
The close ties between gangs in the US and Belize
means that, once again,
I'm reaching out to gang contacts in Los Angeles for
an introduction to gang members here.
(phone line ringing)
Z (over phone): Hello?
MARIANA: Hey Z. How are you doing?
MARIANA: Really? You got, you are hearing some stuff?
MARIANA: Is there any word on who might have killed Tanga or
been involved in his death?
MARIANA: Are you still in touch with them?
MARIANA: Do you think that they would talk to us?
MARIANA: It's hard to reconcile the natural beauty of Belize
with the desperation and blood feuds of those who live there.
I don't have an expectation to solve a murder,
but I do want to understand why these sides are
warring against one another.
(rooster crows)
Hmm.
CREW: I mean, you, yeah...
MARIANA: Here, can I show you what you look like?
You tell me if you think you're recognizable.
My contact has come through with a meeting place
and gang leader who might have answers.
KING DON: I might try the glasses.
MARIANA: Glasses?
Does anyone have a pair of sunglasses?
♪ ♪
MARIANA: The gangs in Belize run blue and red.
Tanga, who was deported from America,
was affiliated with the Crips, and rumor has it,
that he was killed by a faction led by this man.
CREW: Sound rolling.
And we're good.
MARIANA: Great. Okay. King Don.
So, you're part of the George Street Town gang?
KING DON: Yeah.
MARIANA: Which is part of the, the Bloods?
KING DON: Bloods, yeah.
MARIANA: This is King Don, one of the most feared leaders
of the Bloods in Belize.
He's been active since 1996, one of the few surviving elders
of this satellite Bloods faction.
So, I wanted to ask you a difficult question, um.
We've heard that it was the George Street Bloods who killed
or were responsible for the killing of Tanga.
KING DON: No. MARIANA: Is that true?
KING DON: You know?
MARIANA: But it seems that that's what,
that's what people are saying, right?
KING DON: Well...
MARIANA: Because it happened in your territory.
KING DON: Yeah.
MARIANA: What does that mean for your territory and for your gang?
For your group?
KING DON: Well...
MARIANA: How much do you think deportation of Crips and
Bloods to Belize, how much did that affect the violence?
MARIANA: Have you ever shot at anyone or killed anyone?
MARIANA: Are you also the person who decides
who's going to be doing the killing?
MARIANA: Is it difficult to find people willing to do it?
KING DON: Not in the streets of Belize.
You know, it's, they want ranks,
they want to be like they are the big homies,
they want to be generals.
MARIANA: Oh, so it's a ranking thing.
So, if you kill somebody, you,
you go up in the rank?
KING DON: Yeah. You get rank by your work.
And it's never stop, because if you kill one of mine,
we kill two of yours, three of yours.
If you kill three of mines, I try to get four of yours.
And it's never stop.
MARIANA: It's, the more time we spend here,
the more I realize how much of an influence America
has on all of it.
Is there any message you'd like to give the American people?
KING DON: Yeah.
MARIANA: This is a moment I will never forget.
Here is a general, a leader of one of the most brutal
street gangs in the Belize, who, by his own admission,
orders young men to kill rival gang members.
And he's admitting that he feels just as trapped as
everybody else in the game.
So trapped that he hopes America,
which sent gang violence to Belize,
will somehow provide an example that will make it all go away.
But America keeps providing deportees,
not answers.
Back in the States, the gang member I know as Ghost
is standing with a foot in each world.
What is it?
MARIANA: No.
MARIANA: Awaiting a decision on deportation while deepening his
connection to drug traffickers.
Candy Cane?
JASPER: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: And there's cocaine in here?
♪ They're criminals ♪
♪ In uniform ♪♪
♪ ♪
MARIANA: Though Ghost may be on the verge of deportation,
he's not giving up on the gang today.
His mentor, a man we'll call Jasper has brought him to meet
a wholesale supplier of weed and cocaine.
GHOST: Plugz, what's up my (bleep)?
PLUGZ: What's up with them (bleep)?
JASPER: The regular, degular.
You know what I need.
PLUGZ: Mariana.
MARIANA: Mariana. PLUGZ: Nice to meet...
Plugz. Nice to meet you.
MARIANA: Plugz? PLUGZ: Plugz.
MARIANA: It's okay if we film?
He told you we were coming, right?
PLUGZ: Yeah. Yeah, it's good.
She with you though?
JASPER: Yeah, it's good.
MARIANA: Plugz is recovering from gunshot wounds to his legs.
The result of a bad business deal three weeks earlier.
JASPER: Is that the candy? PLUGZ: Yeah, this is the candy.
You heard about this?
JASPER: Uh-oh. PLUGZ: Come on, now.
MARIANA: What is that? PLUGZ: New and improved?
JASPER: Yeah, that's the new and improved, "Zazaland."
(bleep). Come on, that (bleep) fire.
MARIANA: What is it? Can I see it?
JASPER: That's the coke. MARIANA: Oh. It's cocaine?
JASPER: Yeah.
MARIANA: And it's packaged like this?
JASPER: Yeah, that's our secret package.
PLUGZ: Yup, that's the secret package.
MARIANA: No. PLUGZ: Yeah.
(laughs)
MARIANA: Zazaland? PLUGZ: Yeah.
MARIANA: Candy Cane? JASPER: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: And there's cocaine in here?
JASPER: You don't feel it?
It's a little small brick of cocaine.
MARIANA: So, how much do you have there?
JASPER: I got 2,000. Okay.
Here you go.
MARIANA: So, I'm interested, you,
we are very far away from your neighborhood.
GHOST: Mm-hmm.
MARIANA: And you have an ankle bracelet on you.
Is that something, are you afraid at all that
they might monitor where you are?
GHOST: Yeah, but, you know,
I'm not doing (bleep).
So I'm not worried about that (bleep).
JASPER: One, two, three, four, five...
PLUGZ: Hey, nice to meet you. GHOST: Nice to meeting you.
JASPER: All right, then.
PLUGZ: (inaudible).
MARIANA: Court delays mean it will be one more month before
Ghost learns his deportation status.
But by doubling down on the streets and racking up
new charges, it seems inevitable that, like Tanga,
he too will eventually be sent back to Belize.
GHOST: This shit, this is just, like, a cycle, man.
MARIANA: What do you mean?
GHOST: It's like, it's, it's not gonna stop.
There's gonna be different guys get deported,
and go, you get me?
Gonna go over there.
MARIANA: Continue the violence there.
GHOST: Continue the violence there.
'Cause they ain't got nothing to lose, you feel me?
MARIANA: And predictably, in Belize and throughout
Central America, that uptick in violence will fuel
more immigration to the US.
Which is what's brought me to this motel in a location
that's best not revealed.
MARYBETH: Yeah. MARIANA: Oh, wow.
It's healing really nicely.
MARYBETH: Yeah, this one here, and the other one here.
That's the bullet they took out.
MARIANA: Ooh, no!
Okay, so last time I saw you was about five months ago in Belize.
MARYBETH: I was still getting attacked by people.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
MARYBETH: Saying mean stuff about me and Tanga,
and stuff, you know?
And I got a lot of threat on my life, like,
they're gonna burn my house down.
They're gonna come to my house and shoot me.
They lit my car on fire.
MARIANA: Oof. This is the seat?
MARYBETH: Yeah. MARIANA: Oh, wow.
MARYBETH: Some guys that used to hang with Tanga,
they say I killed Tanga.
MARIANA: Mm-hmm.
I mean, so much of this happened after Tanga died.
Do you regret having had a relationship with him at all?
MARYBETH: I don't regret meeting him.
The way he died really hit me hard.
Like, I still cry up to now.
And I don't...
(sighs)
The love I share with him,
I don't think I'll ever share with someone else.
So, you know, um, no, I'm...
I'll never love again.
He's my one true love.
MARIANA: And then, so when did you decide that it was time to leave?
MARYBETH: I just woke up a Thursday morning and I told
my mom, "I'm going to the US."
MARIANA: How did you come across the border?
MARYBETH: Um, when I reached Mexico,
I gave myself into the US authorities.
MARIANA: And what did you tell them?
MARYBETH: That I'm fearing for my life in my home country
and I need help.
MARIANA: And your kids are still in Belize?
MARYBETH: Yeah.
I'm trying to figure out a way how to get them here, so.
MARIANA: Do you talk to them? MARYBETH: Every day.
"Mommy, when you coming home?"
You know, and it breaks my heart.
I cry a lot, but, um,
we'll be okay and I'll see how I can get
them over here, eventually.
MARIANA: It's an open question whether Marybeth and
her children will break the cycle.
One which pushes gang members and
chaos back to their home countries.
MARYBETH: Belize is crazy, the violence there is crazy.
MARIANA: Which in turn drives new immigrants here into the
waiting arms of street gangs.
Captioned by Cotter Media Group.