The Colony by Sally Denton

Author:Sally Denton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Liveright
Published: 2022-05-06T00:00:00+00:00

In early 2012, Shane Smith, founder of the media company VICE, brought a camera crew to Colonia LeBaron to film a nearly hour-long exposé called “The Mexican Mormon War: The Cartels of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico Are at War with a Group of Mormons, Some of Whom are Related to Mitt Romney.” Romney, who was the Republican nominee for president that year, had taken a hardline anti-immigration stance, which Smith intended to reveal as hypocritical, given his family history in the Mexican Mormon colonies dating back to the late 1800s, with Romney’s own father immigrating to the US in 1912.

Priding itself on gonzo journalism for the social-media era, VICE secured what seemed to be extraordinary access to the notoriously camera-shy polygamists. “Maybe one of the reasons that Mitt Romney is so concerned about the drug war that is taking place just south of the American border is because it affects him and his family personally,” Smith explained to the camera between expletives, pointing out that one of Romney’s distant cousins—Meredith Romney—had been kidnapped just three years earlier.

Despite the LeBaron family’s decades of secrecy bordering on paranoia—and in contrast to their relationship with the press in Mexico and media from other nations—Julian, Alex, and Brent LeBaron eagerly welcomed the VICE team. The cousins all agreed to interviews and, not surprisingly, used the opportunity as a platform to push for relaxed gun laws. They spoke of how the narcotraffickers have state-of-the-art weaponry—“50 cals, assault rifles, military grade machine guns”—while the Mormons are not allowed legally to own guns. Still, they claimed that rumors of their own “50 cals” served the colony’s purposes. Smith was quick to demonstrate that the LeBarons were not observant Mormons, his crew capturing them during a night of drinking at a bar in nearby Nuevo Casas Grandes, singing karaoke while taking shots of tequila while Smith drunkenly toasted the LeBaron family “because you guys fuckin’ rock!” After a brief ride-along with federal police on a routine patrol, Smith and his crew quickly fled back across the border.

The VICE report was popular in the US, where it was viewed millions of times on YouTube, introducing the modern LeBaron clan to a broad American audience. Conspicuously missing from VICE’s report was any hint that the NXIVM documentary crew was filming at Colonia LeBaron during the same period.

As the NXIVM movement in Mexico gained steam, Raniere and Vicente ramped up their work on Ignite the Heart. Though Raniere was still a relatively unknown figure in the United States, soon more than half of Raniere’s closest associates were Mexican, many with a high profile. In February 2012, he came under closer scrutiny in the United States, when, under the title “Secrets of NXIVM,” the Albany Times Union began an investigative series on the life and exploits of Raniere and the mystery surrounding his compound in that city. But the stories were not picked up by other newspapers and failed to gain national traction.

After a year of research, the Albany newspaper reported Raniere’s boasts

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.