Keegan Hamilton is senior editor for legal affairs and criminal justice at the Los Angeles Times and a multimedia journalist who covers organized crime, prisons, and the drug trade. This is his work. For more, check out his archive at VICE News or follow him on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
Fueled by right-wing rhetoric about the U.S.-Mexico border being overrun, long-established militias such as Arizona Border Recon are enjoying a resurgence, attracting volunteers from across the country and influencing the national debate on immigration.
Read more at L.A. Times: As border extremism goes mainstream, vigilante groups take a starring role
Behind the scenes: We followed a militia group near the U.S. border with Mexico. Here’s what we learned.
Cities across the U.S. are being inundated with untraceable, home-built firearms known as “ghost guns,” according to exclusive data gathered from public records requests filed to over 50 major police agencies. The video above shows what it’s like to build a 3D-printed Glock pistol from scratch, and documents the first-ever shooting competition for ghost guns.
A series of stories in 2022 covered the ways the gun industry has evaded government efforts at regulation:
Ghost Guns Are Causing Chaos in American Courts
A Simple Plastic Tool Is Undermining New Ghost Gun Rules
FedEx Pressured to Stop Shipping Parts for Ghost Guns
And a segment on VICE’s award-winning documentary series on Showtime:
The end of 2021 marked 15 years since the start of Mexico's “guerra contra el narcotráfico,” a war against drug trafficking that officially began in December 2006, when thousands of soldiers were deployed to topple the cartel terrorizing the state of Michoacán. The war soon spread and plunged the entire country into a downward spiral of violence that continues today. The latest fighting is between the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG, led by a notorious kingpin known as El Mencho, and an alliance of groups known as the United Cartels. This is a report from the epicenter of the conflict that seeks to understand if anything will or can change for the better.
Read the written feature story: On the Front Line of Mexico’s Forever War Against the Cartels
And the update: How the Mexican Army Tracked and Killed a CJNG Cartel Commander
Listen to the podcast on VICE News Reports:
A documentary podcast series about fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid fueling a surge in overdose deaths across the United States. Listen on Spotify.
Also from the series:
Inside the Sinaloa Cartel’s Fentanyl Smuggling Operations
Confessions of a Chinese Fentanyl Trafficker: ‘I’m Really Afraid of Hurting People’
How a Pharma Giant Flooded the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation With Opioids
And a tragic update from 2022: This Couple Died by Suicide After the DEA Shut Down Their Pain Doctor
A 2022 collaboration with the non-profit news organization The Trace used exclusive data to document the alarming spread of “auto sears” and other devices capable of transforming common semi-automatic handguns and rifles into full-auto machine guns, which have been used by far-right extremists, and in mass shootings and other crimes.
This reporting had impact: Lawmakers Take Aim at Tiny ‘Switches’ That Create Illegal Machine Guns
California’s illicit marijuana market is worth an estimated $8 billion, roughly double the total sales recorded in the state-regulated system. This piece explores the world of outlaw growers and dealers and the consequences of failing to end drug criminalization.
A separate story documented a conflict in rural Northern California between members of the Hmong ethnic group and local authorities, culminating with a fatal police shooting during a wildfire evacuation that led to allegations of systemic racism by county officials: How a War Over Weed and Water Led to a Deadly Police Shooting
ADX Florence, the so-called “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” is home to terrorists, spies, cartel kingpins, gang leaders, and others deemed the “worst of the worst” by the federal justice system. But not every ADX prisoner serves a life sentence. Some are abruptly released after spending years in solitary confinement, with virtually no preparation for life on the outside. This is the story of men who served time at ADX and their tragically divergent paths after prison. Read it here.
Over the course of eight episodes, the podcast takes listeners on a journey across Mexico and the U.S. to meet people affected by El Chapo’s rise and fall. This is a story about the war on drugs and the countless lives it has impacted on both sides of the border. The series is free on Spotify and iTunes.
Press for Chapo: The Verge’s Favorite New Podcasts of 2018, The Guardian’s Producer Pick of the Week, CBC Radio Podcast Pick of the Week, plus more from Remezcla, Nieman Lab, Hot Pod, Forbes, The Wrap, All Things Considered, and The Takeaway.
A joint investigation with the The Marshall Project into the coronavirus outbreak in the federal Bureau of Prisons. Read it here and watch the segment featuring our reporting on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
A look at the future of nuclear energy in the United States and around the world, with a podcast episode called Deaths Per Kilowatt-Hour that explores how society is weighing the catastrophic risks of accidents with Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three-Mile Island against the benefits of a low-carbon energy source key to fighting climate change.
The powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl is now the deadliest drug in America, causing an estimated 19,000 fatal overdoses in 2016. Most of the illicit fentanyl comes from China. VICE News met Customs and Border Protection agents who search for fentanyl in the mail. We also obtained the first on-camera interview about fentanyl with an official from China's National Narcotics Control Commission.
See also: Exclusive: China won’t arrest two fentanyl kingpins wanted by U.S.
An exclusive analysis of data from the 50 largest local police departments in the United States shows that police shoot Americans more than twice as often as previously known. Written and reported with Rob Arthur, Taylor Dolven, Allison McCann, and Carter Sherman.
More from our investigation:
Life After Deadly Force: What It's Like to Survive a Police Shooing
Explore Data on Police Shootings From the 50 Largest Departments
How To Get a Baby — And A Mom — Off Heroin
With the United States in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic, pregnant women all over the country are struggling with addiction. Seeking drug treatment often leads to situations that exacerbate feelings of guilt and shame. Kids can be taken away. Moms can end up behind bars. But one program in Kentucky has found a better way. Part of the series "A Nation in Recovery."
The story of a computer glitch at a nuclear missile base and the catch-22 in the plan to modernize America's ICBMs.
A three-part series for VICE News about the case of Paul Le Roux, a notorious drug and weapons dealer who struck a deal with the DEA to set up his former employees and associates, including a team of ex-military sniper hitmen, an outlaw biker gang, and Hong Kong triad gangsters linked to meth production in North Korea.
Part I: North Korean Meth, Motorcycle Gangs, Army Snipers, and a Guy Named Rambo
Part II: 'Rambo' Has PTSD: The Strange Case of an International DEA Murder-For-Hire Drug Sting
Part III: Meth, Murder, and the DEA's Mysterious Deal With the 'Most Dangerous Man in the World'
Postscript: Devil of a Deal: The DEA’s deal with drug kingpin Paul Le Roux didn't turn out as planned
Many of the states that have legalized marijuana now require tests for potency and purity to ensure that consumers know exactly what they’re buying when they visit a dispensary. But the labs that conduct these tests are governed by rules that vary widely from state to state, and there are concerns within the industry that unscrupulous labs are operating without adequate oversight and colluding with growers to falsify results.
As more and more Americans have switched to heroin from prescription painkillers, drug dealers have turned to synthetic opioids to meet the skyrocketing demand. The result is a seemingly unstoppable surge in fatal overdoses.
I also co-produced this VICE News Tonight segment on the powerful synthetic opioid carfentanil, which was nominated for Outstanding Hard News Feature Story in a Newscast at the the 38th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards.
An exclusive interview with Banksy during the artist’s one-month residency in New York City in October 2014.
Illustration by Michael Wandelmaier for BuzzFeed
Researchers are closer than ever before to finding a cure for addiction to meth, cocaine, and other stimulants. But will big pharma and the FDA stand in the way?
My story on the researchers who use satellite imagery to monitor and study North Korea's nuclear testing site.
I also co-produced this VICE News Tonight on HBO package about how the tech startup Planet Labs is changing the way open-source intelligence analysts look at North Korea.
An investigative feature about Dimitri "Mobengo" Mugianis, a self-proclaimed shaman who uses the potent hallucinogenic drug ibogaine to treat opiate addiction. When a prospective patient became an informant for the DEA, Mugianis and his associates were targeted in a lengthy and elaborate sting operation.
Photo by Grace Kim for VICE News
In the past 10 years, 186 North Korean defectors have settled in the US. After facing months or even years of danger and hardship on their journey to America, they often must deal with intense isolation as they struggle to forge new lives. I met a North Korean sushi chef in California.
To pull off the biggest pit bull fighting bust in U.S. history, investigators went deep undercover. So did their dogs.
An investigation for the Village Voice reveals how a process created to save innocent lives has come to embody some of the worst aspects of American immigration policy.
Photo by Tom Carlson for Riverfront Times
The explosive "shake-and-bake" method of making crystal meth is burning its way through America's Midwest and South.
When Nelson Mandela’s died at age 95, the world lost not only a champion of equality, freedom, and democracy, but also an all-time great boxing philosopher and aficionado.
Good ol' boys from Missouri to Mississippi love launching anvils. Selected as a notable story of 2010 by editors of The Best American Sports Writing. Also check out the anvil shooting YouTube video, which has been viewed 2.5 million times and counting.