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Cocaine and Faith in the Amazon (Part 1)

Peru is now the world’s main supplier of coca, the raw plant material used to manufacture cocaine. In the last five years, coca production has grown the most in the tri-border region, an area deep in the Amazon where Colombia, Brazil and Peru meet.

The tri-border region is home to a messianic sect with apocalyptic beliefs whose members dress in biblical robes. Known as “Israelites,” the religious group migrated to the Peruvian Amazon in 1995 in search of a promised land that’s now infested with coca plantations.

Videos by VICE

In part one, VICE News travels to Alto Monte de Israel to meet the messianic sect known as the Israelites, and learn about their prophet, Ezequiel Ataucusi, who led them to settle in the Amazon jungle.

Watch “Peru: The New King of Coke”

Read “Meet the Man Helping Peru’s Foreign Drug Mules Get Home”