The Underworld Podcast: Recent Episodes
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Underworld exposes the secret world of transnational criminal networks that have flourished since there were banks to bust, drugs to smuggle, and scams to run. Journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams bring their experience reporting on dangerous people and organizations to take listeners on a global tour of mobsters, warlords and crooks - from Brooklyn to Beijing, from the streets to the boardrooms - and everywhere in between. Underworld is a show about heroes, villains, and the barely visible mafias that affect all our lives, whether we know it or not.
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In this episode we track the concept of the Chechen Mafia—not an easy thing to define—from ancient invasions and the creation of the "Abrek", or "outlaw-exile," through Soviet repression, Stalin's deportations and the "Scab War" of the feared Gulag Archipelago. The rise of a Communist blackmarket later allowed Chechens in Siberia and Kazakhstan to carve out their own illicit empires, outside of Russia's "Thieves World." These newfound gangsters coalesced with an independence movement, whose bloodshed would reach all the way to central London—at the scene of a brutal, 1993 double-murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The origins of Naples' feared criminal clans known as the Camorra go back hundreds of years to the days of rural banditry and villa owners with private armies that lived by a code. Now, having access and control to one of Italy's most active ports and corrupt governments has paved the way for their growth but unlike the Sicilian Mafia or the Calabrian 'Ndranghetta, there's a whole lot more parallel groups as opposed to a hierarchical structure. From making tens of millions of dollars smuggling black market cigarettes to running street level coke sales, the clans have emerged as the most violent groups in Italy, constantly warring with each other and everyone else. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Messina family came from Sicily, then Malta and North Africa, before settling in 1930s London—whose underworld was about to be supercharged by wartime blackouts and love-lorn American G.I.s. They would soon control an empire of brothels and gambling dens in the British capital, conning, bribing and killing their way to gangland dominance. And while the Messinas' flame died in the early 60s, their mantle would be taken up by a new generation of Maltese mobsters, whose legacy lasted until the 21st century arrival of another viceland behemoth: the Albanians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mexican Cartels have always had a penchant for violence, but the brutal tactics of Los Zetas plunged Mexico into never before seen levels of bloodshed. Originally formed by only a few dozen special forces soldiers who went rogue and became the enforcement wing of the Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas eventually broke away and ran roughshod all over Mexico, warring with everyone from the Sinaloa Cartel to the Mexican army at the same time. Gone were the days of gangbangers, instead Los Zetas would usher Mexico's cartels into a new era of paramilitary forces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The term ‘rumrunning’ might be associated with Prohibition-era goons in the American Midwest. But bootlegging is alive and well today, and this week’s episode goes from Sean’s surprising discovery in western India, to a booze-inspired political execution in Pakistan, a Scot in Saudi shackles, homemade soju in Kuwait—and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made by a vicious network of organized crime figures throughout Southeast Asia by preying on what the United Nations has called "the most persecuted people in the world," the stateless and desperate Rohingya people. From the high rises of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, we follow the transnational network that operates like a modern day slave trade, roping in politicians, police officials and high ranking members of militaries along the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Trevor Aaronson is a contributing writer at The Intercept. The second season of his show Alphabet Boys digs into the strange story of Flaviu Georgescu, a Romanian-American “fixer” who got tangled up in Eastern European crime in Vegas, before falling prey to a DEA arms trafficking sting in Montenegro. The catch? He claims he was working for the CIA all along. And he may just have a point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We have a special episode swap from the good folks at the Click Here podcast. For years, North Korea was known for making such a perfect counterfeit hundred-dollar note, the Treasury Department had to change how it printed them. Now, North Korea is all about crypto – and it has been cooking up all kinds of crazy schemes in order to get the Big Score. Plus, we hear from a two-time North Korean defector. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mitchell Prothero has been on the tail of Ridouan Taghi, the Mocro Mafia and the Marengo Trial for years—and he joins Sean to discuss "Gateway: Cocaine, Murder & Dirty Money in Europe", a podcast about every aspect of the so-called "super cartel" that has taken control of the world's most lucrative cocaine market. From Spanish boat crashes to doorstep hits, notorious bloggers and torture cells, this is a case that has blown away European conceits about its complicity in global organized crime. And Mitchell tells us how he came face-to-face with Taghi himself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
WE'RE BACK! And coming to you from an estate outside Delhi, where Sean met author and historian William Dalrymple to talk (finally) about the early pirates, privateers and downright gangsters of the East India Company—a band of barely-legal spice merchants that wound up being just about the richest people on the planet, and owners—yes, owners—of an entire continent. We also dig into the life and times of Robert Clive, a brooding, violent man who would become one of the world's richest non-royals, and whose marauding exploits on the Indian subcontinent have made him a lightning rod for the cultures of Britain and modern India. War, loot, organized crime and weirdly enough, a Sliding Doors story for the mayflower. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
As things heat up in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Sean meets soccer journalist Philippe Auclair in a London pub (of course) to talk about the many crimes stalking the Beautiful Game—from bribery and fraud within FIFA, to the covered-up deaths of workers in Doha, and crypto and betting scams that have slipped into the sport’s top tiers.
Subscribe for bonuses on Itunes and Patreon.com/Theunderworldpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In less than 3 decades, a Brazilian gang formed during a prison soccer tournament has become one of, if not the most powerful gang in all of Latin America, branching out from the jails cells, to the streets of Sao Paolo, to all over Latin America and working hand in hand with groups like the Ndranghetta, Russian mobsters, and a who’s who of global organized crime. This is the story of how the PCC, or The First Command of the Capital, took on the Brazilian state with everything from riots to attacks on police stations, holding the entire city of Sao Paolo, population 20 million, hostage and has since grown outwards in unrivaled expansion.
Sean met Atlanta crime reporter George Chidi to talk about the city's rap labels and their role in its spiraling gang violence—from Young Thug and Lil Baby to the even more extreme drill scene, and the corruption, poverty and racism that underpins a murder rate far beyond Chicago's.
When the pandemic took punters from Southeast Asia’s most notorious gambling dens, their gangster owners turned to the web, entrapping thousands of unwitting slaves and putting them to work in high-rises, aiming to scam western marks out of millions.
Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy took a trip along the Mekong this summer. What they discovered was incredible and tragic in equal measure—and few are doing anything to combat it.
Felix "The Cat" Mitchell was like nothing Oakland had ever seen before. He took over the city's heroin market from, wholesale to retail, driving exotic cars through some of the grittiest streets in America, flanked by his assault rifle carrying lieutenants while keeping massive housing projects locked down like fortresses while dripped out in full length fur jackets and glittering diamonds. He also donated to charities and passed out cash all over east Oakland before it all came crashing down, after his crew attracted a little too much attention from the feds with what came to be known as Oakland’s Bloody August.
When Roberto Calvi's body was found swinging from a London bridge in 1982 it sent shockwaves through the religious, financial and criminal worlds. But who killed him? And how are the Vatican, Italy's powerful Mafia, a secret society called P2 and a Pope's death all linked in this wild, barely believable web of deceit and dollars?
In the era of prohibition, Charlie Birger built a bootlegging and gambling empire in southern Illinois, otherwise known as little Cairo. He charmed women, passed out money to children and poor families, bought off all the police and politicians...and killed anyone who got in his way. But he wasn't the only building an army in 1920's rural Illinois. The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was on the rise and enacting their own version of vigilante justice, attacking bootleggers, immigrants, and anyone who didn't fit into their version of America. The Birger Gang wasn't having it. War was coming.
Danny is joined by Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front.
Rainer Sonntag was just your run-of-the-mill, anti-state East German petty criminal—until a black ops team headed by then-KGB agent Vladimir Putin helped turn him into one of Europe's leading neo-Nazi leaders.
When the Berlin Wall fell, Putin fled to Saint Petersburg and Sonntag returned to his hometown of Dresden. There he led a gang of skinhead thugs to shake down and beat up foreigners. But when he targeted a downtown brothel, things got bloody real quick. Then he and Putin's legacies really began.
Read more about Putin, Sonntag and their violent rises to power in Sean's story for The Atavist, "Follow the Leader" - https://magazine.atavist.com/follow-the-leader-nazi-putin-sonntag-cold-war/
Caviar has been considered a delicacy since ancient times. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, a black market flourished—and kicked off gang wars along the coasts of the Caspian Sea.
Then, years later, the caviar mafia came to a tiny Missouri town. But its maritime mobsters hadn't reckoned with an experienced undercover cop and an ingenious plan that would snag them hook, line and sinker.
Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, better known as Moosewala, was on the cusp of becoming a global superstar. Racking up billions of views on youtube, the Punjabi rapper heavily influenced by Tupac had blown up since arriving in Canada as an international student in 2016. His lyrics about gangsters, guns, and everything that went with it in rural Punjab struck a cord with listeners around the globe. But he wasn't without controversy, sometimes running afoul of the law in India, his shows erupting in violence in Canada. And rumors followed of his involvement in a growing gang war in northern India. And then he got gunned down a month ago in a professional, highly coordinated hit. In the weeks that follow, there will be facebook posts from gangsters claiming credit, big arrests, interrogations, even a shooter caught hiding out with religious pilgrims, and what begins to unravel is a complex web of a gang war ranging from Canada to India that has a man with 700 soldiers at the center of the assassination of a rap superstar turned politician on the cusp of global superstardom
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was headed by a messianic, Karachi financier named Agha Hasan Abedi, with deep, deep connections all round the world. So deep, in fact, that nearly every criminal mastermind and corrupt ruler in the world used his bank as it went deeper and deeper, turning into a 20 billion dollar bank of the underworld.
Abedi had connections to intelligence chiefs and politicians, including officials as far as London and Washington in his deep, deep pockets. His client list, said critics, included the world’s most notorious despots and criminal kingpins—Noriega, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein, Pablo Escobar. Some had another name for BCCI - the Bank of Crooks and Criminals—that is, if they live to tell the tale.
Before El Mencho or El Chapo, even before Pablo Escobar, there was Ignacia Jasso, otherwise known as “La Nacha.” She was the Queen Pin of Juárez who ran the border heroin trade for 50 years from 1930 to 1980. Declared public enemy number one by the Americans, she still managed to escape the law by pretending to be an evangelical Christian and with the help of some extremely crafty lawyering. Danny is joined by Benjamin Smith, author of The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade to talk La Nacha.
Buy The Dope: https://www.amazon.com/Dope-Secret-History-Mexican-Trade-ebook/dp/B08CZ2BW3T
Over the last three years there's been an explosion of fentanyl on the streets of America and it's led to over 100,000 Americans dying from drug overdoses, the overwhelming majority because of fent. In this episode, Sean lays out the way producers in China have connected with Mexican drug cartels from shipping precursors to laundering money, where Danny speaks on the effects he's seen in the streets of St. Louis.
We’re shaking things up today and sharing a preview from Hot Money, a new podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times. When Financial Times reporter Patricia Nilsson started digging into the porn industry, she made a shocking discovery: Nobody knew who controlled the biggest porn company in the world. Now, Nilsson and her editor, Alex Barker, have figured out who the guy was, and much more. Their reporting reveals a shadowy power structure that includes billionaires, tech geniuses and the most powerful finance companies in the world. You can hear more from Hot Money at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/hotmoney?sid=underworld.
In this episode, Sean gets into the details about his story for Rolling Stone on Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, the rapper turned prime minister favorite in Belize, from the narco-trafficking taking place to the street side gang wars. Danny reports on Ukraine's intensifying war in the east of the country, and what he's seen on the front lines.
Danny's in Ukraine, and Sean's cover story at Sports Illustrated—about a Sicilian rugby team facing down the Mafia—just dropped. So we're combining the two, first with a rundown of Danny's movements in Kharkiv and beyond - then with an SI Weekly audio documentary about the rugby feature.
That part chronicles the trials and tribulations of Briganti, a club in the depressed neighborhood of Librino, "Catania's Bronx", that has fallen prey to Cosa Nostra mobsters in recent years. Founded to keep kids away from crime, the club has come under heavy fire: its clubhouse was torched, team bus destroyed, equipment stolen and bullets fired into its changing room door. But it's going strong—in no small part to a short, bushy-haired agronomist who saw a chance to pull locals off the corners with sport.
For years, Dublin-born Daniel Kinahan built on the work of his heroin-lord father Christy, aka the Dapper Don, to become one of the world's biggest cocaine kingpins. Kinahan fostered some of boxing's brightest talents, including world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury via his Marbella, Spain-based promotion firm and gym, MGM.
But in 2016 assassins came for Kinahan on his home turf, kicking off a gang war and sending his cartel into a tailspin. Kinahan decamped to Dubai (where else), and MGM's promotions became MTK...but it continued as the latest in a long line of mob ties with boxing going back to the Luccheses in NYC.
Last month the US Treasury slapped a $5m reward on Kinahan's head. Soon after, UAE authorities froze his accounts. Now he's on the run—but his fighters are still going strong. How did one of Europe's top mobsters get such a firm grip on the boxing world? And will Daniel Kinahan live out his fugitive days on an Afghan compound? We spoke to journalist and author Nicola Tallant, who's reported on the Kinahans for years, to find out more.
We're joined by journalist and writer Peter Ward, whose upcoming book The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever is out this week.
Since the times of Gilgamesh, humans have dreamed of living forever. Since the 1960s, when the son of a bank-robbing mobster froze a psychologist (then lost him), cryonics has been touted as a way to be reanimated in decades, or centuries, from now.
Except that, as you might expect, cryonics is a shady world populated by hucksters, crooks and, in one, crazy case, a warring Russian couple who employed the services of a Calabrian funeral magnate.
Sounds fishy? It is.
In the 1920's, high level gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had a plan to bring some semblance of order to the underworld. Together with a few other kingpins, they formed the Syndicate: a collection of the most powerful organized crime figures across the country that operated like a corporation with a board of directors that voted on everything related to gangsters. To make sure their judgments were respected, they needed an enforcement arm. Enter Murder Incorporated.
Emerging from the Happy Maione's Ocean Hill Hooligans and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles Brownsville Troop, this collection of Jewish and Italian hit men would bring new meaning to the term "contract killer," dropping upwards of a thousand bodies across the country in a 10 year span as they carried out the Syndicate's bidding. Men like Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, otherwise known as Pep, who had a confirmed 30 hits and might have had as many as 100, became some of the most prolific killers the world of organized crime has ever seen.
Based on the books "Tough Jews" by Rich Cohen and "Murder, Inc" by Burton Turkus.
Here’s a special preview of the new season of Cautionary Tales from Pushkin Industries. On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author Tim Harford shares stories of human error, natural disasters, and tragic catastrophes from history that teach us important lessons for today. In this preview, you’ll hear about the 1981 Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse, a shocking design failure that resulted in 114 deaths and many more injuries. Hear the full story, and more from Cautionary Tales, at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/ctunderworld.
Note: technical difficulties with Sean's microphone this episode, apologies By the late Seventies Jai Alai, a superfast, racketball-like sport, had become one of the US’ most lucrative betting markets. That attracted Roger Wheeler, a mega-rich Tulsa tycoon, to pour millions into the game. It was also riddled with crime. Boston’s Irish Mob, led by the bloodthirsty James “Whitey” Bulger, would make a mint skimming its earnings and building an underworld empire off Jai Alai’s back.
Then Wheeler figured out his latest investment was rotten. Bulger sprang into action, launching a campaign of terror that would claim several lives in gruesome fashion. Eventually, the Jai Alai slayings would bring down drug barons, dirty cops and dozens of New England’s biggest gangsters. Ja Alai wouldn’t fare much better.
We're joined by author Noah Hurowitz to tell the story of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of the most powerful narco-traffickers to every live, with an estimated fortune of 25 billion dollars. After having spent his youth learning the ways from the old guard of top-level drug lords, he rose to the top of the Juarez Cartel and became infamous for the fleet of jets he used to transport tons and tons of cocaine. He also became known for his business savvy and negotiation skills, bribing police, military, judges and politicians at the highest level while uniting various traffickers into a federation of cartels. His downfall, though, came at the hands of a hapless plastic surgeon.
Here's a little teaser from this week's patreon episode, with Sean on the ground in Belize doing a bigger story and sharing some of his work along the way. To get access to bonus episodes for $5 a month, go to www.patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast
"John" grew up on the violent South Side of Belize City in the early 2000s, when a vicious turf war between Crips and Bloods tore up the neighborhood.
Nowadays, with guns readily available and cartels lurking, it's a different, more dangerous scene. Part of a series on the Central American nation's struggles with organized crime (sorry about the breaks and occasional bus).
In the 1980s, as the Soviet empire crumbled, organized criminals eyed up the sprawling VAZ automobile plant in the city of Tolyatti, “Russia’s Detroit.” When it collapsed all hell broke loose. Old-school “thimble kings” battled it out with bodybuilding skinheads, Chechen paramilitaries and the Volgas, partying hotheads who’d become a fearsome mob, for supremacy over one of Russia’s most fabled companies. It’d take hundreds of deaths and Kremlin SWAT teams to bring the bloodshed to an end.
A story that we don’t think has been reported in English before, the Tolyatti Car Gang Wars are one of Russian crime’s bloodiest episodes. And given the terrible things they’re doing now, that says a lot.
In this episode thrown together because of a last-minute delay, Danny recounts recent reporting trips to Philadelphia and St. Louis. 2021 saw Philadelphia hit it's highest murder total in history, with 560 homicides when the previous high was only 500. Driving the inordinate amount of gun violence is the Kensington neighborhood, home to the largest open air drug market in the United States that is said to generate over one billion dollars in sales.
We also dive into the making of a short documentary on fentanyl in St. Louis, which has quickly come to dominate the entire drug market, and a street dealer gives us the lowdown on his business.
New York City in the late 1980's and early 1990's was a war zone. The crack era ushered in a record number of murders, topping 2,000 some years, as gangs battled for control of million-dollar corners. One crew stood out among all the crews of killers: The Wild Cowboys, a group of former high school friends who used their connections to the Dominican Republic to expand their territory in the South Bronx.
Led by the notorious Sepulveda brothers and following in the footsteps of the Washington Heights-based dealer who allegedly introduced crack to the Big Apple , they left no witnesses or competitors breathing...until a wanton act of violence on the West Side Highway tipped off investigators and led to their downfall.
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In the early Nineties Colombia had one of the world’s best soccer teams. Some even tipped them for 1994’s World Cup in the USA. But the country’s narco mayhem would come crashing down on the squad long before the tournament began. And for the nation’s captain, a tall, stoic defender from Medellin they called ‘The Gentleman’, one on-field mistake would have fatal consequences back home.
Featuring gunned-down referees, a deadly cross-country rivalry, Pepes, Pablo and a kidnap-mediating, scorpion-kicking goalkeeper.
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As badly-planned 1960s projects pushed Glasgow's poorest people to the city's fringes, ice cream vans became a lifeline, delivering food, drink and cigarettes. Before long, gangsters got in on the act, packing out vans with drugs, guns and stolen goods.
A war between the city's hell-bent, crucifying 'Godfather' and pretenders to his throne ensued. But it was mostly beer-money "frighteners" and smashed windows. Until somebody committed mass murder, and sent the city into a tailspin. What Glasgow's underworld did next would define Scottish crime for decades. What the police did, might just be worse.
The ‘raskol’ gangs that terrorize Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s chaotic capital city, have their roots in the isolated, rainforest conflicts of dozens of tribes vying for control of lucrative mineral wealth. But drugs, guns and government corruption means that today’s gang bust-ups, and clan come-tos, are virtually indistinguishable - and threaten to tear the Pacific nation apart.
SPECAL PROMO: Deep Cover tells true stories of crime and corruption. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern reveals dark underworlds most of us know nothing about. The new season, Mob Land, tells the true story of a high-rolling Chicago lawyer who fixed court cases for the mob. He did this for years... until he decided to betray them and work with the FBI. He wears a wire to expose a black market of corruption—where politicians were bought and justice was sold. Where, for the right price, even murderers could walk free... With first-hand interviews from FBI agents, mobsters, family members, and criminals, the story is truly a wild journey into a world of corruption, murder and deceit.
Today, we're sharing a preview of Episode 1. You can listen to the new Deep Cover season now at https://link.chtbl.com/underworlddeepcover
In Vancouver and the little known city of Surrey, violent gang wars between rival factions in the Indo-Canadian Sikh community has seen upwards of 200 young men killed in the last 25 years, as bloody battles fought in nightclubs and bars have seen gunshots ring out as crews of contract killers make their presence felt. Surprisingly, many of these gang members come from middle class families in well to do neighborhoods. The community traces this all back to one man: the swaggering and deadly Bindy Johal, who issued threats live in-studio on newscasts, got off on a murder trial after one of his co-defendants seduced a juror, and assembled his own hit squad that did dozens of contract killings. To some he's a folk hero, but to most of the community he's a terrifying scourge whose brutal legacy refuses to fade away.
He’s a recluse, a cockfighting high-roller, a former cop and a maniac. But will Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, do what he’s been threatening for years and become the most powerful cartel boss on the planet?
From avocados to abogados, weed to coke to fentanyl, Mencho is a narco so bloodthirsty his men are compared to ISIS. Can the Mexican state cut him down to size? Or will a lifelong quest to build a citadel in his home state of Michoacan come off, ruling local civilians with a sadistic iron fist? We look at the past, present and future of who might just be the scariest criminal we’re profiled on this show.
In the late 1980's, a new gang threw asian immigrant communities across America into chaotic spurts of violence. They were brutal, they were vicious, and they weren't going to play by any of the rules set by any of the established organized crime players. Born To Kill emerged from Vietnam's Lost Generation: child war refugees, often times orphans, who had been left to fend for themselves without any support or protection. Led by the charismatic and cult-leader like David Thai, the gang would wreak havoc across the country, dropping bodies and terrorizing people at a level previously unseen in Chinatown.
Leslie "Ike" Atkinson rose from Army sergeant to international casino hustler, to Bangkok bar owner and quarterback of one of the biggest heroin smuggling rings in history.
Recruiting disillusioned black Vietnam vets from his Harlem-themed joint, Ike trafficked billions of dollars of ultra-pure Golden Triangle dope into the States - right under the nose of Uncle Sam. But did he ever smuggle heroin stitched into the bodies of fallen war heroes?
This episode focuses on one of organized crime's most interesting, but least known, kingpins. And despite what Frank Lucas claimed, New Jersey's infamous "Superfly" was little more than a starry-eyed bit-part player.
We meant to get this up a few episodes back for the 50th episode special but figured it would work for the holidays. Danny and Sean go through all the questions they've received from listeners about the podcast, their careers, and Sean's crippling gambling debts. If you've ever wondered what sort of cricket bets can cost you a finger, this is the episode for you. We'll be back next week with regular eps!
In Belize City, rival factions of Bloods and Crips clicks have turned the south side of the city into one of the most violent cities on earth in an endless cycle of retaliation. The violence in Belize took off in the 80's and 90's after Belizean immigrants who had joined various Bloods and Crips sets in LA's then burgeoning gang scene got arrested and deported. They brought the gang culture with them to this small, sleepy Central America/Caribbean nation. They also brought the violence, which Belize's overmatched and underfunded police seem powerless to stop. Now Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, a Belizean-American former protege of Sean P Diddy Combs who once served 9 years in prison for shooting up a nightclub in New York City, has joined his political dynasty family in politics and hopes to be the one to finally talk some sense into the warring gang members who have turned Belize City into a bloodbath.
For decades, New Zealand's biker gangs fought each other for turf, cash and kudos. Violence between its two biggest outfits, the Mongrel Mob and Black Power, often turned deadly, and acts of cruelty shocked the public.
Then, in the mid-90s, a new, potent drug worth billions arrived on the country's pristine shores - and with it a wave of foreign narcos looking to take control of what might be the world's most profitable black market.
The gangs gave thousands of disaffected Maori and Pacific Islanders an identity. Meth—known locally as P—changed everything.
Does any country deserve the title of narco-state more than tiny Guinea-Bissau? The West African nation has become the beating heart of the global cocaine trade, with political leaders serving as little more than pawns in a trade that transformed its cashew coast into a gangster’s paradise. And it doesn’t even have any proper prisons!
We explore street fights, assassinations, DEA plots, Colombian conspiracies - and a round-bellied former military chief that totally _isn’t_ a druglord, pinky promise. A truly incredible melting pot of crime on the streets of whose tumbledown capital city cocaine bricks, not banknotes, have become the principle currency.
A President assassinated. Amish missionaries from Ohio held for million dollar ransoms (per person!). A former cop named Barbecue turned vicious gang leader in the slums claiming to be a revolutionary with aspirations of political power. And a country held hostage by warring street gangs who now control more than half of the capital city and the flow of essential goods. This is the story of how Haiti's gangs were nurtured by the political and business elite, only to grow so powerful that they turned on their former patrons and now control the country.
On the smog-filled streets of industrial Birmingham, groups of ‘Peaky Blinders’ earned a reputation as Britain’s most feared gang, terrorizing anybody who stepped in their paths with bats, blades and whatever else they could get their hands on. They ruled the UK’s second city until the turn of the century. Led by Anglo-Irish prizefighter Billy Kimber, what followed them was even more fearsome. The ‘Brummagems’ forged alliances with London crews, robbed the rich and ran Britain’s ultra-lucrative horse racing courses.
They couldn’t hold the throne for long. Italian Londoners and a long-suffering Jewish bookmaker helped launch the ‘Racecourse Wars’ of the 1920s, pitting brutalized World War I veterans against each other in mob clashes the likes of which the country had never before seen. Decades later Kimber and his Birmingham boys would be immortalized in the hit TV show Peaky Blinders. But the truth may just be stranger than the fiction.
Out there in the jungle, something evil and powerful grows. This is the story of Dairo Antonio Usaga, better known as Otoniel, Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker for a decade. A communist guerrilla turned right wing death squad leader turned cartel boss, he was known for his massacres and predilection for underage girls. He was also known to be particularly brutal, in a way that shocked even other narcos, and he had been hunted by the largest search operation in Colombia’s history for 6 years when he was finally caught 2 weeks ago, deep in the jungles of northwestern Colombia. Tracing his rise and fall with special guest Toby Muse, this is the story of the next evolution of cartel leaders.
In the last 5 years, murders in what's known as Israel's Arab sector have increased 50%, setting new records every year as criminal clans and organized crime have turned cities and towns into fiefdoms run by powerful gangsters who operate with impunity, where guns do most of the talking and Israel’s police are stuck trying to take back territory they abandoned. The clans have moved from extortion and drug smuggling to completely taking over municipal governments where they use shell companies to give themselves hugely profitable government contracts. Local politicians who get in the way have been killed, their families threatened, and attacks have gotten so brazen that even rivals traveling under police escort have been murdered. This week we are joined again by Ben Hartman, a former crime reporter in Israel who last guested on our "Car Bomb Wars of the Israeli Mafia" episode.
Khun Sa was a mercenary, a rebel, a warlord and a freedom fighting drugmaker who all-but created the modern heroin industry in the wake of the Vietnam War’s smack epidemic. At one point, the Shan hero, his fiefdom buried deep in the Burmese brush, supplied three quarters of all the gear in America. No wonder Washington called him the ‘Prince of Death.’
But Khun Sa’s path was actually paved by a princess, who eschewed a life of Kokang royalty to become a gun-toting shaven-headed, trans opium kingpin. Few dared to mess with Miss Hairy Legs, who dated Hollywood stars and went everywhere with a cigarette-carrying lackey.
When Nicky Louie stalked the streets in the 1970's, he was the first gangster to scare Chinatown in decades. At only 22-years-old, he led his gang of gun-toting teen hitmen known as the Ghost Shadows in countless shootouts against the Flying Dragons. Both street gangs were linked up with the established and secretive community groups known as Tongs that had been operating and controlling Chinatown since the 1890's. Together, the gangs and tongs ran the protection and gambling rackets, getting a piece of every single business in the neighborhood. But when the tongs linked up with Hong Kong Triads, who themselves had linked up with Burmese opium growers churning out the 95% pure heroin known as China White, things really got interesting.
Something a little different this week: No regular episode but we've decided to put the patreon bonus episode up for free.
Max Daly, based in London, is the Global Drugs Editor for VICE. The Orwell Prize-winning investigative journalist has freelanced for The Guardian, BBC, Independent and other publications, and his 2013 book _Narcomania_ explored Britain’s booming drug scene. Sean spoke to Max about London’s drug and knife crime explosion, county lines—and how the government has failed to act—Albanian takeovers and something called ‘cuckooing.’
Sweden: ABBA, IKEA, third-wave coffee. A wealthy paradise? For some. For others, the Scandinavian state has become a homicide hotspot, with gun crime and grenade attacks on the rise. We tell the tales of its early Mafia kingpins - from bikers to the feared "Yugo Mafia", Arkan, Jokso and a spate of high-octane, helicopter bank heists.
But when the Yugoslavs lost their grip on Sweden, they gave way to a new, chaotic and altogether more violent brand of gangsterism, that has enveloped low-income hoods in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö in shocking levels of violence - some of it played out in the music videos of rappers whose producers sit behind bars for murder. How did a rich, stable nation become the home of daylight drive-bys and revenge bombings?
Over the last two decades, the Taliban have moved from simply taxing Afghanistan's opium farmers to controlling every link in the chain of the world's biggest heroin supply. In Afghanistan's Opium Nation, we took you through the history of Afghanistan's opium and heroin industry up until the American invasion in 2001. In this episode, we recap the last 20 years of failed efforts to curtail the country's drug trade, detailing how US allies ramped up their growing and trafficking efforts just as the Taliban were doing the same.
Ulrike Meinhof is dead and the remaining founders of the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader Meinhof Gang, are behind bars in Stuttgart. Is this the end for Germany's most notorious hard-left terrorists? Those who pull the levers of power certainly hope so.
But 250 miles north in Cologne, a second generation is gearing up for their most audacious kidnapping plot yet. And on a runway in Mallorca, some of the RAF's foreign comrades are about to spark an international incident that has the world hooked - and engages some of the gnarliest SWAT cops around.
Featuring bombings, murders, bank robberies, a golden age of hijackings and the gunning down of the guy tasked with reviving East Germany's post-Cold War economy - part two of our Baader Meinhof double-header is a breathless account of the gang's spiraling out of control, and existence to a shockingly late date.
For decades, starting a few years even before the Taliban took power the first time around, Afghanistan has dominated the world’s opium and heroin market, in some years producing up to 90% of the global supply. It’s also provided hundreds of millions of all dollars for all sorts of less than desirable entities. Warlords, Druglords, insurgents, rebels, US allies, US enemies and yes, the Taliban. There’s a couple of wild characters who pretty much have been each one of those things at one point or another in their careers. Then there’s the Pakistani and Iranian and Tajik smuggler networks that help get it across borders, the various criminal syndicates in Turkey, the Balkan, Russian, Kurdish and Central Asian traffickers who help get it across more borders all the way to the street crews in London, Scandinavia and everywhere else. All have fed off of the opium poppy planted in Afghanistan. So have the millions of heroin addicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran...and all over Europe, Central Asia, Africa and Russia.
The Baader Meinhof Gang, or Red Army Faction, came about as post-war Germany sought to rebuild from the death and destruction of the Nazi era. As the Cold War gripped the world and self-declared revolutionary groups rose up, the gang's reign of violence across Germany in the 1970's brought international infamy. Bank Robberies, prison breaks, and the Shah of Iran, what else do you need in a story?
The Dominican Republic has long been a transshipment for cocaine heading to the United States and Europe. In recent years Dominican traffickers have started playing major roles in the supply chain. Corruption has flourished as local 'capos' have grown more powerful. All of this came to head when iconic and world famous baseball player David Ortiz was gunned down in a crowded bar in the summer of 2019. A week after the shooting, Sport Illustrated sent us down there to figure out what happened, opening up a door of cocaine, corruption, and the island's most powerful drug lord, Cesar The Abuser.
On July 6, legendary Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries was shot in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street. A week later he was dead - another casualty of the sprawling Marengo Trial that could snare the Netherland’s biggest druglord - and bring the decades-old Mocro Mafia down with him.
We get to the heart of the shooting, the history of the hash trade, ports, planes and cocaine - and why even one of Holland’s top cops admits his country is Europe’s ‘narco-state’.
Multiple billion dollar shipments of the drug known as Captagon have been seized in the last few years as the cheap amphetamine floods the Middle East. Alleged to have helped fund the Syrian Civil war, the tiny pills have been showing up in numerous massive shipments confiscated in Mediterranean port cities, often sent by shadowy, high level networks. The pills are all almost exclusively made in Syria, and they're very likely the Assad regime's most valuable export. But what, exactly, is Captagon, who is doing it, and where did it come from?
When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Bangkok, Thailand eight years ago, it kicked off a manhunt ensnaring Hong Kong Triads, Outlaws bikers and an ex-US Army sniper’s band of contract killers.
But the bust also shone a light on the shady drug network of North Korea, part of a crime machine fuelling the world’s maddest dictatorship. This is the story of how a war-torn Hermit Kingdom became a narco-trafficking, cash-counterfeiting, pimping Mafia state.
Jose Miguel Battle's Cuban Mafia known as The Corporation ran a billion dollar numbers racket with brutal enforcers for three decades, growing so powerful that they went to war with the Luccheses, firebombing each other's spots all over New York City. This episode has got failed assassination plots, CIA Training, Fidel Castro, Harlem arson wars, cockfighting, billion dollar numbers rackets, ruthless hitmen with dozens of bodies, broad day shootouts in Central Park, Peruvian casinos and Miami cocaine trafficking, what more could you want?
(Apologies for sound issues on this one) Before he was Public Enemy Number One—shipping tons of cocaine from Sonoran tunnels into the US—El Chapo was just a poor kid from Sinaloa, trying to make a quick buck like the bandits who'd gone before him. Reporter Noah Hurowitz has been on the trail of the narco kingpin for three years since his bombshell New York trial. He tells us about his new book, travels in Mexico's original Cartel-Land - and how it's not always easy (or safe) to prise fact from fiction when it comes to one of the planet's most notorious criminals. (Part 2 will be up exclusively on the patreon on Wednesday for subscribers at www.patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast).
How did an Icelandic band of international drug smugglers pull off their nation’s most shocking heist, robbing millions in Bitcoin mining machines then disappearing into the frozen wilderness? And how did its mastermind (some say: pawn) escape from jail, hop across Europe only to be hobbled by the exact network he’d relied on as a free man? Iceland’s ‘Big Bitcoin Heist’ is a tale of boom and bust, opportunity and clownish failure. Above all it’s a great story.
Does anyone know the correct pronunciation of the word "Geyser"?!?!?
Acapulco has become one of Mexico's, and the world's, bloodiest cities. It saw a stunning 127 murders per 100,000 people in 2019, making it the most murderous city in the world. It's a long way from it's previous reputation as the premier vacation destination for the rich and famous with everyone from JFK to Frank Sinatra to Liz Taylor singing it's praises. So how did a tropical paradise go from spring break hotspot to shootouts and severed heads?
She was the greatest smuggler, a Chinatown hero. Or was she a menace? Sister Ping made millions from those fleeing eastern China to the US. But ‘The Snakehead’s legacy is wound up in legend, conspiracy and lies. Here’s the truth.
Emerging out of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans-based international thieves known as the Pink Panthers have coordinated many of the world's most lucrative heists, sometimes stealing tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds and jewels in less than 3 minutes. Said to be disciplined, cultured and meticulously organized, they've struck in dozens of countries, often times targeting prestigious jewelry shops in daring smash-and-grabs, including an infamous Dubai robbery that involved driving an Audi through a mall. But, what, exactly, do we know about them? And who are the men that make up this secretive organization?
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80's and early 90's, both gangsters and hockey players headed to America (and Canada!) for new opportunities, making use of the skills they had developed back home. It didn't take long before both groups were on a collision course. As a bunch of 20-something Russian and Ukrainian players started earning more money than they had ever dreamed of, some of their equally ambition countrymen wanted to make sure they got a taste as well.
Sedat Peker has long been a top mafia boss in Turkey, but in recent weeks he's found a new calling: Youtuber. He's taken to youtube and social media to air out accusations of corruption and conspiracies that go all the way to the top of Turkish politics, including the current president. After a gentlemen's agreement with the government went south and many of his soldiers got arrested, he fled to Dubai where's he been releasing youtube videos that have been watched by tens of millions of people in Turkey, revealing political murders, corruption, and drug trafficking charges against top government officials.
Jimmy Cournoyer brought a billion dollars of weed into New York City and the east coast through an organization that brought together the Rizzuto and Bonnano Italian Mafia families, Native American Smugglers, Hell's Angels, and the Sinaloa Cartel into one massive money-laundering, weed-smuggling, cocaine-distributing organization. And he did it all before he was 30 years old while dating a lingerie model, being besties with top MMA star George St. Pierre, and partying with Leonardo Dicaprio. With a lovely tangential story about the time Danny made a documentary about the owner of a butcher shop who ended up being Mikey "The Butcher" Virtuouso, Bonnano crime family soldier and maker of the best sandwiches in New York City.
Curtis Warren wasn't known as "Cocky" for nothing. Perhaps it was his rapid rise to the top of Britain's drug trade, becoming Cali's man in Europe and Interpol's "Target One". Perhaps it was a fortune so big it made him the only narco on the UK's rich list. Or perhaps it was the time when, just weeks after emerging from a Dutch prison, he tried to take over an island. Bulgarian wines, county lines and way way more in this episode.
In the late 1970's when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil, revolutionaries and hardcore criminals formed a collective in a brutal maximum security island prison, giving birth to Brazil's first super gang, the Red Command. Though their political ideals soon melted away, leaving only a ruthless, well-armed network of drug dealers, they would eventually have enough power to take on the state and take over most of Rio.
Frank Matthews went from a poor boy in North Carolina stealing chickens to running one of the biggest heroin rings America has ever seen before disappearing without a trace after getting arrested with a rumored 20 million dollars he had stashed away, never to be seen again. Along the way he took on the Italian mafia and the Black Mafia, importing kilos of heroin from Venezuela with the help of the French Connection and setting up shop in Brooklyn. He still hasn't been caught.
In 1990, the tiny Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago saw the only attempted Islamic militant overthrow of a government in the Western Hemisphere. The coup led by Abu Bakr and his Jamaat Al Muslimeem followers failed, but many on the island see it as a turning point that has led the murder rate to increase by 400% over the last few decades. Now, a raging war between the Rasta City gang and the Muslims gang doesn't show sings of stopping as they battle over lucrative government contracts and the street drug trade.
The "Mafia Shqiptare" was forged during communism, exploded into life during a nationwide pyramid scheme, and unleashed a wave of drugs and violence across Europe from the late 90s. We dive into its most notorious bosses - and how gangs including the 'Hellbanianz' have taken over the UK's lucrative drug scene.
The "Maxi Trial" pitted two fearless Palermo prosecutors and turncoat "Pentiti" against the Cosa Nostra, its thuggish leader Toto Riina, and a whole host of corrupt cops, politicians and businessmen. But when the judge handed down 344 guilty verdicts, the real chaos was just beginning. We dive into an era of Italian Mafia history-car bombs, daily hits, heroin billions-that looked more like war than organized crime.
Early one morning this past June, 6 fully kitted out SWAT teams in Dubai fanned out across multiple luxury buildings. They were targeting a vast criminal conspiracy that had scammed hundreds of millions of dollars through pretty simply cyber trickery. From Brooklyn Blood sets using cryptocurrency to facilitate their credit card scams to the Nigerian fraud king Hushpuppi getting busted with 40 million dollars in cash, we have some fun talking scammers.
Car bombs, shoulder-fired missiles, grenades and hits across 5 continents; the Israeli mafias that rose up in the 90's and fought each other for control of gambling and drug rackets for the following decades are among the most sophisticated in the world. At one point, they controlled 80% of the world's global ecstasy trade and partnered with street gangs in Los Angeles to distribute. The Alperons, Abergils, Rosensteins, and Abutbuls had no problem going after judges, politicians and cops. And when they weren't busy killing each other over bottle recycling rackets in Israel, they established global networks of drugs and gambling across Europe, Asia, and America.
Danny is joined by Israeli crime reporter Ben Hartman in this episode.
Over the last few years, Sean's been on the ground covering the Philippines' brutal drug war amongst the dealers, addicts, and killer cops. Rodrigo Duterte, the architect of the Philippines' blood-soaked drug war, has shot men dead with uzis and fed them to crocodiles. How did he become the country's top man? We take a ride on Manila's gruesome 'Night Shift,' and tell the tale of a showdown between a killer cop and infamous gang down south, to find out.
( note: we weren't able to record in the studio so audio is off a bit)
The murder capital of the United States isn't Chicago, Baltimore or Detroit - it's St. Louis, Missouri, which for each of the last SEVEN years in a row had has the highest murder rate in the United States. The city just finished 2020 with a record breaking murder rate of 87 per 100,000 people, making it the deadliest city in the world not in Mexico or Brazil. A city of only 300,000 people, it had twice as many murders as London, population 9 million.
This is the story of how St Louis became the murder capital of America; guns, gangs, drugs, poor policing, population loss, disappearing industry, concentrated poverty, and a history of systemically racist policies.
Danny is out this week, and Sean is joined by comedian Sami Shah.
He came from nowhere to become the murderous king of Melbourne's 'underbelly.' But how did Carl Williams, a "shelf stacker - and not a good one," lead the Australian city's long established Calabrian and Irish mafias into its biggest-ever war? And how did cops, and an informant named 'Lawyer X,' stoke the flames? Sean is joined by writer and comedian Sami Shah to explore the Melbourne Gangland Killings.
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In the 1990's, a new group of criminals started making their presence known on the streets of New York City: the Albanian mafia. Soon, they earned a reputation that even scared the Italian mafias that had dominated the city for decades. Muscling in on Gambino and Lucchese rackets, they pulled guns on made men and people began referring to the Rudaj Organization, better known as The Corporation, as the 6th family. This is the story of how Albanian organized crime groups came to New York.
The biggest drug cartel in the world isn't Mexican, or Colombian. It's Asian. Buried deep in the Burmese jungle are networks of cutting edge meth labs, guarded by rebels and run by kingpins so powerful they make El Chapo look like a corner boy. In 2019, Underworld cohost Sean Williams went looking for one of the billion dollar meth labs spending months on the Mekong, in lawless casinos and hunting a drug industry bigger than any other on earth.
In recent years MS-13 has become one of the most feared street gangs in the world, thanks to face tattoos and machetes. Underworld host and producer Danny Gold first went to El Salvador to report on the gang and their rivals 18th Street in 2015 and has since returned numerous times. In this episode he breaks down the origins of the gang and what it's like to go behind the scenes with them (and 18th street).
In part two of our Yakuza deep dive, we plot their post-war rise from hustlers to corporate raiders - and a smack back down to earth. There are wars, kamikaze assassinations, CIA stings and the growth of the Yamaguchi-gumi, a mob so powerful it has its logo on the door.
Is there an organized crime group more iconic than Japan's Yakuza? In part one of two episodes on the group-or web of groups-we plunge into their ancient history, traditions, and how the Second World War made gangs of thieves into multi-billionaire magnates. Oh, and we'll unpack those tattoos.
In part 2 of our episode on the Russian Mafia coming to Brooklyn, we are joined by journalist Michael Weiss to continue our story of how mostly Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union set up shop in Brighton Beach and formed the 'Russian Mafia'. We talk about the war for Brighton Beach between Boris Nayfeld and Monya Elson, the arrival of the infamous and feared vor y zakone (allegedly!) Yaponchik, and how Russian gangsters in Brighton Beach bilk the US government out of billions of dollars through healthcare scams.
The Russian Mafia has been an object of fascination for decades in America, but it only really emerged in the 1980's after mostly Jewish immigrants were allowed to leave the Soviet Union and settled in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Brighton Beach. And while they may have started off as small-time hoods extorting bakeries and defrauding jewelry stores, in no time they were dropping bodies all over Brooklyn and scamming their way to hundreds of millions of dollars.
They called him "The Merchant of Death" - the world's most dangerous man. But was gun-runner Viktor Bout actually the arms trade's fall guy? From Angola to Zaire and everywhere in between, Bout's black-market weapons have fueled the globe's most grisly gangs and conflicts. But despite Nic Cage's excellent performance in Lord of War, there's far more to the real Viktor Bout than his Hollywood image suggests.
Building off our Nigerian Cults episode: Omoyele Sowore was attacked by the cults as a student leader, saw them morph into political power, and tried to take them down. Now the New Jersey resident - a journalist, activist and 2019 presidential candidate - is under house arrest in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. With gangsters in the government and the rule of law trampled, will Sowore's revolution take hold?
Chinatowns in the United States have never been short on organized crime syndicates, from the early days of secret society tongs to the Triads. In Boston, it was the Sky Dragon who ruled over the gambling, prostitution and drug markets. Somewhere along the way, though, a white kid from south Boston straight out of a Ben Afleck movie would find his way to the top of Boston's Triads. This is the story of White Devil John, with special guest The Wonton Don AKA Donnie Does.
They began as freedom-fighting pirates, swashbuckling for African rights. But over the decades Nigeria's confraternities descended into vicious cults. Among them one group has spread across the entire world, and Law Enforcement is only now just learning how dangerous the Black Axe really is.
Decided to make this free, it's the first of our many bonus episodes up on the patreon, where we'll focus on interviewing experts, journalists, and well-connected individuals. Toby Muse is a journalist who has covered the drug war in Colombia for more than 15 years. We talk about the time he tried to get me killed in Medellin, the acceptance of gay men in the hyper masculine world of cartel members, and the one cartel boss who makes Pablo Escobar look weak. Subscribe on patreon.com/TheUnderworldPodcast for more.
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made by a vicious network of organized crime figures throughout Southeast Asia by preying on what the United Nations has called "the most persecuted people in the world," the stateless and desperate Rohingya people. From the high rises of Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur, we follow the transnational network that operates like a modern day slave trade, roping in politicians, police officials and high ranking members of militaries along the way.
Few names strike fear into the hearts of Indians quite like Dawood Ibrahim. From a Mumbai slum he built his 'D Company' into the country's biggest mafia. Then he did something truly shocking.
Tyson Fury, large amounts of cocaine, public executions at press conferences, and Estonian hitmen - Ireland's war between the Hutchs and the Kinahans, one of the biggest drug trafficking cartels in Europe, has it all. From the bloody streets of Dublin to exclusive gated communities on the Spanish Coast, this gangland feud between two of Ireland's most powerful crime family patriarchs has seen dozens killed over the last 5 years, but could it be nearing the end?
Berlin is Europe's party capital. But since the 1980's, another kind of club has taken over the city - and not always quietly. Lebanese-Kurdish "problematic families" have taken hold, and one Tony Soprano-like leader stands above the rest.
Arkan started off a bankrobber and a hitman before becoming the leader of a vicious paramilitary group that committed war crimes. He grew rich off the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the wars that followed, becoming a new iteration of warlord mafioso.
Welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly series where journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams take you into the secret world of transnational organized crime with all the associated warlords, mobsters and scammers from Brooklyn to Beijing.