World's Most Dangerous Mobster: The Russian Mafiya Godfather
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
They say Semion Mogilevich is the most powerful gangster on the planet, the mastermind who rewrote t...
Burmese Warlords, Gangsters & A Scam Utopia
09 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Buried on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Shwe Kokko is a shimmering city of skyscrapers, casino...
Europe's Deadliest Biker War: Hells Angels vs the Bandidos
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980's and 1990's, America's biggest outlaw motorcycle gangs were looking to expand all over ...
America's Nightmare Mafia Boss: Gaspipe Casso
26 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was the Lucchese family’s brutal underboss, the brains behind boss Vi...
Fidel Castro: Cuba’s Cocaine Trafficker-in-Chief?
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted...
The Dixie Mafia's Texas Millionaire Murders
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Bill Richardson, a troubled oilman and pro pigeon shooter, was gunned down on his Corpus Christ...
Mexico's New Ultraviolent Narco-Terrorists: The CDN
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From the ashes of Los Zetas rose the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast Cartel, a brutal splinter group...
Crack, Chaos, and Cartels: Rayful Edmond’s Empire
29 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980's, Rayful Edmond rose to infamy as Washington D.C.’s most notorious crack kingpin, bui...
Australia's Gangster King of Sin: Abe Saffron
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Abe Saffron rose from wartime wheeler-dealing to become the king of Sydney’s underworld, a man who...
Africa's Pablo Escobar: Kenyan Kingpin Ibrahim Akasha
15 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empi...
The Shaman-Gangsters Who Built Indonesia
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For centuries, brigands, gangsters and street toughs ruled the island of Java so thoroughly that the...
The Narco Lord of the Skies: Amado Carrillo Fuentes
01 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the 1990s, moving hundreds o...
Cocaine, Camorra, Call Girls: Maradona's Downfall
24 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1987, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona was on top of the world. He’d just handed his nation...
Russian Mafia Superhitman: Alexander Solonik
17 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 1990's in Moscow were the glory days of Russian organized crime. Emerging out of the downfall of...
Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes!
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When cops on the English coast busted a bid to bring in a huge shipment of cocaine in 2020, it sent ...
The Wild, Murderous Rampage of the Zizians
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When cops arrested a group of masked, black-robed protesters at a California campsite in 2019, most ...
The Chinese Mafia Takeover of America's Weed Industry
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There''s a new king at the top of the US weed game, raking in tens of billions of dollars, so organi...
How Diego Maradona Fueled the Rise of Naples’ Camorra
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Argentine soccer wizard Diego Armando Maradona swapped Barcelona for lowly Napoli in 1984, it s...
The Olympic Snowboarder Narco Kingpin
13 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How did a Canadian former Olympian build a one billion dollar narco empire? A few months ago, the ...
The Sinaloan Train Robbers Causing Havoc in the Mojave Desert
06 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You may have missed it, but there’s a new gang of train robbers in the American West — and they’...
The Gunrunner Who Tried to Save China: Two Gun Cohen
29 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Christmas Day, 1941, as bombs tear Hong Kong apart, gunrunner Morris "Two Gun" Cohen — a street...
Los Muchachos: Miami's Cuban Cartel
22 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In 1980s Miami, amid the glitz, gunfire, and power boats, two Cuban-American friends Sal Magluta and...
The 'Ndrangheta's Notorious Kidnapping Gang Wars
15 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today the ‘Ndrangheta, Calabria’s clan-based Mafia, is one of the world’s richest and most pow...
Meet The Chicago Outfit's Most Infamous Hitman
08 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kurt Calabrese grew up in the Chicago mafia known as The Outfit. His father, Frank Calabrese Sr, was...
Jalisco’s Death Camp, El Salvador's Mega-prison and Mexico’s Cartel Extraditions
01 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Will Grant, the BBC’s Mexico, Central America and Cuba correspondent, was recently on the ground a...
Mexico's Most Sociopathic Druglord: El Mencho & CJNG
25 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
He’s a recluse, a cockfighting high-roller, a former cop and a maniac. But will Nemesio Oseguera C...
The Most Insane Prison Gang Ever: South Africa's Numbers Gang
18 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
South Africa's secretive Numbers Gangs almost defy description; they're one part cult, one part reli...
Duterte Arrested: Was the Drug War a Cover Up?
11 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Williams reports from the Philippines, where former President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug w...
The Last Street Boss of Chinatown: Ghost Shadows Peter Chin
04 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Ghost Shadows are said to have been the wildest of Chinatown's gun-toting teenage gangs in the 1...
The World's Biggest Arms Trafficker Goes Down Hard
25 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Adnan Khashoggi, Saudi arms dealer and self-styled world’s richest man, met with US officials...
The Dixie Mafia: Gone South w/Jed Lipinski
18 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Dixie Mafia terrorized the southern US for decades before authorities were finally able to bring...
The Richest Arms Dealer Ever: Adnan Khashoggi
11 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adnan Khashoggi was born in Mecca — but his life was anything but pious. The billionaire had multi...
The Mobster Who Ruled Hawaii & His Brutal Revenge Quest
04 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Miske came from a broken home through years of petty crime to lead a gang of lost boys in Ho...
America's Most Dangerous Prison Gang: The Aryan Brotherhood
28 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What started as a small gang of white prisoners in a California state prison in the 1960's is now on...
Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster and the Battle for Los Angeles: Mickey Cohen
21 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mickey once said of himself, quote, “I was a pretty fair replica of the devil.” He also killed a...
The Nazi Drug Kingpin, the Biggest Narco You've Never Heard Of & The Cocaine Coup
14 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It’s January 5, 1982, and the central American state of Panama is playing host to one of the most ...
The Teenage Hitmen of Marseille's Gang Wars
07 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
You might recognize the city of Marseille as the home of one of the biggest drug trafficking operati...
The Nazi Fugitive Who Created The Modern Cocaine Cartel & Befriended Escobar
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”, escaped Europe at the end of the war and fled to Latin...
STASH HOUSE: Captagon Craziness, Free Narcos, Russian Crypto Scams, and More!
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this holiday special, we get into some of the big stories of the month from Captagon updates, the...
The Biggest American Weed Cartel Ever: The Cornbread Mafia
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When the Cornbread mafia started to unravel in the late 1980's, the feds had no idea what they had s...
The Human Trafficking Illegal Casino Kingpin Who May Have Been a Chinese Spy
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Alice Guo was a Philippine success story, a homeschooled farmhand who rose to become a millionaire b...
The Lord High Executioner of Brooklyn: Albert Anastasia
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You don't earn a nickname like The Lord High Executioner by not killing a whole lot of people. And A...
The Sinaloa Cartel Civil War Raging in Mexico: Los Chapitos vs El Mayo w/Nathan Jones
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan is roiling with violence in the wake of El Mayo’s capture, and his al...
Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Peru’s Shining Path, a Marxist-Maoist guerrilla force, plunged the Andean nation into a two-decade...
The Bloody Turkish Mafia War Raging Across the World
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With their leader sentenced to life in a Dutch prison, the most powerful heroin trafficking organzat...
Europe's Pablo Escobar: The Heroin Emperor Huseyin Baybashin
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From a village in rural Turkey, Huseyin Baybasin emerged as one of the most powerful drug lords in E...
The Billion Dollar Scam Cult King who tried to Take Over an Island
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Bougainville fought an incredible civil war over a colossal mine, and won, its military leader ...
North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The Hermit Narco-Kingdom
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Ban...
Indian Posse: The Native Teen Gang Ruling Canada's Prisons
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Danny and Richard Wolfe were barely even teenagers when they formed the Indian Posse in their mother...
The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jon Lee Anderson is an author and staff writer at The New Yorker. Anderson recently profiled Ecuador...
The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Escobar: The Gentlemen of Cali
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the do...
How Chinese Money Launderers Took Over the Narco Underworld
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When gunmen ambushed a Mexican-Chinese businessman outside his Guatemala City casino in 2016, few ou...
The Legend of Bum Farto and the Florida Keys Cocaine
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Something about Bum Farto, Key West’s fire chief, stunk. And it wasn’t just his red suits, bling...
Colombia's FARC Guerillas: From Revolution to the Golden Age of Cocaine w/Toby Muse
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fought a guerrilla war against Colombia’s government - ...
Venezuela’s Cop Killing Street Gang Tren de Aragua Takes America - Or Does It?
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Tren de Aragua grew out of disastrous regime policies to give gang leaders more power in prisons...
The Westies, Psycho Killers of Hell's Kitchen and the Last of the NYC Irish Mob
27 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the chaos of 1970’s New York, it took a lot to shock the city. But the Westies managed to leave...
Sammy the Bull, Nazis and Mormon Killers: How the Gilbert Goons Terrorized a Phoenix Suburb
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This year, the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert has been rocked by the death of 16-year-old Preston Lord, a...
The 30 Year Old Billionaire Cartel Boss Playing Professional Soccer
13 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In recent years, Sebastian Marset has emerged as the first narco kingpin out of Uruguay. He rose fro...
The Rise and Fall of the Dark Web Fentanyl King
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Mohammed Alaa Allawi, a former US military interpreter, moved to Texas in 2012, selling weed wa...
EL MAYO ARRESTED! Was he betrayed by Chapo's son?!?!
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bombshell out of Mexico, El Mayo (!!!!!) is in US federal custody after arriving on a small private ...
South Africa's Rampaging Murder Rate: Gangs, Corruption and State Capture
23 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Nelson Mandela and the ANC delivered South Africa from Apartheid in the 90s, hopes were high th...
The Fugitive British Gangster Instagramming His Crimes in Africa: Sam Walker
16 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Walker already had a huge rap sheet in his native Liverpool before 2018, when he took off across...
El Chapo's Sons Built a Fentanyl Empire: Los Chapitos
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With El Chapo locked up in a supermax prison and never going home, there's been a battle to maintain...
The Deadliest Biker War in History: Hells Angels vs Rock Machine
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid 90's, the Quebec Hells Angels made an offer to every drug trafficking organization in Mon...
The Meth SuperCartels Destroying Tropical Paradise
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For years the Pacific region, and its tiny, tropical nations, steered clear of the global meth and c...
How the Hells Angels Became Canada's Most Powerful Crime Family
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club first chapter emerged in the US in the 1940's but didn't reach Cana...
El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes Hard
11 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has smashed the country’s two main gangs, MS-13 and ...
India's Gangster Assassins Are Running Wild
04 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When hitmen shot dead Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver last June, Canadian cops bla...
The Most Corrupt NYPD Detective & His Mafia Uncle w/Steve Fishman
28 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Louis Sarcella might be one of the most corrupt NYPD detectives ever, though he was once heralded as...
The Gangster Warlords of Haiti's Collapse with Jason Motlagh
21 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Haiti's gangs have effectively taken over the country, plunging into chaos and violence as warring g...
El Mayo: The Undisputed King of Mexico & the Betrayal of El Chapo
14 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 2000's, the Mexico government put together a list of dozens of Narco kingpins it wanted ...
El Chapo's Boss & The Most Powerful Kingpin in Mexico: El Mayo
07 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone knows El Chapo, the infamous leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one time most powerful kingpin t...
Andrew Tate & the Romanian Mob: A Match Made in Criminal Heaven
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With influencer and living meme Andrew Tate about to face trial in Romania, we dive into his connect...
The Most Dangerous Russian Mobster America Has Ever Known: Boris Nayfeld
23 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Boris Nayfeld's life is like something out of a movie; orphaned in the former Soviet Union, he serve...
The Rise and Fall of Golden Triangle Dope: From a Jailed Kingpin to a Casino Shootout
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lo Hsing Han was a Burmese narco so powerful that Richard Nixon called him a Godfather. But the Koka...
Skinny Joey Merlino and The Philly Mob Wars:
09 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Well, they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night. And they blew up his house too. And the rac...
The Zombie Drug Robbery Gangs of Medellin Preying on Dating Apps w/ Toby Muse
02 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Medellin was once the world's most violent city, torn about by Pablo Escobar's murderous cartel warf...
Kokang Cowboys: Burma’s Transgender Narco Royalty, a Secret Army, and a “Special Belt”
27 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Olive Yang—or Miss Hairy Legs, or Two-Gun Mulan, or any number of nicknames folks gave her—was t...
Digital Hucksters, Crypto Scams and the Internet’s “Enshittification” with Cory Doctorow
19 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From Ponzi schemes to shitcoins, phishing scams and Nigerian princes, we’re living in a golden age...
The Most Successful American Mobster EVER: Tony Accardo
12 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo aka the Big Tuna (!) was one of the most powerful Mob Bosses that the Ame...
Listen Now: Varnamtown Episode 1
08 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Two years ago, Kyle MacLachlan, the star of Twin Peaks, called investigative journalist Joshua Davis...
The Bamboo Union Triads, Taiwan's White Wolf Godfather, and a Murdered Reporter in SF
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Chinese-American reporter Henry Liu was gunned down in his Daly City garage in 1984, it brought...
The Yakuza Boss Caught Selling Burmese Nuclear Material to Iranian Generals (Sort Of)
27 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
You may have seen the news last week, about a Yakuza boss caught in Bangkok trying to sell nuclear m...
She Hunted Down the Zetas Cartel Members Who Killed Her Daughter
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When members of the fearsome and brutal Zetas cartel kidnapped her daughter, Miriam Rodriguez did wh...
From Helicopter Prison Breaks to Missing Millions: The French Bank Robbers Who Became Heroes
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the face of it, Toni Musulin and Redoine Faïd couldn’t be more different: one a quiet, skinfli...
The Headhunting Burmese Tribe Running the World's Biggest Cartel: The Wa w/ Patrick Winn
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Wa tribe, an indigenous tribe residing in the mountainous Burma China borderlands, has long had ...
Behind Ecuador's Gang TV Takeover: Prison Kings, Megabusts and Daytime Executions
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This month armed men stormed an Ecuadorean TV station, shocking the world and plunging the nation in...
Griselda Blanco and Miami's Drug Wars: Netflix's New Narcos
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dubbed the Cocaine Godmother and the Black Widow, Griselda Blanco rose to power when the cocaine boo...
A Cop-Cartel Heist and Sky High Homicide Rates: What the Hell is Going on in Tijuana
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When a team of cops drove a truck laden with Sinaloa Cartel product out of a Tijuana warehouse in No...
The Kingpin Behind Asia's Triad Super-Syndicate Cartel : Tse Chi Lop, with Josh Berlinger
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The mysterious Chinese-born criminal mastermind Tse Chi Lop didn't raise too many eyebrows when he w...
New Years/Christmas Q + A!!!!!
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Danny and Sean jump in on all of your questions for this Christmas New Years week specia; Learn more...
The El Chapo of the Sahel, Africa's Desert Trafficking and the Sahara’s Most Dangerous Gangs
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We do Christmas shows different. Using ancient desert trade routes made famous by megarich kings, na...
Mafia-controlled Ports, Nazi Submarines, and Backroom World War 2 deals with Brendan Sullivan
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Long before Pearl Harbor the US had already lost 243 mariners at sea. German UBoats came close enoug...
Air America, Corsican Mobsters and Spies Gone Native - Did the CIA Fuel the Modern Heroin Trade?
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At one point in the 1960s Air America was the largest carrier on the planet. It was also a CIA front...
Santo Trafficante: Havana Nights, Killing Castro and the King of Florida
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Trafficante crime family ruled Florida for decades, earning the respect and admiration of powerf...
Slave Compounds, Sam Bankman-Fried and Crypto’s Crooked Heart - with Zeke Faux
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Zeke Faux is an NYC-based reporter with Bloomberg Businessweek. His new book, “Number Go Up”, is...
MS-13 and The 18th Street Gang's Reign of Terror
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
El Salvador's warring street gangs-turned-armies may have finally been broken thanks to the heavy-ha...
From Fantasy Islands to a Coup D’État: The Dominion of Melchizedek:
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fake country and a globa...
The Dominion of Melchizedek: The "Mothership for Con Artists Worldwide"
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Back in the early 1980s David and Mark Pedley were little more than a father-son real estate scam du...
The New Orleans Godfather and the JFK Assassination: Carlos Marcello
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Carlos Marcello went from a small time produce hustler to heading up the New Orleans Mafia with a ma...