The Gunrunner Who Tried to Save China: Two Gun Cohen
Tue, 29 Apr 2025
On Christmas Day, 1941, as bombs tear Hong Kong apart, gunrunner Morris "Two Gun" Cohen — a street...
Los Muchachos: Miami's Cuban Cartel
Tue, 22 Apr 2025
In 1980s Miami, amid the glitz, gunfire, and power boats, two Cuban-American friends Sal Magluta and...
The 'Ndrangheta's Notorious Kidnapping Gang Wars
Tue, 15 Apr 2025
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
Tue, 08 Apr 2025
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
Tue, 01 Apr 2025
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
Tue, 25 Mar 2025
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
Tue, 18 Mar 2025
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?
Tue, 11 Mar 2025
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
Tue, 04 Mar 2025
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
Tue, 25 Feb 2025
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
Tue, 18 Feb 2025
The Dixie Mafia terrorized the southern US for decades before authorities were finally able to bring...
The Richest Arms Dealer Ever: Adnan Khashoggi
Tue, 11 Feb 2025
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
Tue, 04 Feb 2025
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
Tue, 28 Jan 2025
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
Tue, 21 Jan 2025
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
Tue, 14 Jan 2025
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
Tue, 07 Jan 2025
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
Tue, 31 Dec 2024
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!
Tue, 24 Dec 2024
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
Tue, 17 Dec 2024
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
Tue, 10 Dec 2024
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
Tue, 03 Dec 2024
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
Tue, 26 Nov 2024
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
Tue, 19 Nov 2024
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
Tue, 12 Nov 2024
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
Tue, 05 Nov 2024
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
Tue, 29 Oct 2024
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
Tue, 22 Oct 2024
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
Tue, 15 Oct 2024
Danny and Richard Wolfe were barely even teenagers when they formed the Indian Posse in their mother...
The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador
Tue, 08 Oct 2024
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
Tue, 01 Oct 2024
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
Tue, 24 Sep 2024
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
Tue, 17 Sep 2024
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
Tue, 10 Sep 2024
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?
Tue, 03 Sep 2024
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
Tue, 27 Aug 2024
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
Tue, 20 Aug 2024
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
Tue, 13 Aug 2024
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
Tue, 06 Aug 2024
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?!?!
Tue, 30 Jul 2024
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
Tue, 23 Jul 2024
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
Tue, 16 Jul 2024
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
Tue, 09 Jul 2024
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
Tue, 02 Jul 2024
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
Tue, 25 Jun 2024
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
Tue, 18 Jun 2024
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
Tue, 11 Jun 2024
Since 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has smashed the country’s two main gangs, MS-13 and ...
India's Gangster Assassins Are Running Wild
Tue, 04 Jun 2024
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
Tue, 28 May 2024
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
Tue, 21 May 2024
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
Tue, 14 May 2024
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
Tue, 07 May 2024
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
Tue, 30 Apr 2024
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
Tue, 23 Apr 2024
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
Tue, 16 Apr 2024
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:
Tue, 09 Apr 2024
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
Tue, 02 Apr 2024
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”
Wed, 27 Mar 2024
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
Tue, 19 Mar 2024
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
Tue, 12 Mar 2024
Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo aka the Big Tuna (!) was one of the most powerful Mob Bosses that the Ame...
Listen Now: Varnamtown Episode 1
Fri, 08 Mar 2024
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
Tue, 05 Mar 2024
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)
Tue, 27 Feb 2024
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
Tue, 20 Feb 2024
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
Tue, 13 Feb 2024
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
Tue, 06 Feb 2024
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
Tue, 30 Jan 2024
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
Tue, 23 Jan 2024
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
Tue, 16 Jan 2024
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
Tue, 09 Jan 2024
The mysterious Chinese-born criminal mastermind Tse Chi Lop didn't raise too many eyebrows when he w...
New Years/Christmas Q + A!!!!!
Tue, 02 Jan 2024
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
Tue, 26 Dec 2023
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
Tue, 19 Dec 2023
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?
Tue, 12 Dec 2023
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
Tue, 05 Dec 2023
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
Tue, 28 Nov 2023
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
Tue, 21 Nov 2023
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:
Tue, 14 Nov 2023
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"
Tue, 07 Nov 2023
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
Tue, 31 Oct 2023
Carlos Marcello went from a small time produce hustler to heading up the New Orleans Mafia with a ma...
The Chechen Mafia Goes Global: Ramzan Kadyrov, Car Bombs, Guns-for-hire and The World's Weirdest Reality Show
Tue, 24 Oct 2023
The final show in our Chechen trilogy focuses on the republic's current gangster-in-chief, Ramzan Ka...
The Knife Fighting Italian Gangster Who Built an Army while in Prison
Tue, 17 Oct 2023
The Camorra clans of Naples had always played second fiddle to the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian ...
How Russian Mobsters Masterminded a Crazy, Fake Cricket League for Betting Riches: Sean's in the Field!
Tue, 10 Oct 2023
This May, on assignment for _Sports Illustrated_, Sean visited Molipur, a tiny village in Gujarat, I...
The Secret Rise of Female Narcos in Latin American Cartels with Deborah Bonello
Tue, 03 Oct 2023
Deborah Bonello is a Mexico City-based reporter who's distilled years of reporting on some of the mo...
Ex-Con Mercenaries, Wagner, Prigozhin, and the Russian Mafiosos Fighting in Ukraine with Joshua Yaffa
Tue, 26 Sep 2023
The Russian mercenary/state aligned outfit Wagner emerged from the early days of the war in Ukraine,...
The Chechen Mafia Strikes Back: War Profiteering, School Sieges and a Turncoat Named Kadyrov
Tue, 19 Sep 2023
The Soviet Union is toast, Chechnya is at war and Grozny, its embattled capital, is being bombed to ...
Becoming the Chechen Mafia: Ancient Outlaws, Soviet Scabs and a British KGB Plot
Tue, 12 Sep 2023
In this episode we track the concept of the Chechen Mafia—not an easy thing to define—from anci...
The Camorra Clans of Naples: Italy's Most Violent Criminal Organizarion
Tue, 05 Sep 2023
The origins of Naples' feared criminal clans known as the Camorra go back hundreds of years to the d...
The Maltese Mobsters who Ruled London's Empire of Vice
Tue, 29 Aug 2023
The Messina family came from Sicily, then Malta and North Africa, before settling in 1930s London—...
Los Zetas: The Brutal Cartel Formed By Mexican Commandos
Tue, 22 Aug 2023
Mexican Cartels have always had a penchant for violence, but the brutal tactics of Los Zetas plunged...
Bootlegging All Over the World: Illegal Brews from North Korea to Pakistan
Tue, 15 Aug 2023
The term ‘rumrunning’ might be associated with Prohibition-era goons in the American Midwest. Bu...
The Brutal Burmese Human Trafficking Syndicates of Southeast Asia: Classic Underworld
Tue, 18 Jul 2023
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made by a vicious network of organized crime figures throu...
A Romanian Mob Illicit Arms Deal With a Twist - with Trevor Aaronson
Mon, 10 Jul 2023
Trevor Aaronson is a contributing writer at The Intercept. The second season of his show Alphabet Bo...
North Korea's Crypto Crimes: Special Episode from Click Here
Tue, 27 Jun 2023
We have a special episode swap from the good folks at the Click Here podcast. For years, North Korea...
Ridouan Taghi's Murderous Rampage, and the Cocaine Kings of Antwerp and Rotterdam - with Mitchell Prothero
Tue, 20 Jun 2023
Mitchell Prothero has been on the tail of Ridouan Taghi, the Mocro Mafia and the Marengo Trial for y...
Tiger Traffickers, Narco Zoos and the (Even Darker) Truth Behind Joe Exotic
Tue, 25 Apr 2023
In 2019 Sean spent weeks on the road between Oklahoma and Miami, investigating roadside zoo owner—...
The World's Most Powerful Cocaine Broker: Inside the 'Ndrangheta with Antonio Talia
Tue, 18 Apr 2023
In recent years, another one of Italy's feared criminal groups has risen above the Sicilian Mafia to...
The Robber Baron Mafias of the Lawless Amazon Rainforest
Tue, 11 Apr 2023
Last year’s murders of journalist Dom Phillips, and indigenous rights campaigner Bruno Pereira, sh...
The Time Sean Went to Burma to Find A Billion Dollar Meth Lab
Tue, 04 Apr 2023
The biggest drug cartel in the world isn't Mexican, or Colombian. It's Asian. Buried deep in the Bur...
The Golden Era of Clubs, Club Drugs, and Mafia Crews in NYC Nightlife to Miami and Back
Tue, 28 Mar 2023
In the 1990's, Manhattan's booming dance club scene was hit by two massive trends: Ecstasy and Techn...
A Brazilian Murder, Narco Evangelists and Holy Warfare: The Gangsters of the Global Pentecostal Movement
Tue, 21 Mar 2023
Pentecostalism has exploded everywhere—and with it a whole new wave of grifters, crooks and machin...
The Antwerp Diamond Heist and the Gads Hill Train Robbery: History Daily Swap
Tue, 14 Mar 2023
This week we bring you guys an episode swap with the good folks at History Daily. In the first segme...
The Time the Mexican Army Ruined My Cartel Sleepover
Tue, 07 Mar 2023
Even the best laid plans of mice and men don't stand a chance when the federales get involved. In th...
Underworld Special - On The Hunt for Himalayan Purple Haze in Nepal
Tue, 21 Feb 2023
For thousands of years, Nepali farmers grew some of the world’s trippiest marijuana, in Himalayan ...
The Narco-paramilitaries of Northern Ireland
Tue, 14 Feb 2023
For generations, northern Ireland has been no stranger to armed militant groups willing to dispense ...
Acid, Greasers, Hippies and Violence: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Tue, 07 Feb 2023
With slick hair, a wry smile and a penchant for violence, John Griggs was the picture of a Sixties C...
The Jamaican Posses Take Over America: Kings of the Crack Era
Tue, 31 Jan 2023
The Wall Street of Patrick Bateman was just ramping up, and rap had taken over the Bronx and Brookly...
Calabria’s ‘Ndrangheta vs the Good Mothers with Alex Perry
Tue, 24 Jan 2023
For decades the ‘Ndrangheta rose to become the world’s most powerful organized crime group—and...
The Rise of Jamaica's Warring Gangs & Bob Marley's Attempted Assassination
Tue, 17 Jan 2023
In the 1960's, Jamaica's leading politicians saw an opportunity in the street gangs that were formin...
Australia's Brutal Gang Families Waging War in Sydney
Tue, 10 Jan 2023
Sydney has long been Australia’s “Sin City”, a pot of gold for crooks with the right connectio...
The International Kingpins: Montreal's Rizzuto Family
Tue, 03 Jan 2023
International organized crime has rarely seen a figure as powerful and connected as Vito Rizzuto, Mo...
How FIFA’s Godfather and Brazil’s Biggest Gangster Forged a Deadly Alliance, ft. Conor Powell
Tue, 20 Dec 2022
Castor de Andrade might just be the most powerful mobster you’ve never heard of. Born into a life ...
Introducing: The Last Resort
Sun, 18 Dec 2022
The Last Resort explores big, crazy, dangerous ideas – ideas that no one took seriously, but which...
Japanese Schoolgirl Gangs and Kamikaze Bikers: How an Assassin’s Sword Kicked off a Criminal CountercultureDraft Episode for Dec 13, 2022
Tue, 13 Dec 2022
When a fascist killer plunged his sword into Japan’s socialist leader on live TV, few could have p...
Sex Money Murda, Pistol Pete and the United Blood Nation (and Young Thug!)
Tue, 06 Dec 2022
This is the story of Pistol Pete, one of the most revered killers to ever walk the streets of New Yo...
Scammers, Traffickers and Bribes: The Dirty, Criminal Secrets Plaguing FIFA’s World Cup in Qatar - featuring Philippe AuclairDraft Episode for Nov 29, 2022
Tue, 29 Nov 2022
As things heat up in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Sean meets soccer journalist Philippe Auclair...
The Brazilian Prison Gang Dominating South America: The PCC
Tue, 22 Nov 2022
In less than 3 decades, a Brazilian gang formed during a prison soccer tournament has become one of,...
BONUS: George Chidi on Atlanta's Rap Murder Spree
Tue, 01 Nov 2022
Sean met Atlanta crime reporter George Chidi to talk about the city's rap labels and their role in i...
Update: Sean *Did Not* Get Kidnapped for Unpaid Cricket Bets
Fri, 07 Oct 2022
We've got new episodes ready to go. We hear you guys. SOON. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ...
The Slave Armies Powering a New Kind of Golden Triangle Cybercrime
Wed, 10 Aug 2022
When the pandemic took punters from Southeast Asia’s most notorious gambling dens, their gangster ...
Felix Mitchell:The Druglord That Took On The Black Panthers, and Oakland's Kingpin Wars
Wed, 03 Aug 2022
Felix "The Cat" Mitchell was like nothing Oakland had ever seen before. He took over the city's hero...
The Death of "God's Banker", the Vatican, a Pope's Murder, Mafia Plots and a Secret Masonic Coup
Thu, 28 Jul 2022
When Roberto Calvi's body was found swinging from a London bridge in 1982 it sent shockwaves through...
The Jewish & Redneck Gangsters that Beat the KKK: Charlie Birger w/ Jake Hanrahan
Wed, 20 Jul 2022
In the era of prohibition, Charlie Birger built a bootlegging and gambling empire in southern Illino...
Vladimir Putin, the KGB and the German Nazi Gangster Who Was a Communist Spy
Tue, 12 Jul 2022
Rainer Sonntag was just your run-of-the-mill, anti-state East German petty criminal—until a black ...
Chechen Mobsters, Bombs, Bumps and Special Ops: The Criminal Tale of Caviar
Tue, 05 Jul 2022
Caviar has been considered a delicacy since ancient times. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, a bl...
The Punjabi Indian Gangster Rapper Killed in a Gang War: Moosewala
Tue, 28 Jun 2022
Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, better known as Moosewala, was on the cusp of becoming a global superstar. Ra...
The Bank of the Underworld: Kingpins, Arms Traffickers, Pablo Escobar and Saddam Hussein
Tue, 21 Jun 2022
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was headed by a messianic, Karachi financier named Agh...
The Cartel Heroin Queenpin Who Ran Juarez for 50 Years with Benjamin Smith
Tue, 14 Jun 2022
Before El Mencho or El Chapo, even before Pablo Escobar, there was Ignacia Jasso, otherwise known as...
Fentanyl's Surge from China To Mexico to St Louis
Tue, 07 Jun 2022
Over the last three years there's been an explosion of fentanyl on the streets of America and it's l...
Who Rules Porn? From Hot Money
Tue, 07 Jun 2022
We’re shaking things up today and sharing a preview from Hot Money, a new podcast from our friends...
Belize's Gangster Politics and Ukraine's Battle for the Donbas
Tue, 31 May 2022
In this episode, Sean gets into the details about his story for Rolling Stone on Jamal "Shyne" Barro...
A Sicilian Rugby Team Fighting the Mafia - And Ukraine Update
Wed, 11 May 2022
Danny's in Ukraine, and Sean's cover story at Sports Illustrated—about a Sicilian rugby team facin...
Daniel Kinahan, Tyson Fury and the Irish Drug Cartel that Built a Boxing Empire - with Nicola Tallant
Tue, 26 Apr 2022
For years, Dublin-born Daniel Kinahan built on the work of his heroin-lord father Christy, aka the D...
The Shady World of Cryonics: Missing Heads, Bank Robbers and an Italian Funeral Mogul
Tue, 19 Apr 2022
We're joined by journalist and writer Peter Ward, whose upcoming book The Price of Immortality: The ...
Murder Inc: The Jewish & Italian Hit Squad that Terrorized the US
Tue, 12 Apr 2022
In the 1920's, high level gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had a plan to bring some sem...
TEASER: From Cautionary Tales: Death on the Floor
Thu, 07 Apr 2022
Here’s a special preview of the new season of Cautionary Tales from Pushkin Industries. On Caution...
Whitey Bulger, Jai Alai, the Winter Hill Gang, & the Tycoon Murder that Stunned America
Tue, 29 Mar 2022
*Note: technical difficulties with Sean's microphone this episode, apologies* By the late Seventies ...
Lord of the Skies: The Man Who United Mexico's Cartels
Tue, 22 Mar 2022
We're joined by author Noah Hurowitz to tell the story of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of the most po...
PATREON TEASER: A Former Gangster on his Life in Belize City's Crips - and how Cartels are Changing Everything
Mon, 14 Mar 2022
Here's a little teaser from this week's patreon episode, with Sean on the ground in Belize doing a b...
The Brutal Russian Mafia Wars of Tolyatti, Russia's Detroit
Tue, 08 Mar 2022
In the 1980s, as the Soviet empire crumbled, organized criminals eyed up the sprawling VAZ automobil...
Carjacking and Fentanyl: Down and Out in Philadelphia & St. Louis
Tue, 22 Feb 2022
In this episode thrown together because of a last-minute delay, Danny recounts recent reporting trip...
The Wild Cowboys of Washington Heights: NYC's Most Dangerous Crack-era Gang
Tue, 15 Feb 2022
New York City in the late 1980's and early 1990's was a war zone. The crack era ushered in a record ...
Colombia's Narco-Soccer: Pablo Escobar, Los Pepes, and the Murder of The Gentleman
Tue, 08 Feb 2022
In the early Nineties Colombia had one of the world’s best soccer teams. Some even tipped them for...
Glasgow's Ice Cream Wars: Drugs, Police Framing, and Soft Serve
Mon, 31 Jan 2022
As badly-planned 1960s projects pushed Glasgow's poorest people to the city's fringes, ice cream van...
The Raskol Gangs of Port Moresby: Tribal Wars, Street Battles and Homemade Guns in Papua New Guinea
Tue, 25 Jan 2022
The ‘raskol’ gangs that terrorize Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s chaotic capital city, have ...
SPECIAL PROMO: From Deep Cover: Who Was Bob Cooley?
Mon, 24 Jan 2022
SPECAL PROMO: Deep Cover tells true stories of crime and corruption. Pulitzer Prize-winning journali...
The Punjabi Mafia and the Indian-Canadian Celeb Hitman Bindy Johal
Tue, 18 Jan 2022
In Vancouver and the little known city of Surrey, violent gang wars between rival factions in the In...
El Mencho and CJNG: Mexico's Most Wanted and Sadistic Narco
Tue, 11 Jan 2022
He’s a recluse, a cockfighting high-roller, a former cop and a maniac. But will Nemesio Oseguera C...
Born To Kill: The Vietnamese Refugee Gang that Terrorized the US
Tue, 04 Jan 2022
In the late 1980's, a new gang threw asian immigrant communities across America into chaotic spurts ...
Sergeant Smack, Frank Lucas, and the Bangkok Heroin Corpse Connection
Tue, 21 Dec 2021
Leslie "Ike" Atkinson rose from Army sergeant to international casino hustler, to Bangkok bar owner ...
50th Episode/holiday Q+A Special!!!
Tue, 14 Dec 2021
We meant to get this up a few episodes back for the 50th episode special but figured it would work f...
Can a Former Gangster Rapper Stop Belize's Deadly Bloods vs Crips Wars?
Tue, 07 Dec 2021
In Belize City, rival factions of Bloods and Crips clicks have turned the south side of the city int...
How Meth Turned New Zealand's Biker Gang Scene Upside Down: Mongrels, Black Power and Killer Beez
Tue, 30 Nov 2021
For decades, New Zealand's biker gangs fought each other for turf, cash and kudos. Violence between ...
West Africa's Cocaine Empire: Guinea Bissau's True Narco State Status
Tue, 23 Nov 2021
Does any country deserve the title of narco-state more than tiny Guinea-Bissau? The West African nat...
The Gangs Controlling Haiti: A Dead President, Amish Hostages, and a Psycho Named BBQ
Tue, 16 Nov 2021
A President assassinated. Amish missionaries from Ohio held for million dollar ransoms (per person!)...
Gangs of England: The Real Peaky Blinders and the Racecourse Wars
Tue, 09 Nov 2021
On the smog-filled streets of industrial Birmingham, groups of ‘Peaky Blinders’ earned a reputat...
The Rise and Recent Capture of Colombia's Most Brutal Narco, Otoniel, w/ Toby Muse
Tue, 02 Nov 2021
Out there in the jungle, something evil and powerful grows. This is the story of Dairo Antonio Usaga...
The Out of Control Arab Israeli Crime Clans Driving the Murder Rate Sky-High
Tue, 26 Oct 2021
In the last 5 years, murders in what's known as Israel's Arab sector have increased 50%, setting new...
The Burmese Heroin Jungle Kingpin & the Transgender Opium Queen
Tue, 19 Oct 2021
Khun Sa was a mercenary, a rebel, a warlord and a freedom fighting drugmaker who all-but created the...
NY’s Chinatown Wars: Ghost Shadows, Hong Kong Triads, Tongs, and the China White Heroin Connection
Mon, 11 Oct 2021
When Nicky Louie stalked the streets in the 1970's, he was the first gangster to scare Chinatown in ...
BONUS PATREON EPISODE: Knives, Drugs, and Albanian Takeovers in London with Max Daly
Thu, 07 Oct 2021
Something a little different this week: No regular episode but we've decided to put the patreon bonu...
The Story of Sweden's Gang Crime Chaos: From Yugoslav Kingpins to Bombings, Rifles and Roadblocks
Tue, 28 Sep 2021
Sweden: ABBA, IKEA, third-wave coffee. A wealthy paradise? For some. For others, the Scandinavian st...
Taliban Heroin Gang and the Failed War on Afghanistan's Opium
Tue, 21 Sep 2021
Over the last two decades, the Taliban have moved from simply taxing Afghanistan's opium farmers to ...
The Golden Age of Hijacking, Kidnapping and Radical Cold War Terror
Mon, 13 Sep 2021
Ulrike Meinhof is dead and the remaining founders of the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader Meinhof Ga...
Afghanistan's Opium Nation: Drug Lords, Warlords, and Drug Wars
Mon, 06 Sep 2021
For decades, starting a few years even before the Taliban took power the first time around, Afghanis...
The Baader Meinhof Gang's 'Revolution' of Murders, Bank Robberies, & Blowing Themselves Up
Tue, 31 Aug 2021
The Baader Meinhof Gang, or Red Army Faction, came about as post-war Germany sought to rebuild from ...
DM'ing Dominican Narcos, The Shooting of David Ortiz, & Cesar The Abuser
Tue, 24 Aug 2021
The Dominican Republic has long been a transshipment for cocaine heading to the United States and Eu...
The Murdered Crime Reporter & the Mocro Mafia, Holland's Underworld Kings
Tue, 17 Aug 2021
On July 6, legendary Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries was shot in broad daylight on an Amsterdam ...
Syria's Narco State, Jihadi Supersoldiers and Hezbollah Traffickers: The Story of Captagon
Tue, 10 Aug 2021
Multiple billion dollar shipments of the drug known as Captagon have been seized in the last few yea...
Inside North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The World's Biggest Narco State?
Tue, 03 Aug 2021
When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Ban...
The Cuban Mob: Billion Dollar Rackets, the CIA, Lucchese Mafia Firebomb Wars, Miami Cocaine Trafficking and Fidel Castro
Tue, 27 Jul 2021
Jose Miguel Battle's Cuban Mafia known as The Corporation ran a billion dollar numbers racket with b...
The Untold Story of El Chapo's Rise and Fall w/ special guest Noah Hurowitz
Tue, 20 Jul 2021
(Apologies for sound issues on this one) Before he was Public Enemy Number One—shipping tons of co...
The Icelandic Drug-Smuggling Fellowship's Massive Bitcoin Heist
Mon, 12 Jul 2021
How did an Icelandic band of international drug smugglers pull off their nation’s most shocking he...
Cartel Land: How Acapulco went from Sinatra Singing to Sicarios Shooting
Tue, 06 Jul 2021
Acapulco has become one of Mexico's, and the world's, bloodiest cities. It saw a stunning 127 murder...
The Snakehead Sister Ping: China's Most Infamous Smuggler
Tue, 29 Jun 2021
She was the greatest smuggler, a Chinatown hero. Or was she a menace? Sister Ping made millions from...
The Pink Panthers: The Secretive Organization of the World's Top Jewel Thieves
Wed, 23 Jun 2021
Emerging out of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans-based international thieves known as the Pink...
The Russian Mafia's NHL Extortion Play
Wed, 16 Jun 2021
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80's and early 90's, both gangsters and hockey players h...
Turkey's Mafia Boss Youtube Sensation Trying to Bring Down the State
Wed, 09 Jun 2021
Sedat Peker has long been a top mafia boss in Turkey, but in recent weeks he's found a new calling: ...
The Billion Dollar Dealer Who Linked Hell's Angels, Mafia Families, Cartels, and Native American Smugglers
Wed, 02 Jun 2021
Jimmy Cournoyer brought a billion dollars of weed into New York City and the east coast through an o...
Curtis Warren, the English Gangster Who Tried to Take Over an Island:
Tue, 13 Apr 2021
Curtis Warren wasn't known as "Cocky" for nothing. Perhaps it was his rapid rise to the top of Brita...
Brazil's Red Command Rules the Favelas
Wed, 24 Mar 2021
In the late 1970's when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil, revolutionaries and hardcore criminals...
Black Caesar: The Biggest International Black Druglord You've Never Heard Of
Wed, 17 Mar 2021
Frank Matthews went from a poor boy in North Carolina stealing chickens to running one of the bigges...
Rasta City vs The Muslims: Trinidad's Gang Wars and Abu Bakr's Attempted Coup
Thu, 11 Mar 2021
In 1990, the tiny Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago saw the only attempted Islamic militant ov...
How Albania's Mafias Took Over Europe (and more)
Wed, 03 Mar 2021
The "Mafia Shqiptare" was forged during communism, exploded into life during a nationwide pyramid sc...
Sicily's Brutal Wars and Mafia Super Trial
Wed, 03 Feb 2021
The "Maxi Trial" pitted two fearless Palermo prosecutors and turncoat "Pentiti" against the Cosa Nos...
Bitcoin Blood Gangs and The Greatest Scammer of All Time
Tue, 26 Jan 2021
Early one morning this past June, 6 fully kitted out SWAT teams in Dubai fanned out across multiple ...
The Car Bomb Wars of the Israeli Mafias
Tue, 19 Jan 2021
Car bombs, shoulder-fired missiles, grenades and hits across 5 continents; the Israeli mafias that r...
The Drug Lords and Killer Cops of the Philippines
Tue, 12 Jan 2021
Over the last few years, Sean's been on the ground covering the Philippines' brutal drug war amongst...
Murder City USA: St Louis's Record Breaking Murder Rate
Mon, 04 Jan 2021
( note: we weren't able to record in the studio so audio is off a bit) The murder capital of the Uni...
Melbourne's Gangland Killings: The Smiling Assassin Carl Williams w/ guest Sami Shah
Tue, 22 Dec 2020
Danny is out this week, and Sean is joined by comedian Sami Shah. He came from nowhere to become the...
The Albanian Bronx Crew that took on the Italian Mafia
Mon, 14 Dec 2020
In the 1990's, a new group of criminals started making their presence known on the streets of New Yo...
On the Hunt for Burma's Billion Dollar Meth Labs
Mon, 07 Dec 2020
The biggest drug cartel in the world isn't Mexican, or Colombian. It's Asian. Buried deep in the Bur...
MS-13 Behind the Scenes in El Salvador
Mon, 30 Nov 2020
In recent years MS-13 has become one of the most feared street gangs in the world, thanks to face ta...
The Yakuza Part 2: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
Tue, 17 Nov 2020
In part two of our Yakuza deep dive, we plot their post-war rise from hustlers to corporate raiders ...
The Yakuza Part 1: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
Mon, 09 Nov 2020
Is there an organized crime group more iconic than Japan's Yakuza? In part one of two episodes on th...
Part 2 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
Mon, 26 Oct 2020
In part 2 of our episode on the Russian Mafia coming to Brooklyn, we are joined by journalist Michae...
Part 1 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
Mon, 19 Oct 2020
The Russian Mafia has been an object of fascination for decades in America, but it only really emerg...
The Merchant of Death: Arms Dealer Viktor Bout
Tue, 13 Oct 2020
They called him "The Merchant of Death" - the world's most dangerous man. But was gun-runner Viktor ...
BONUS PATREON MADE FREE: Nigeria's Cults and Revolution with Omoyele Sowore
Thu, 08 Oct 2020
Building off our Nigerian Cults episode: Omoyele Sowore was attacked by the cults as a student leade...
The White Boston Townie Who Became A Chinese Triad Boss
Tue, 06 Oct 2020
Chinatowns in the United States have never been short on organized crime syndicates, from the early ...
Black Axe and The International Cult Confraternities of Nigeria
Tue, 29 Sep 2020
They began as freedom-fighting pirates, swashbuckling for African rights. But over the decades Niger...
FREE BONUS PATREON EPISODE: COLOMBIAN CARTELS WITH TOBY MUSE
Thu, 24 Sep 2020
Decided to make this free, it's the first of our many bonus episodes up on the patreon, where we'll ...
The Brutal Human Trafficking Syndicates of Southeast Asia
Tue, 22 Sep 2020
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made by a vicious network of organized crime figures throu...
Dawood Ibrahim, India’s D Company, and the Mumbai Attacks
Tue, 15 Sep 2020
Few names strike fear into the hearts of Indians quite like Dawood Ibrahim. From a Mumbai slum he bu...
Ireland's Deadly Gang War: The Hutch Kinahan Feud
Tue, 08 Sep 2020
Tyson Fury, large amounts of cocaine, public executions at press conferences, and Estonian hitmen - ...
The Dangerous Crime Clans of Berlin
Tue, 01 Sep 2020
Berlin is Europe's party capital. But since the 1980's, another kind of club has taken over the city...
Trailer
Tue, 25 Aug 2020
Welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly series where journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams ta...