The Underworld Podcast
Episodes
BONUS PATREON EPISODE: Knives, Drugs, and Albanian Takeovers in London with Max Daly
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
The Story of Sweden's Gang Crime Chaos: From Yugoslav Kingpins to Bombings, Rifles and Roadblocks
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Sweden: ABBA, IKEA, third-wave coffee. A wealthy paradise? For some. For others, the Scandinavian state has become a homicide hotspot, with gun crime ...
Taliban Heroin Gang and the Failed War on Afghanistan's Opium
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Golden Age of Hijacking, Kidnapping and Radical Cold War Terror
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Afghanistan's Opium Nation: Drug Lords, Warlords, and Drug Wars
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 m...
The Baader Meinhof Gang's 'Revolution' of Murders, Bank Robberies, & Blowing Themselves Up
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
DM'ing Dominican Narcos, The Shooting of David Ortiz, & Cesar The Abuser
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Dominican Republic has long been a transshipment for cocaine heading to the United States and Europe. In recent years Dominican traffickers have s...
The Murdered Crime Reporter & the Mocro Mafia, Holland's Underworld Kings
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 casualt...
Syria's Narco State, Jihadi Supersoldiers and Hezbollah Traffickers: The Story of Captagon
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Inside North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The World's Biggest Narco State?
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ma...
The Cuban Mob: Billion Dollar Rackets, the CIA, Lucchese Mafia Firebomb Wars, Miami Cocaine Trafficking and Fidel Castro
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Jose Miguel Battle's Cuban Mafia known as The Corporation ran a billion dollar numbers racket with brutal enforcers for three decades, growing so powe...
The Untold Story of El Chapo's Rise and Fall w/ special guest Noah Hurowitz
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
(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 ...
The Icelandic Drug-Smuggling Fellowship's Massive Bitcoin Heist
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How did an Icelandic band of international drug smugglers pull off their nation’s most shocking heist, robbing millions in Bitcoin mining machines t...
Cartel Land: How Acapulco went from Sinatra Singing to Sicarios Shooting
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 m...
The Snakehead Sister Ping: China's Most Infamous Smuggler
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Pink Panthers: The Secretive Organization of the World's Top Jewel Thieves
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Emerging out of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans-based international thieves known as the Pink Panthers have coordinated many of the world's mos...
The Russian Mafia's NHL Extortion Play
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 opportuniti...
Turkey's Mafia Boss Youtube Sensation Trying to Bring Down the State
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 t...
The Billion Dollar Dealer Who Linked Hell's Angels, Mafia Families, Cartels, and Native American Smugglers
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
Curtis Warren, the English Gangster Who Tried to Take Over an Island:
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Brazil's Red Command Rules the Favelas
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1970's when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil, revolutionaries and hardcore criminals formed a collective in a brutal maximum security ...
Black Caesar: The Biggest International Black Druglord You've Never Heard Of
17 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 disapp...
Rasta City vs The Muslims: Trinidad's Gang Wars and Abu Bakr's Attempted Coup
11 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1990, the tiny Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago saw the only attempted Islamic militant overthrow of a government in the Western Hemisphere....
How Albania's Mafias Took Over Europe (and more)
03 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The "Mafia Shqiptare" was forged during communism, exploded into life during a nationwide pyramid scheme, and unleashed a wave of drugs and violence a...
Sicily's Brutal Wars and Mafia Super Trial
03 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The "Maxi Trial" pitted two fearless Palermo prosecutors and turncoat "Pentiti" against the Cosa Nostra, its thuggish leader Toto Riina, and a whole h...
Bitcoin Blood Gangs and The Greatest Scammer of All Time
26 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 crimi...
The Car Bomb Wars of the Israeli Mafias
19 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 contr...
The Drug Lords and Killer Cops of the Philippines
12 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
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 Du...
Murder City USA: St Louis's Record Breaking Murder Rate
04 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
( 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 - i...
Melbourne's Gangland Killings: The Smiling Assassin Carl Williams w/ guest Sami Shah
22 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 h...
The Albanian Bronx Crew that took on the Italian Mafia
14 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 r...
On the Hunt for Burma's Billion Dollar Meth Labs
07 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
MS-13 Behind the Scenes in El Salvador
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 D...
The Yakuza Part 2: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
17 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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, ...
The Yakuza Part 1: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
09 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 anci...
Part 2 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
26 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Part 1 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
19 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 we...
The Merchant of Death: Arms Dealer Viktor Bout
13 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 Ango...
BONUS PATREON MADE FREE: Nigeria's Cults and Revolution with Omoyele Sowore
08 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 ...
The White Boston Townie Who Became A Chinese Triad Boss
06 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 Bos...
Black Axe and The International Cult Confraternities of Nigeria
29 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
They began as freedom-fighting pirates, swashbuckling for African rights. But over the decades Nigeria's confraternities descended into vicious cults....
FREE BONUS PATREON EPISODE: COLOMBIAN CARTELS WITH TOBY MUSE
24 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 we...
The Brutal Human Trafficking Syndicates of Southeast Asia
22 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Dawood Ibrahim, India’s D Company, and the Mumbai Attacks
15 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 maf...
Ireland's Deadly Gang War: The Hutch Kinahan Feud
08 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Tyson Fury, large amounts of cocaine, public executions at press conferences, and Estonian hitmen - Ireland's war between the Hutchs and the Kinahans,...
Arkan's Tigers and the new Serbian Mafia
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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...
The Dangerous Crime Clans of Berlin
01 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
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 "probl...
Trailer
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly series where journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams take you into the secret world of transnational orga...