Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
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 murder...
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...
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...
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 h...
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: ...
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 o...
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 Brita...
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...
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 bigges...
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 ov...
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 sc...
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 Nos...
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 ...
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 r...
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...
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 Uni...
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...
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 Yo...
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 Bur...
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 ta...
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 ...
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 th...
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 Michae...
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 emerg...
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 ...
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 leade...
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 ...
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 Niger...
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 ...
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 throu...
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 bu...
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 - ...
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 gro...
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...
Trailer
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly series where journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams ta...