The Underworld Podcast
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.
Episodes
Cuba’s New Synthetic Drug Wave
How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos
Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos. Blackouts roll for days, trash piles high and locals are getting sick from a smorgasbord of airborne diseases.
Cuba has survived similar crises before: in the mid-1990s its people endu
Cuba: From Lansky’s Casinos to Castro’s Guns
Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition rum-runner’s paradise. After World War II, mobsters then executed a takeover of Havana, building hotels, casinos, racetracks and bordellos as US tourism sought sun, sand, and vice off the Flo
Stash House: Cartel Wars, Coke Boats, and Gangs Gone Global
Danny and Sean take another lap around the criminal world, where somehow everything is getting bigger, stranger, and more international. Sinaloa’s cartel war grinds on, Romanian crews allegedly drain millions from American food-benefit accounts, and South Africa confronts organized crime increasingly tangled up with the state.
Elsewhere, Sydney’s latest gang war features teenage recruits and dron
Assassination Nation: The Balkan Clan War that Took Over Europe
In the picturesque Montenegrin port of Kotor, a cocaine trafficking partnership fractured into one of Europe’s bloodiest gang wars. A dispute over a drug shipment in Spain in 2014 split the organization into two rival clans, the Kavač and Škaljari, turning former allies into sworn enemies. What followed was a sprawling campaign of revenge, with gunmen hunting their targets across borders and leavi
The Fall & Rise of Pakistan’s Escobar
In our final episode on the rise and fall and rise of the Pablo Escobar of Pakistan, he negotiates his own surrender to the DEA, maneuvers his way into the U.S. while dodging Pakistani intelligence agents out to kill him, and enjoys the hospitality of the American justice system. Then he returns to Pakistan, gets arrested again, and things get weird. Taliban weird.
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How an Albanian Mobster Derailed MAGA Island
In Albania's turbulent Nineties, the small, seaside town of Vlore became a gangster’s paradise, playing host to hundreds of crooks ferrying drugs, weapons and people into nearby Puglia alongside Italian mafiosi.
One of them was a slim, slick-haired former military man named Artur Shehu, who amassed a formidable property portfolio across Vlore — most reckoned, due to his friends in the Sacra Co
The Biggest Unknown Drug Dealer in US History
He might just be the biggest US drug smuggler you’ve never heard of. 1.3 billion in product moved. 16 different aliases. Bank accounts in 10 countries. A phantom, and a logistical genius. Stewart Newton quietly built what feds called the biggest ever drug smuggling operation in New England’s history, before suffering the largest ever narco assets seizure in US history. And he did it by leaving his
Shafted: How Cartels are Killing for Rare-Earths
Bolivia's Cerro Rico has been spewing out tons of silver for centuries. It was the economic bellows of the Spanish Revolution, whose lust for the precious metal came at the price of some eight million slaves. Some of the empire's earliest gangs formed around the Cerro. They were called ‘Jukus,’ and one man stood above (or below) them all.
Today's there's another, modern silver rush at Cerro Ric
The Heroin Warlord of Pakistan: Armed Tribesman, the CIA, & a Smuggling Empire
5000 armed tribesman at his beck and a call. A mountain compound in a lawless territory. A seat in Pakistan’s parliament bought and paid for. And a heroin and hash empire that stretched from the mountains of Afghanistan to million dollar mansions in Long Island. Ayub Afridi started life as a poor, illiterate truck driver in a mud hut and turned a trucking company into a global drug trafficking ope
Russian Mercenaries African Drug Empire, Israel’s Sushi Mob war & the murdered Assassin: Stash House
On this episode of Stashhouse: Wagner's leftover mercenaries are running a tramadol empire in the heart of Africa, while in Monaco a bomb takes out a Ukrainian tycoon, then someone takes out the assassin. Grenades, the mob, and Japanese food: an Israeli underworld war is being waged on the country's biggest sushi chain. Plus updates on friends of the show Kaz Hamad and Lawrence Bishnoi, two men pr
El Mayo Behind Bars: Cartel War, Conspiracy and Narcopolitics
Earlier this month, Sinaloa Cartel mastermind Ismael Zambada García, aka El Mayo, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in growing one of the world’s biggest criminal empires.
But while Mayo’s story may be ending, he leaves behind a mountain of unanswered questions. What actually went down on the day of his 2024 capture? Were US agents on the ground running the show? Who ordered the deat
Empire of Blood: The Fall of the Godfather of Crime and the Green Gang
When his Green Gang goons killed thousands of leftists in 1927’s Shanghai Massacre, Du Yuesheng was welcomed into the political scene of China’s nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. ‘Big Ears Du’ would then take over the country’s biggest city wholesale — running transport, water, electrical grids and even a major bank. All the while Du’s profits from narcotics and vice soared, making him one of th
China’s Mob King Prepares for War
By the mid-1920s, Green Gang Boss Du Yuesheng had conquered almost all before him — including his own underworld mentor Huang Jinrong. Shanghai’s opium scene, torn open by British gunboats, belonged to him.
But the city was about to become the crucible for a far more bloody showdown: one that would define modern China until today. With Communist Party agitators chipping away at his labor force,
Brazil’s Pablo Escobar: The Ghost
They call him Brazil's Pablo Escobar. Sérgio de Carvalho was an elite Brazilian police major who became one of the most wanted drug traffickers on Earth, accused of flying 45 tonnes of cocaine into Europe with his own private fleet of planes. Along the way he burned through ten fake identities, ran his empire from a prison cell, collected a police pension the entire time, and faked his own death f
The Last Don: The Godfather Who Turned Rat
In 1992, the New York Mafia is falling apart. The Gambinos are in chaos, the Colombos are at war, the Genoveses are hiding behind Chin Gigante’s bathrobe act, and the Bonannos—the forgotten, disgraced family left for dead after the Donnie Brasco disaster—are waiting on one man: Joey Massino. Known as “The Last Don,” Massino quietly rebuilds the Bonanno family into the most powerful mob outfit in A
The Rise of China’s Biggest Mob Boss EVER
Born into a peasant family on the outskirts of Shanghai, Du Yuesheng grew up an inveterate gambler and opium addict. But as he forged alliances in the growing metropolis’ underworld, members of a secret society-turned-cartel saw promise.
Before long, ‘Big Ears Du’ was running gambling dens, opium divans and brothels. And as Shanghai, cleaved into foreign concessions and wildly unequal, became
Chinatown’s Gangster Prince: Shrimp Boy
Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow possesses one of the best mob nicknames out there. The San Francisco Chinatown gangster went from teenage immigrant hooligan from the streets of Hong Kong to one of the most infamous Asian organized crime figures in America. His story has everything: Chinatown tongs, Hong Kong triad influence, immigrant protection rackets, gambling dens, and the violent gang wars that tur
Redux: Africa's Pablo Escobar: Ibrahim Akasha
Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe.
When he was gunned down in 2000, his sons stepped into the void, hungrier and even more violent...but also, more sloppy. They struck deals with Pakistani mobsters and Colombian cartels, turning Kenya’s ports into
Sex, Drugs and Shinto: How the Yakuza’s Only Woman Found Redemption
When Mako Nishimura, the yakuza’s only female member, fell in love with a rival gangster, it would send her on a long and painful path from drug and sex trafficking, to painkiller addiction and finally a role helping ex-yakuza go straight.
Her journey would mirror the downfall of the yakuza at-large, from the world’s largest criminal gangs to social outcasts, outwitted by cops and outpaced by new
Italy Clan Wars, Irish Gangster Politicians & Cartel Nigerian Breaking Bad: Stash House!
On this week's Stash House: A fugitive Dutch cocaine kingpin dodges capture off the coast of West Africa. An Irish gang boss trades gangland warfare for electoral politics. Mexican officials accused of working for the Sinaloa Cartel surrender to U.S. authorities. A violent mafia feud erupts in southern Italy. Nigerian authorities uncover an industrial-scale meth lab allegedly linked to Mexican car
The Rise and Fall of The Yakuza Devil's Child
Mako Nishimura graduated from high school delinquent to kamikaze biker gang, street tough and, eventually, a fully made member of a yakuza syndicate - the first (or perhaps second?) woman to do so. Nishimura made her gang huge amounts of cash selling women plus selling, and taking, huge quantities of methamphetamines.
But by the end of the 1980s, Nishimura’s life was unraveling into a mess of add
The Cartel Del Noreste's Kingdom of Terror w/ Andrew Glazer
Nuevo Laredo is one of the most feared cartel cities in Mexico, a place where disappearances, gun battles, and corruption became part of daily life as the Cartel del Noreste, or CDN, tightened its grip on the border. Born from the remnants of the brutal Zetas organization, CDN turned the city into a battlefield, fighting for control of smuggling routes into Texas while allegedly terrorizing civili
140 Banks! The Craziest Robbery Crew You've Never Heard Of!
Meet the Stopwatch Gang: three polite Canadian crooks turned bank robbery into a precision sport, hitting over 140 banks across North America and walking away with $15 million without firing a single shot. They wore presidential Halloween masks, escaped from prison multiple times, and became so notorious that the boss landed on the FBI's Most Wanted list. At their peak, they stole millions while
The Uncatchable Outlaw: Greece’s Helicopter-Riding Robin Hood
Vassilis Paleokostas, and his big brother Nikos, grew up shoeless in a Greek mountain village. When the boys moved to a city, they discovered a talent for robbery — and honed it with a mysterious criminal known locally as The Artist.
Before long, the trio were pulling off some of the most daring heists in European history. At a volatile time of financial crashes, leftwing guerrillas and political
El Mencho's Heir Takes Over CJNG!
When Mexican special forces killed El Mencho in February 2026, the throne of Mexico's most powerful cartel was up for grabs. But there's one man who many assumed would be taking over: Juan Carlos Valencia González, a 41-year-old California-born dual citizen known as "El 03," the stepson of the slain narco boss.
His cartel royalty bloodline is almost absurdly stacked, as his mother, Rosalinda Go
The Triple Frontier: Triads, Hezbollah and Narco Heavies
When Paraguay extradited French-Corsican heroin kingpin Auguste Ricord to the US in 1972, some thought Paraguay’s narco trafficking days might be numbered. If anything they were just beginning. Within years the tiny nation had welcomed Hong Kong Triads and Lebanese militants — who, combined with considerable homegrown narco and cigarette trafficking, made Paraguay one of the world’s most lawless p
How a Nazi French Mobster Made Paraguay a Smugglers’ Paradise
The French Connection and Paraguay
In 1968, a gang of smartly-dressed gangsters robbed a bank in Buenos Aires. The fallout from the raid would lead authorities in all kinds of crazy directions — from French paramilitary hitmen to mobsters belonging to the feared Union Corse, Corsican dope traffickers who’d perfected “French Connection” routes from Southeast Asia and Turkey into Marseille, then on
Boston's Irish Mob Gang War: The Winter Hill Gang
In 1960s Boston, Buddy McLean ignited a savage gang war after tensions with the McLaughlin brothers boiled over into open bloodshed. What started as neighborhood beef turned into a cycle of ambushes, barroom executions, and street hits that terrorized Boston. McLean’s Winter Hill crew proved more organized and ruthless, picking off rivals and seizing control as bodies piled up. By the end, the McL
The Trillion Dollar Scam King Gangster Taking Over
When fleets of young Chinese men arrived in the tiny, Pacific nation of Palau in 2018, authorities wondered why they’d eschewed the archipelago’s pristine shores and coral reefs for a handful of tumbledown buildings on the edge of Koror, its biggest town.
It wouldn’t take long for the story to unfold. These men were the foot soldiers in a new crime wave hitting Palau: digital scammers at the shar
Daniel Kinahan's Iran Oil Games, The King of the South & Trump's War on Narcos: Stashhouse!
We're back with another Stash House and there's a hell of a lot of crazy stuff going on. Daniel Kinahan is spotted in Dubai palling around with a shady oil trader, Sebastian "The King of the South" Marset is bagged up in Bolivia and extradited to the US, Trump goes in hard on Ecuador's narcos and potentially the rest of Latin America, the Scam Lord King of Asia might be saying goodbye for good, an
The Iraqi-Aussie Gangster Lighting up Melbourne: Kaz Hamad
Melbourne has been gripped by a new wave of underworld gang wars, this time fueled by the booming billion dollar black-market tobacco trade. Firebombings, drive-by shootings, and extortion targeting shops across the city have roiled the city as middle eastern syndicates and biker gangs fight over profit. At the center of the chaos is underworld figure Kaz Hamad, whose name keeps surfacing as riva
The Narco Fugitive who Took Over an African Country
When a 2023 club brawl ended in a Freetown, Sierra Leone parking lot shooting, cops and reporters pointed the finger at “Omar Shariff,” a portly Turkish millionaire who’d spent much of the past six months throwing cash about at the city’s casinos and top-end restaurants.
But Shariff wasn’t Turkish, and he wasn’t just any businessman. And as information about the strange man leaked over the coming
El Mencho Dead! And Mexico Explodes
We told you his life story in our 2022 episode, and now we're back with the sequel. El Mencho rose from poverty to build the CJNG into Mexico’s most violent and influential cartel, trafficking fent, meth and coke across the hemisphere. After years on the run with a huge U.S. bounty on his head, Mexican forces killed him in a daring military operation last week in Jalisco.
The cartel responded w
The Notorious Irish Gangster Who Took on The IRA
Not even the IRA scared Martin "The General" Cahill. He terrorized Dublin with audacious heists that left police scrambling. Rising from the gritty streets of Dublin, he became a criminal mastermind whose crew got so proficient at armed robberies and heists they sometimes did two jobs in a single day. From art heists to daring bank robberies, his exploits read like a thriller. Cahill remains Ire
The First Gangster Kingpin of New York
Monk Eastman ruled the depraved streets of turn-of-the-century Manhattan with fists and absolutely zero regard for human life, commanding an army of 1,200 thugs who terrorized the Lower East Side. At the height of his power, he was pulling cash from every racket you could think of while rigging elections for Tammany Hall and overseeing street violence so extreme that cops needed reinforcements ju
The OG Yakuza Godfather, Kazuo Taoka
Orphaned and kicked out of work, Kazuo Taoka was an unlikely candidate to become one of postwar Japan’s most important characters. But by combining violence with a talent for legitimate business and corruption, the immaculately-suited gangster would lead the Yamaguchi-gumi yakuza syndicate from a ragtag Kobe dockworkers’ gang to one of the world’s richest underworld forces, spreading from Japan in
Ryan Wedding Arrest & China's Scam Executions: Stash house!
What's going on with the big Ryan Wedding arrest and extradition? The Canadian city that had to declare a state of emergency because of Indo-Canadian gangs extorting everyone. China executes 11 scammers. All that and more in this Stash House: Sean is moving continents edition.
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Italy's Unknown 5th Mafia, The Stidda
In the late 1970s, as Sicily descended into all-out mafia war, the island’s allegiances split between the ruthless Corleonesi clan, led by Toto Riina, and southern gangsters fed up with Riina’s campaign of murder that was spilling innocent lives, and disgusting the Italian public.
This schism would be the birth of the Stidda — Sicilian for ‘star’ — a group that fought and thrived for turf in sout
America’s Craziest Mob Boss (Sort of!) Vincent Gigante
Vincent “Chin” Gigante was the most powerful mob boss in America...and he was also the mob's best performance artist. By day, he wandered Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, muttering to himself, selling the world on the idea that he was crazy. By night, he ran the Genovese crime family with near-absolute discipline, avoiding wires, indictments, and the spotlight that destroyed flashier dons.
For
The Weed Kingpin who Hired Woody Harrelson’s Hitman Dad
Ever hear about how Woody Harrelson's dad was a hitman who killed a federal judge? The Chagra brothers came up along the El Paso and Juarez border when smuggling weed became one of America's booming industries. With Lee a prominent criminal defense attorney and Jimmy an outlaw, they gambled millions in Vegas, lived lavishly, and made a lot of enemies, chief among them prosecutors and judges.
Whe
A Cocaine War and the World’s Dumbest Bust
When the son of Suriname’s president offered to ship drugs and guns for a major terror group in 2013, it was the dimwitted denouement to decades of narco-fueled madness in the small, South American nation — which began when the two belligerents in its bitter civil war made so much cash ferrying product for Colombian cartels, that they buried their differences and worked together instead.
The war
Crime! Drugs! Cartels! Gangs! Holidays!
It's stash house time! We bring you all the news on organized crime, gangs, drugs, cartels and the holidays that you could ever want. And, at the end, Sean shows his feet in a special holiday new years gift to our most loyal fans.
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Sweden's Brutal Gang Civil War: The Kurdish Fox vs Strawberry
In the last few years, Sweden’s gang wars have erupted into a brutal battlefield of shootings, bombings, and shifting allegiances even worse than the decade before. At the center is the Kurdish Fox, a shadowy figure who built his gang Foxtrot into the most formidable drug network in the entire country, all while not even living in Sweden.
Using encrypted chats to recruit teenage gunmen, he sent
The Super Cartel King: Daniel Kinahan
In the wake of the EncroChat bust, swaths of the world’s biggest narco traffickers have been swept up by European cops — from Balkan tough guys to Camorra capos.
Somehow, though, the man who connects them all has kept his hands clean. How did Daniel Kinahan go from Dublin goon to global cartel leader? And how long can he stay out of trouble? Sean spoke to The New Yorker’s Ed Caesar, who’s writte
Sweden's Gangland Child Soldiers
Starting in the mid 2010's, Sweden’s gang wars transformed from neighborhood disputes into a national crisis, driven by splintered immigrant-area crews who now recruit teenage hitmen willing to kill for a few thousand dollars. At the center of the chaos, the bitter feud between Shottaz and Death Patrol, two rival networks whose bombings, kidnappings, and retaliatory shootings have turned Stockholm
War in Venezuela?!?! Narcoterrorism, Maduro and Trump
With gunboats parked in the Caribbean, fast boats blown up, and the White House threatening to invade, we unpick some of the narratives surrounding Venezuela’s regime — and its gangs. Is the Tren de Aragua really exporting fentanyl to the US? Is Nicolas Maduro the head of a global narcotics trafficking organization? And is the Cartel of the Suns actually a thing?
Featuring guest interviews an
Mafia NBA Gambling Rings & The Louvre Robbery: A Thanksgiving Special
In this special Thanksgiving episode, the guys are in the studio together and do a deep dive on the insane Louvre Heist of the French Crown Jewels. They also get to the bottom of the Mafia rigged poker games and the absolutely insane NBA gambling scandal that rocked professional sports recently.
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Cattle Rustlers to Cocaine Kings: Los Cachiros
When feds convicted Honduran cocaine kingpin Juan Matta Ballesteros in 1990, authorities hoped it would spell an end to the Central American nation’s growing reputation as a narco state — a status that had caused havoc across the region.
Those hopes were dashed almost immediately — and not just by Matta’s family, who carried on his legacy of cartel wheeler-dealing. In the jungles of eastern Ho
The Tijuana Cartel's Bloody Rise and Fall
When the godfather Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo got busted in '89, he divvied up his empire from a prison cell and handed the coveted Tijuana plaza to the Arellano Felix Brothers, who transformed it into one of the most violent drug organizations in Mexico.
At their peak, the brothers, led by Benjamin, were pumping an estimated 40 percent of America's cocaine through their border kingdom recruitin
The Cartel Puppetmaster: Juan Matta Ballestero
Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros began life as a pickpocket in his hometown of Tegucigalpa, before heading out on the perilous border roads of Latin America as an emerald smuggler. Soon he was making friends in high places, scoring deals on consignments of cocaine - and connecting coca producers in the Andes with up-and-coming narcos in Mexico.
All the while, Matta forged ties with the elites and c
The State Line Mob: Redneck Mafia
Along the blood-soaked border between Mississippi and Tennessee, a ruthless crime empire ruled the night where whiskey flowed, dice rolled, and anyone who crossed the wrong person disappeared into the darkness. The State Line Mob, bankrolled by a hammer-wielding madam and led by a wannabe southern Capone, turned a stretch of highway into America's most lawless strip, where corrupt cops looked the
The Cartel World's Donnie Brasco w/ Ian Frisch
Starting at the tail end of the wild cowboy days of 1980's Miami, undercover FBI agent Martin Suarez didn’t just infiltrate a cartel...he nearly rose to the top. As a smuggler, he helped move a billion dollars worth of product while rising through the ranks of the Medellin cartel before moving into the secretive world of elite money launderers for cocaine kingpins.
For years, he lived a double l
Warlords, Narco-Pirates, & The Gangster King of Vietnam
Emerging from Saigon’s system of warlords and narco-pirates, Nam Cam built a criminal empire by making sure everyone — cops, politicians, media — was in his pocket. But that meant that when everything came crashing down, it crashed down hard, and he took out a decent portion of the city’s leadership with him.
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The OG Mexican Narco: Pablo Acosta
Pablo Acosta ruled Mexico's drug trade from a dusty border town, turning Ojinaga into a narco-empire that funneled billions in cocaine, weed and heroin into America during the 1980s. Known as the Fox of Ojinaga, he was a ruthless trafficker who taught the narco-world that it was better to buy the authorities than fight them.
His dealings with the Colombian cartels changed the Mexican underworld a
Cambodia’s Untouchable Gangster-in-Chief
Hun To, the nephew of Cambodia’s former PM, is also the ruler of a criminal empire stretching from illegal logging and Triad-run casinos, to corrupt Chinese investment and — ALLEGEDLY — people and heroin trafficking.Sean met Nathan Southern and Lindsey Kennedy at a Saigon studio to discuss a crazy tale of how the leaders of a small and economically weak nation have gotten wildly rich playing off g
London’s Corrupt Cops & Gangland Killers: the Epping Forest Slayings
When a London couple were found dead in a lover’s lane, in 1987, evidence pointed quickly at some of the city’s most notorious gangland figures — both established and upcoming. But despite informants and wiretaps the trail ran cold.Then another body showed up. Then another. Before long, cops were connecting the dots between four different killings, all carried out in disturbing fashion across the
World's Most Dangerous Mobster: The Russian Mafiya Godfather
They say Semion Mogilevich is the most powerful gangster on the planet, the mastermind who rewrote the playbook for organized crime worldwide. Boss of bosses in the Russian Mafiya, with a hand in everything from trafficking nuclear material, arms dealing, narcotics trafficking, massive prostitution rings, multiple billion dollar frauds, hundreds of murders, controlling the gas and oil industry in
Burmese Warlords, Gangsters & A Scam Utopia
Buried on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Shwe Kokko is a shimmering city of skyscrapers, casinos and fresh-laid highways. But peek a little closer and you’ll see why it has become one of the world’s criminal capitals — from razor-wire fences to keep in thousands of enslaved scammers, to armed rebel guards and a theme park where Chinese high-rollers can shoot military-grade weapons.Shwe Kokko
Europe's Deadliest Biker War: Hells Angels vs the Bandidos
In the 1980's and 1990's, America's biggest outlaw motorcycle gangs were looking to expand all over Europe. Unfortunately, they set their sites on the same countries, and they weren't keen on sharing territory.
The Great Nordic Biker War erupted in the 1990s as the Hells Angels and Bandidos clashed for control of drug routes and territory across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. What began a
America's Nightmare Mafia Boss: Gaspipe Casso
Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was the Lucchese family’s brutal underboss, the brains behind boss Vic Amuso's reign, and architect of one of the Mafia’s bloodiest purges. Together they ruled the Luccheses with paranoia and brute force, wiping out rivals and even dozens of their own men if they sniffed disloyalty or simply didn't like them.
Casso personally ordered or committed dozens of murders, turni
Fidel Castro: Cuba’s Cocaine Trafficker-in-Chief?
In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted no time booting out American business owners, casinos and drug kingpins — much to the delight of US law enforcers.
But as time passed, and Castro’s socialist regime sought ever-trickier income streams, the Caribbean island proved an irresistible stepping stone for cartels getting product from the
The Dixie Mafia's Texas Millionaire Murders
When Bill Richardson, a troubled oilman and pro pigeon shooter, was gunned down on his Corpus Christi doorstep in 1971, everybody assumed it was an open-and-shut organized crime hit. But when Richardson’s supposed killers walked free from court, and another body showed up in the Gulf of Mexico, investigators stumbled on a conspiracy that pitted millionaire gamblers and sharpshooters against the na
Mexico's New Ultraviolent Narco-Terrorists: The CDN
From the ashes of Los Zetas rose the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast Cartel, a brutal splinter group led by the infamous Treviño Morales family and headquartered in the blood-soaked border city of Nuevo Laredo. Known for their military tactics, narco-tanks, and paramilitary wing “Tropa del Infierno” aka the Hell Troop, CDN wages war not only against rivals but against the Mexican state itself.
T
Crack, Chaos, and Cartels: Rayful Edmond’s Empire
In the 1980's, Rayful Edmond rose to infamy as Washington D.C.’s most notorious crack kingpin, building a multimillion-dollar empire by the age of 19. At the height of his reign, D.C. became the murder capital of America, with crack cocaine fueling a deadly wave of violence and addiction. Edmond's lavish lifestyle and ruthless control of the streets made him a legend, and a target. He was arrested
Australia's Gangster King of Sin: Abe Saffron
Abe Saffron rose from wartime wheeler-dealing to become the king of Sydney’s underworld, a man whose appetite for sex, money and scandal was unmatched by any other Aussie gangster in the swinging Sixties. Saffron paid everybody off, brought Sinatra to Sydney, and hosted Sinatra. He was, in the words of one reporter, “Mr Sin”.
But as Saffron’s empire of vice grew, so did the list of those desperat
Africa's Pablo Escobar: Kenyan Kingpin Ibrahim Akasha
Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe.
When he was gunned down in 2000, his sons stepped into the void, hungrier and even more violent...but also, more sloppy. They struck deals with Pakistani mobsters and Colombian cartels, turning Kenya’s ports int
The Shaman-Gangsters Who Built Indonesia
For centuries, brigands, gangsters and street toughs ruled the island of Java so thoroughly that they were woven into local myths. But in the 20th century, when the world bounded towards war, mob bosses in Jakarta spotted a chance to turn underworld kudos into an independent nation.
When the war ended, and Indonesia dove into chaos, a handful of kingpins would emerge as the architects of a new, m
The Narco Lord of the Skies: Amado Carrillo Fuentes
Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the 1990s, moving hundreds of tons of cocaine and amassing billions while forging deep ties with Colombian cartels and corrupt Mexican officials. At the height of his power, he controlled the Juárez Cartel and operated a fleet of private jets, outpacing rivals and law enforcement alike.
His influence stretched from Mexico to
Cocaine, Camorra, Call Girls: Maradona's Downfall
In 1987, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona was on top of the world. He’d just handed his nation a World Cup, and his club side Napoli its first league title in over 60 years.
But Maradona’s hard-partying lifestyle and underworld friends would soon take their toll - and before long, the world’s greatest sportsman was in a tangled web of vice, drugs and match-fixing that would haunt him until hi
Russian Mafia Superhitman: Alexander Solonik
The 1990's in Moscow were the glory days of Russian organized crime. Emerging out of the downfall of communism, wannabe oligarchs and gangsters turned the country into a free-for-all as they fought for control. And no where, is more deadly than Moscow. In 1992, there was 2,500 murders in Moscow alone.
There’s a lot of action, and everyone wants a piece of that action. Problem is, sometimes two pe
Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes!
When cops on the English coast busted a bid to bring in a huge shipment of cocaine in 2020, it sent shockwaves through the underworld hundreds of miles north in Scotland, where the drugs were destined for, and reignited a bitter feud between the Lyons and Daniel crime families that had simmered for almost two decades.
Today, with a third, international gang entering the fray, the feud has spilled
The Wild, Murderous Rampage of the Zizians
When cops arrested a group of masked, black-robed protesters at a California campsite in 2019, most folks thoughts they’d caught some eccentric but harmless members of the Bay Area’s niche rationalist movement. But over the next few years the group would rally around its charismatic leader, Ziz LaSota, tearing across North America on a rampage of robbery and murder.
But even today, with LaSota in
The Chinese Mafia Takeover of America's Weed Industry
There''s a new king at the top of the US weed game, raking in tens of billions of dollars, so organized and prolific that they've replaced the cartels. A sprawling, shadowy empire of Chinese triads is running thousands of illegal grow ops across the U.S. From California suburbs to rural Maine, these operations are powered by slave labor, stolen utilities, and chemicals banned in America.
But it g
How Diego Maradona Fueled the Rise of Naples’ Camorra
When Argentine soccer wizard Diego Armando Maradona swapped Barcelona for lowly Napoli in 1984, it shocked the sporting world — and sent Naples’ deadly Camorra into overdrive. Corrupt from the very start, the move would send the world’s greatest player into a tailspin of drugs, sex and crime, even while his onfield performances won Napoli its first league in over six decades.
But as Maradona Mani
The Olympic Snowboarder Narco Kingpin
How did a Canadian former Olympian build a one billion dollar narco empire?
A few months ago, the feds added a new name to their 10 most wanted list: Ryan Wedding, a former Olympic athlete and middle class Canadian kid who managed to build himself into a powerful narco kingpin.
But how the hell did a middle class kid from small town Canada go from being one of the world's best snowboarders to o
The Sinaloan Train Robbers Causing Havoc in the Mojave Desert
You may have missed it, but there’s a new gang of train robbers in the American West — and they’re suprisingly like the bandits of old. For over a decade a team comprised mostly of Mexicans from the state of Sinaloa has been jumping aboard freight cars, sometimes at 70mph, and grabbing…Nike sneakers.
Yes, these enterprising thieves have got their eyes on a very particular prize: unreleased, limit
The Gunrunner Who Tried to Save China: Two Gun Cohen
On Christmas Day, 1941, as bombs tear Hong Kong apart, gunrunner Morris "Two Gun" Cohen — a street hustler from the slums of London turned Canadian frontiersman turned Chinese general — stares down death from a hotel room. From underground boxing rings to arms deals, Cohen fought the Japanese and Soviets, battled communists, warlords and mercenaries, and drank his way through China's bloodiest yea
Los Muchachos: Miami's Cuban Cartel
In 1980s Miami, amid the glitz, gunfire, and power boats, two Cuban-American friends Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon, built one of the most powerful drug empires in U.S. history. Known as Los Muchachos, they moved mountains of cocaine through a city shaped by Cuban exiles, ambition, and an underworld that blurred the line between loyalty and lawlessness.
From funding anti-Castro revolutionaries to w
The 'Ndrangheta's Notorious Kidnapping Gang Wars
Today the ‘Ndrangheta, Calabria’s clan-based Mafia, is one of the world’s richest and most powerful drug trafficking organizations, worth an estimated $55 billion. But it wasn’t always like that. From the 1960s, as European politics went mad, the group glommed onto a new fad taking Italy by storm: kidnapping. And it got them the capital to get into property, cigarette smuggling, and cocaine.
But
Meet The Chicago Outfit's Most Infamous Hitman
Kurt Calabrese grew up in the Chicago mafia known as The Outfit. His father, Frank Calabrese Sr, was the premier hitman, known for strangling his victims with his bare hands. But Frank didn't just leave the violence at work. He trained his sons Kurt and Frank Jr in the mob enforcer life since they were kids, through fear, intimidation and horrific abuse.
When the entire Calabrese family got locke
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