The Underworld Podcast - podcast cover

The Underworld Podcast

The Underworld Podcastwww.underworldpod.com
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

Jalisco’s Death Camp, El Salvador's Mega-prison and Mexico’s Cartel Extraditions

Will Grant, the BBC’s Mexico, Central America and Cuba correspondent, was recently on the ground at Jalisco’s Rancho Izaguirre, dubbed ‘Mexico’s Auschwitz’, and CECOT, Nayib Bukele’s megaprison in El Salvador. Will spoke to Sean about what he saw in both places, how politics and organized crime is coverging, what new Mexican President Claudia Scheinbaum can do without triggering full-scale war — and how populism and the mob have often gone hand-in-hand across Latin America. Learn more about your...

Apr 01, 20251 hr 18 min

Mexico's Most Sociopathic Druglord: El Mencho & CJNG

He’s a recluse, a cockfighting high-roller, a former cop and a maniac. But will Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, aka El Mencho, do what he’s been threatening for years and become the most powerful cartel boss on the planet? From avocados to abogados, weed to coke to fentanyl, Mencho is a narco so bloodthirsty his men are compared to ISIS. Can the Mexican state cut him down to size? Or will a lifelong quest to build a citadel in his home state of Michoacan come off, ruling local civilians with a sadis...

Mar 25, 202558 min

The Most Insane Prison Gang Ever: South Africa's Numbers Gang

South Africa's secretive Numbers Gangs almost defy description; they're one part cult, one part religion, and all parts violent psychopaths. Emerging originally as bandits preying on gold miners and policemen in colonial South Africa, they took shape in the brutal prison system of apartheid, where sometimes the only way to communicate was through stabbing whoever was around. What formed was something more than a gang, it was almost a shadow universe where every single interaction was governed by...

Mar 18, 202559 min

Duterte Arrested: Was the Drug War a Cover Up?

Sean Williams reports from the Philippines, where former President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug war cost up to 30,000 lives and tore Philippine society to shreds. But was it all cover for his family’s own involvement in the drug trade? Reporting from Duterte’s stronghold of Davao, where he ran a decades-long death squad, and capital Manila, which bore the brunt of that bloody blueprint, we expose the genesis of the war — and its longtime link to Triads and other criminal groups. Duterte's conne...

Mar 11, 202555 min

The Last Street Boss of Chinatown: Ghost Shadows Peter Chin

The Ghost Shadows are said to have been the wildest of Chinatown's gun-toting teenage gangs in the 1970's and 1980's, engaging in countless shootouts with their rivals the Flying Dragons and the White Eagles. And that was before they linked up with one of the Triad-connected tongs to run the neighborhood protection and gambling rackets, earning millions every year despite being barely out of their teens. MAGICMIND LIMITED TIME OFFER: up to 48% off your first subscription or 20% off one time purc...

Mar 04, 20251 hr 2 min

The World's Biggest Arms Trafficker Goes Down Hard

When Adnan Khashoggi, Saudi arms dealer and self-styled world’s richest man, met with US officials to discuss the Ayatollah, it may have seemed like a chance to cash in corporate power for political clout. But the affair — and an ill-advised friendship with the kleptocratic leaders of the Philippines — would send Khashoggi’s businesses into a tailspin, and land him jail. What came next was one of the most spectacular court cases of the era. And it finally shined a spotlight on the life and legen...

Feb 25, 202555 min

The Dixie Mafia: Gone South w/Jed Lipinski

The Dixie Mafia terrorized the southern US for decades before authorities were finally able to bring them down. Starting off as a loose collective of career criminals who specialized in burglaries and robberies, they grew more organized after starting to use the infamous Biloxi strip of undercover brothels and gambling houses as a base, eventually shifting to everything from drug smuggling to contract killing to even running national romance scams. We're joined by Jed Lipinski of Gone South to b...

Feb 18, 202557 min

The Richest Arms Dealer Ever: Adnan Khashoggi

Adnan Khashoggi was born in Mecca — but his life was anything but pious. The billionaire had multiple wives, girlfriends and armies of callgirls, not to mention gambling sessions and club nights whose costs ran into the millions of dollars. Khashoggi made his first riches shipping arms from the US to Saudi Arabia. But soon his “fees,” and the ways he got them, began to catch up with him. And dalliances in politics, bad investments, and some friends in dark places, would send the life of the ‘wor...

Feb 11, 202555 min

The Mobster Who Ruled Hawaii & His Brutal Revenge Quest

Michael Miske came from a broken home through years of petty crime to lead a gang of lost boys in Honolulu, cornering its drug scene and befriending cops to build an empire of pain in the Aloha State. But when Miske’s son slammed his car into a truck and died, it sent the kingpin on a spiral of misplaced rage — ending in murder, conspiracy and even a chemical weapon attack. Even when the law caught up with him, Miske had one last trick up his sleeve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...

Feb 04, 20251 hr 3 min

America's Most Dangerous Prison Gang: The Aryan Brotherhood

What started as a small gang of white prisoners in a California state prison in the 1960's is now one of, if not the most powerful prison gang across America, with tens of thousands of soldiers across federal and state lines. Though they're alleged to only have approximately 150 full-fledged members, the Aryan Brotherhood has found ways to dominate prison economies and expand their rackets into the outside world. The Brand, as the Aryan Brotherhood is sometimes called, has morphed from a self-de...

Jan 28, 202552 min

Hollywood's Celebrity Gangster and the Battle for Los Angeles: Mickey Cohen

Mickey once said of himself, quote, “I was a pretty fair replica of the devil.” He also killed a bunch of people, and got away with it. A street hustler since he was 6, Cohen gained a rep as a hard-fighting professional boxer despite his short stature, and a rep as a wild-haired stick up kid that never backed down from a gunfight or a robbery. But when he got the call to head back to LA to serve as the number 2/bodyguard for Bugsy Siegel, everything changed. Under Bugsy, Mickey's statue rose sky...

Jan 21, 20251 hr 2 min

The Nazi Drug Kingpin, the Biggest Narco You've Never Heard Of & The Cocaine Coup

It’s January 5, 1982, and the central American state of Panama is playing host to one of the most extraordinary narco summits in history. Hosting the pow-wow is Manuel Noriega, chief of Panamanian military intelligence and just a year from siezing its control. Pablo Escobar, head of what will become the feared Medellin Cartel, is there too. But even these criminal heavyweights aren’t the biggest gangsters in the room. That title belongs to Roberto Suarez Gomez, Bolivia’s so-called King of Cocain...

Jan 14, 202550 min

The Teenage Hitmen of Marseille's Gang Wars

You might recognize the city of Marseille as the home of one of the biggest drug trafficking operations in history, the French Connection. These days, though, it's no longer Corsican mobsters using France's second biggest city as a transshipment point to move heroin across the Mediterranean. Instead, the last two decades have seen street gangs of mostly North African teenagers warring over retail drug spots that can make over $100,000 a day. 2023 saw nearly 50 narco-homicides, as the French poli...

Jan 07, 20251 hr 4 min

The Nazi Fugitive Who Created The Modern Cocaine Cartel & Befriended Escobar

When Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”, escaped Europe at the end of the war and fled to Latin America, he didn’t follow his fellow Nazis into hiding. In fact, Barbie remained on the books of western spy agencies, including the CIA, and reaped enormous wealth, power, and protection. Barbie then hooked up with the fascists and druglords of Bolivia, christened a death squad called the “Bridesgrooms of Death” — and took the country in a brutal coup backed so far to the hilt by marching powder, th...

Dec 31, 202456 min

The Biggest American Weed Cartel Ever: The Cornbread Mafia

When the Cornbread mafia started to unravel in the late 1980's, the feds had no idea what they had stumbled upon. Within a few years, they had seized 400 million dollars in marijuana grown in 30 locations in 10 states, indicting 70 people. And it all started with some country outlaws. These men were farmers, mechanics, and handymen by day, and by night, they transformed into savvy businessmen managing an underground empire. They recruited others from the local community, including friends, neigh...

Dec 17, 20241 hr 2 min

The Human Trafficking Illegal Casino Kingpin Who May Have Been a Chinese Spy

Alice Guo was a Philippine success story, a homeschooled farmhand who rose to become a millionaire business leader. But when Guo ran for mayor of the small town of Bamban in 2022, eyebrows were raised. Sure, she was rich: but how did Guo own a helicopter, $200,000 jewelry and a McLaren sports car? Perhaps she really was an industrial savant. Or perhaps there was something a little more sinister going on, perhaps something to do with the giant offshore gambling complex located a stone’s throw fro...

Dec 10, 202454 min

The Lord High Executioner of Brooklyn: Albert Anastasia

You don't earn a nickname like The Lord High Executioner by not killing a whole lot of people. And Albert Anastasia, one of the most psychotic gangsters to ever come out of New York City, was alleged to have participated in at least 60 murders as part of his role as one of the leaders of Murder, Inc., the hitmen organization that Lucky Luciano and the other members of The Commission tasked with doling out mafia justice. Anastasia's rise to power in the violent mob wars of the 1920's and 1930's i...

Dec 03, 202453 min

The Sinaloa Cartel Civil War Raging in Mexico: Los Chapitos vs El Mayo w/Nathan Jones

Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan is roiling with violence in the wake of El Mayo’s capture, and his alleged betrayal at the hands of the Chapitos. But the bloodshed is just part of an ever-changing drug landscape, that’s increasingly dominated by the Sinaloa factions and the CJNG. How do these two organizations work? How can they work together? And what on earth can Mexico’s new president do to stop the bullets from flying? Sean spoke to expert Nathan P. Jones to find out. MERCH: https://underworldpod...

Nov 26, 20241 hr 2 min

Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle

Peru’s Shining Path, a Marxist-Maoist guerrilla force, plunged the Andean nation into a two-decade civil war that put villagers of the VRAEM, a remote, coca-producing region, on its bloody frontline. The Peruvian government captured the movement’s despotic leader, and the war died. But the rebels switched gears, protecting coca shipments from Peru’s interior to its coast, and out across Latin America. Today the VRAEM is the global trade’s ground zero — even for the leaves that make their way, vi...

Nov 19, 202458 min

The Bloody Turkish Mafia War Raging Across the World

With their leader sentenced to life in a Dutch prison, the most powerful heroin trafficking organzation in Europe, the Turkish-Kurdish Baybasin clan, wasn't about to call it quits. Younger brother Abdullah Baybasin set out to control the streets of North London with his feared crew of Hackney Bombers. But another powerful gang, the Tottenham Turks, and the met police investigators, had other ideas. Two decades later, control of Europe's heroin market is once again facing instability, as the Tali...

Nov 12, 202454 min

Europe's Pablo Escobar: The Heroin Emperor Huseyin Baybashin

From a village in rural Turkey, Huseyin Baybasin emerged as one of the most powerful drug lords in Europe, setting up a global heroin trafficking ring. Stepping into the vacuum left by the downfall of the French Connection, Baybasin and his clan, dubbed "The Family," brought in billions of dollars of opium from Afghanistan through Iran and smuggled into Turkey before it headed to western Europe on the so-called Balkan route, all with the help of the Kurdish separatist militia known as the PKK. B...

Nov 05, 20241 hr 4 min

The Billion Dollar Scam Cult King who tried to Take Over an Island

When Bougainville fought an incredible civil war over a colossal mine, and won, its military leader emerged a hero. But he would soon fall under the spell of a conman and cult leader who wanted the Pacific island—and believed himself to be its king. The unlikely pair soon carved an empire out of a coconut palm jungle—and a wild, picaresque myth about Eden, ancient monarchs, and gold. The wildest thing was that almost everybody in the region believed it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...

Oct 29, 202457 min

North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The Hermit Narco-Kingdom

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 manhunt ensnaring Hong Kong Triads, Outlaws bikers and an ex-US Army sniper’s band of contract killers. But the bust also shone a light on the shady drug network of North Korea, part of a crime machine fuelling the world’s maddest dictatorship. This is the story of how a war-torn Hermit Kingdom became a narco-trafficking, cash-counterfeiting, pimping...

Oct 22, 202459 min

Indian Posse: The Native Teen Gang Ruling Canada's Prisons

Danny and Richard Wolfe were barely even teenagers when they formed the Indian Posse in their mother's basement with a handful of friends, but they had already been living the street life since they were in grade school, robbing, stealing and fighting. Never did they expect that within a few short years, the gang would balloon to hundreds and then thousands of members, taking shape in Winnipeg's poor and violent North End where there was no shortage of poor indigenous teens from broken families ...

Oct 15, 20241 hr 5 min

The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador

Jon Lee Anderson is an author and staff writer at The New Yorker. Anderson recently profiled Ecuador’s young president Daniel Noboa for a piece entitled “Ecuador’s Risky War on Narcos”. Jon Lee spoke about his weeks long visit to the embattled nation, its place in the wider drug world, and how political movements across Latin America have metastasized into the biggest and most violent underworld on the planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 08, 20241 hr 13 min

The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Escobar: The Gentlemen of Cali

As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the dominant player, capturing headlines across the world. But there was a second cartel rising up, one that operated more in the shadows and would soon grow more powerful - and more profitable - than even Medellin. The Gentlemen of Cali were slick, sophisticated and always looking for a solution that wouldn't attract headlines. They fancied themselves businessmen and aristocrats, and as Pablo went to w...

Oct 01, 20241 hr 3 min

How Chinese Money Launderers Took Over the Narco Underworld

When gunmen ambushed a Mexican-Chinese businessman outside his Guatemala City casino in 2016, few outside the DEA paid much attention. But the shootout presaged the downfall of a man who, feds would later say, hadn’t just made a tidy living out of money laundering, but pioneered it. But Xizhi Li, who grew up in the border town of Mexicali, was just one of a new army of Chinese money launderers who, tooled with millennia of underground banking skills, and China’s own economic policies, have becom...

Sep 24, 202452 min

The Legend of Bum Farto and the Florida Keys Cocaine

Something about Bum Farto, Key West’s fire chief, stunk. And it wasn’t just his red suits, bling and lime green company car. By the early 70s Florida’s farthest-flung outpost was a lawless drug enclave. And Bum was smack bang in its center. ((NOTE: This isn't just our best episode, it might be the podcast episode ever, in the history of podcasts.)) When the state’s governor dispatched a multi-agency task force to Key West, however, they stumbled on something far darker than an errant Farto. Out ...

Sep 17, 202447 min

Colombia's FARC Guerillas: From Revolution to the Golden Age of Cocaine w/Toby Muse

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fought a guerrilla war against Colombia’s government - as well as against right wing militias and drug cartels - for over four decades before signing a peace treaty in 2016 and then dissolving in 2017, though splinter faction known as The Dissidents still prowls the jungles. As the FARC were coming up, another violent group in Colombia hellbent on taking over territory was also growing: the country’s infamous drug cartels. In this episode, we’re joined ...

Sep 10, 20241 hr 20 min