[00:00:01.910] - Mark Shaw
My name is Mark Shaw, and I'm the Director of the Global Initiative Against transnational Organized Crime. I've always been fascinated by books written on the issue of organized crime and illicit economy.
[00:00:14.100] - Mark Galeotti
Prigozhin spoke to them as one of them. They were able to be recruited because this is a guy who've been through the prison system.
[00:00:21.740] - Mark Shaw
I myself have written several non-fiction works on organized crime. And so, of course, I'm fascinated to hear the stories and the struggles of authors who have engaged in that process.
[00:00:33.610] - Nicola Tallant
You never speak and you never tout and you never rat. It would be seen as that. You know, criminals talking to journalists.
[00:00:39.990] - Mark Shaw
And it always seemed to us that could we capture all of that by having a series which talked to interesting people.
[00:00:46.490] - Deborah Bonello
Guadalupe Fernández Valencia, who is the highest-ranking woman known to date in the Sinaloa Cartel.
[00:00:53.430] - Mark Shaw
And so this series is an attempt to explore in greater detail with lots of different people from different perspectives.
[00:00:59.920] - Louis Ferrante
We were playing cards around a table and somebody came in with the news that somebody was killed. Somebody said, I can't believe it. I said, You knew him that well? And he said, No, he owed me money, though. I'm not sure why I'm laughing Louis!
[00:01:13.740] - Mark Shaw
And really, You can have a conversation with people which draws out elements of that which you wouldn't always get by reading the book.
[00:01:20.900] - Miles Johnson
People who've also devoted their lives in some way to the values and ideas of different institutions. Those institutions betray them.
[00:01:28.710] - Mark Shaw
You get a better sense of how they manage the process of their information, the real lessons they learned or attempt to draw out from their writing.
[00:01:37.030] - Jake Adelstein
Reporters that had tried to write the article had been ambushed on the way home and then their knees broken. There was only a 24-hour period between when I asked the vice chairman for a comment and when the article came out so that I could run away, because I need my knees.
[00:01:50.590] - Mark Shaw
Welcome to Underworlds from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. My name is Mark Shaw.